Are you a Christian? Oh yeah? What kind? Find out now
Paul Gauguin, The Yellow Christ, 1889. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Lately I’ve been wondering about what exactly it means to be a Christian, because some folks seem to think that I’m not much of one. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it is good for making me think. I like thinking (sometimes). So to put my worries to rest I took this quiz at beliefnet. Turns out I am
a Brian McLaren Christian; a.k.a. a Rob Bell, Phyllis Tickle, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, Eugene Peterson Christian. You subscribe to Sojourners or Relevant…or, more likely, Rolling Stone, Paste and The Atlantic. (And maybe even Geez!) Your Christian history is rooted in St. Francis, who leads (through Gandhi) to Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. You emphasize social justice as an element of God’s kingdom. You might be “emergent” or “progressive,” but you’re probably post-evangelical.
So I’m not a Richard Dawkins atheist or an Anton LeVay Satanist or a Gary Zukav quantum mystic. OK then. Good to know. I can sleep peacefully now.
What about you? Let’s hear from all you Alert Readers out there!
There are 10 Comments to "Are you a Christian? Oh yeah? What kind? Find out now"
Same as you.
Strange quiz. A lot of inconsequential questions (especially that one about America) that really don’t say much about what kind of Christian one is. To answer the question about what God will be concerned about when we face him post-mortem: Not most of those questions.
A.k.a. a Rob Bell, Phyllis Tickle, N.T. Wright, Tim Keller, Eugene Peterson Christian. You subscribe to Sojourners or Relevant…or, more likely, Rolling Stone, Paste and The Atlantic. (And maybe even Geez!) Your Christian history is rooted in St. Francis, who leads (through Gandhi) to Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. You emphasize social justice as an element of God’s kingdom. You might be “emergent” or “progressive,” but you’re probably post-evangelical.
Apparently I’m a John Shelby Spong Christian. Which would make me a bit more Christian than I actually thought I was, but only a bit. And I”m assuming that this is because the quiz is about What Kind of Christian Are You? and therefore it assumes that you must be SOME kind of Christian. I’ve read some of Spong’s stuff and I do find I agree with him a lot. So I guess this seems about right.
Although the accurate term for the kind of Christian I am is “former”, I looked at the quiz. Pulled up short on question 3, “The historical portions of the Old Testament are…”. The third and fourth responses:
# A mixture of history and myth. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the church has deemed them authoritative and useful for moral and spiritual instruction.
# Largely mythological, and only accepted by people who are blinded by faith.
The initial clauses are more or less equivalent, and I suppose at one time I would have accepted the rest of response 3. But even now response 4 seems to overstate the case. There is a fair amount of history in the OT, albeit history written by people with a very different concept of historical writing than we do. Tying this to “the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” just seems odd.
I finished the quiz anyway. They say my answers align me with Shelby Spong, a result my wife will probably understand and might even approve of.
Shelby Spong, my former bishop! I still remember the steam coming out of my parish priest’s ears when his name was recited on Sunday mornings.
Of course I’m in there with Spong, Borg and Armstrong. And my beloved husband. Though he’s a touch crankier on the subject than I am.
Paul, I am the same as you too! Shocking! What do you think that *means*?
Ooooo.
Spooky.
We must be related somehow.
Dang Paul,,
Here I have been voting to spend more time with McLaren, but ended up scoring with Spong! Seems to raise the doxy vs praxis question!
That’s funny, Mickey. Granted, the choices are pretty limited: McLaren, Spong, Billy Graham, Joel Osteen. Thanks for chiming in.
McLaren. And I subscribe to Rolling Stone and Sojourners, so they’ve got me there.