My understanding has been that in those circles people frequently use "Christian" to mean born again in the technical sense, not just in the looser sense Dobson describes (i.e., to mean "our kind of Christian").
But I bet that part of what Dobson is giving expression to is an uneasiness with Thompson's association with Hollywood and New York, rather than a specifically religious issue.
For evangelicals of a particular stripe, "Christian" is what "marketable" is to public relations executives.
"Real true Christians" is Slacktivist's term, and there seems to be a lot of attention paid to who is and who ain't in evangelical circles, which is what you'd expect given the "pay a lot of attention to the mote that is in thy brother's eye" and "judge lest ye be judged" lines in the Sermon on the Mount.
I'm fine with Dobson's statement. Why shouldn't Dobson have a definition of Christianity that amounts to more than self-identification?
I believe Kotsko also objects to use of the term "religion."
Why shouldn't Dobson have a definition of Christianity that amounts to more than self-identification?
Here we go again...
Hey, it's just like the way I use "human" to mean "people who look like me." What could possibly be questionable about that?
Either you believe as they believe or you are damned ...
Dobson is such a heretic, anyway--if anyone's faith is non-Christian, it's his.
4
Because his personal definition is different from the common meaning. You can have your own personal definition of "honest" but you shouldn't go around saying people aren't honest without making it clear you are using your personal definition of "honest", not the common meaning.
Hey, it's just like the way I use "human" to mean "people who look like me." What could possibly be questionable about that?
Nothing, as long as you have no power at all. Dobson's power over me and mine is limited, at best. But I'm not sure the two examples are analogous. At no point do I want my protection from him to rest on the fact that, yes, I am a Christian. I'm pretty much OK with distinguishing between humans an non-humans in determining appropriate treatment. (Which is to say, I'm not so impressed by BK.)
but you shouldn't go around saying people aren't honest without making it clear you are using your personal definition of "honest", not the common meaning.
But he did, in his follow-up.
"The Italians did it! The Italians did it!"
Kotsko is a Chalcedonian heretic and he doesn't dare deny it.
Memo to American Catholics: You are being sold a bill of goods and you can really stop voting for these flag-worshipping idolators at any time now. They are not on your side no matter how much they pretend to care about the unborn.
No problem with Dobson defining it however the hell he wants as long as the rest of us can still call him on his bullshit. If we can use it to fracture the coalition of theocratic goons, so much the better.
Yeah, I thought we covered this ground in the Mormon thread - not only do Evangelicals view Catholics and Mormons as heretics, but also - really - mainline Protestants.
More broadly, this gets at precisely the issue that Quiggen got at the other day - the Republican Base is not only shrinking, but it's also kicking people out. It's not enough that you profess fealty to a whole raft of daffy ideas - you need ot know the secret handshake as well.
To which I say: good. Please let the Republican Party marginalize itself out of existence (I don't want a one-party state; I've just given up on this party. It's damaged goods).
I might note that this isn't limited to rightwingers self-defining Christianity: they've been doing the exact same thing with the term "American" for quite some time, to the point where their definition is actually antithetical to what was commonly accepted just 15 years ago (e.g., see the k-f monkey post O referenced earlier today, in which John Rogers points out that a big message of "300" is that only professional soldiers can be badasses, and that citizen soldiers should stay home. Take that, Greatest Generation!).
Again, this is good. Once 75% of Americans understand that the other 25% literally believes that they shouldn't count, that should reduce the electoral prospects of the runt.
4, 10: Maybe this goes a long way in demonstrating my lack of maturity, but I remember having a long and drawn out argument with this guy, where he kept on using the word 'free' in a highly bizarre manner. Eventually, someone asked what 'free' meant to him, and he had said roughly, "You are free to follow the laws of the Bible. You are not autonomous." I think it's pretty disingenuous to use jargon disguised as commonly used words when communicating with the public.
I think that as a term describing belief , "Christian" is best defined by believers. This leads to conflict and insoluble problems, of course, but the idea that non-Christians should be able to adjudicate the definition strikes me as weird. Everyone would just have to fall back to some other restrictive definition, which would presumably become contested eventually too.
Perhaps you could subscript it 1 and 2.
I think it's pretty disingenuous to use jargon disguised as commonly used words when communicating with the public.
Well yeah, but see 12. Dude was pretty clear that he was using a non standard definition.
20 - Yeah, but there's a standard definition (which excludes Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians, and a few other self-defined Christian groups, so is not a useless goo-goo thing) which has held up pretty okay for the last 1600 years. Dobson deserves bonus points for admitting up front that he doesn't think Christians he disagrees with are really Christians, I guess.
Yeah, the Chalcedonian -Nicene theological definition. I actually use that one. Dobson seems to be narrowing the definition further by adding a "sincere and active practice" clause, combined with a "publicly affirming the faith" clause, while also claiming that there are numerous behavioral prohibitions.
Far be it from me to defend Dobson, but I did not think there was any reason a Catholic couldn't be an Evangelical Christian. I don't know enough about LDS, but they certainly evangelize to me. My understanding is that you could define evangelical Christian as someone who has actively accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, dying for one's sins, accepts the story of the resurrection, and is willing to witness to that acceptance--and the more willing they are actually willing to promote that acceptance, the more evangelical they are. I could totally grok a definition where someone who merely thinks Jesus is super awesome (as even I do, all things considered), but does not believe in either His Godhood or his status as savior isn't _really_ a Christian, and how would you know without witnessing?
Affirmation of the Nicene Creed? Religious belief that seeks to witness but not evangelize? The Amish, to pick a well-known example, are fundamentalists (the Ordnung is derived from generations of interpretation of Biblican injunctions) who don't believe in evangelizing to outside groups.
21: Actually, it looks like Focus on the Family spokesperson Gary Schneeberger clarified Dobson's use of the word 'Christian' in what may have been a separate phone call. But that's not what bothers me: by using 'Christian' the way he did, Dobson got a pretty powerful sound bite out of a fairly mundane statement. "I don't think he's a Christian" is quite a bit more powerful than "I don't think he talks openly enough about his Christian faith."
24: Virulent anti-Catholicism (among other things) is pretty common and well-attested in the Evangelical movement. (See, for example, Jack Chick.) Dobson has been notable for refusing to condemn such sentiment in the past.
27: I'm well aware of that, I'm just saying that Evangelical movement is not the sum total of what it means to be an Evangelical Christian.
yeah I mean just to be clear, given context and history and voice that seems like a pretty aggressive and belligerent comment BUT it just seemed slightly less crazy to me than other people think.
Big difference between Evangelical and evangelical. Similar to: I was baptized, but am not a Baptist.
30 is important. An Evangelical Christian is not just a Christian who evangelizes. The Evangelical movement has a distinct set of beliefs, but all Christians look the same to me, so I can't describe the difference.
I high proportion of Lutherans, maybe all, are "Evangelical", in a European sense of the word which is only historically related to the American sense.
The fact that belief labels have to be both self-defined and other-defined to be usable means that they really are essentially-contested. Someone can be accused of a belief they don't hold, and someone can also claim a belief which others deny them. And there can be no governing authority to mediate self-definition and other-definition.
I'm a practicing Catholic (church meetings, sometimes mass, helps the poor, yada yada) who enjoys being one and calls oneself a Christian when asked. I have not however accepted "Jesus as Lord and Savior, who died for one's sins, accepts the story of the resurrection, and is willing to witness to that acceptance" and promotes it actively as such. Like many here I characterrize them as Evangelical Christians. The problem I have is when someone I'm with takes note of some dick like Dobson and whips out the old "goddamned Christians" line.
"Well, I'm a Christian", I have to point out. "Am I in the same club as that dick over there speaking in tongues?"
"Well, umm, no" they reply.
"But of course you automatically thought 'Christian' when you noted his pronounced Grand-All-Consuming-Dickedness? What does that make me?"
"Well you're different. You're, um, Catholic."
"Da fuck!" I then begin to dance through oncoming traffic yelling at the almighty God to hit me in the face with a comet.
So I guess the Great Evangelical Conspiracy™ to hijack the word "Christian" to only mean Evangelical Christian has succeeded. If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard a Pentocostal or whatever label Catholics as "non-Christian" I'd be able to buy moderate quality Korean television by now. Now the gentiles are buying it. What can I do short of armed insurrection?
Fuck it. I'm becoming a Muslim.