{"id":550,"date":"2006-03-31T18:10:07","date_gmt":"2006-03-31T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2006\/03\/what-is-a-chris-2.html"},"modified":"2006-03-31T18:10:07","modified_gmt":"2006-03-31T18:10:07","slug":"what-is-a-chris-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/03\/what-is-a-chris-2.html","title":{"rendered":"What is a Christian? (p3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Frederick20douglass20old\"<\/a> Born in 1818 as a slave in Maryland, Frederick Douglas struggled deeply with the true definition of a Christian.  He wrote the following in, "A Narrative Life of a Slave."<\/p>\n

\n

"Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ<\/u><\/strong>, I recognized the widest possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.  To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.  I love the pure, peacable, and impartial Christianity of Christ:  I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.  Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.  I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of frauds, and the grossest of all libels."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Our context is different but should we be making the same distinctions as Douglas?  Is there a difference between the Christianity of Christ and the Christianity of our land?  If so, what are the distinctions?  Frederick Douglas felt that to be and American and a Christian was impossible…has anything changed?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born in 1818 as a slave in Maryland, Frederick Douglas struggled deeply with the true definition of a Christian.  He wrote the following in, "A Narrative Life of a Slave." "Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognized the widest possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is a Christian? (p3) - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/03\/what-is-a-chris-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is a Christian? (p3) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Born in 1818 as a slave in Maryland, Frederick Douglas struggled deeply with the true definition of a Christian.  He wrote the following in, "A Narrative Life of a Slave." "Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognized the widest possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/03\/what-is-a-chris-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-03-31T18:10:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/frederick20douglass20old.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is a Christian? (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/03\/what-is-a-chris-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is a Christian? (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Born in 1818 as a slave in Maryland, Frederick Douglas struggled deeply with the true definition of a Christian.  He wrote the following in, "A Narrative Life of a Slave." 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}