What is a Christian?

December 15, 2006

This is the time of year, along with Lent/Easter, that various aspects of Christianity get a lot of media coverage. You’ll see cover stories of the major news periodicals–US News ( “The Real Jesus ” ), Time, Newsweek ( “How Jewish Family Values Shaped Christianity” –devoted to Mary, or the Nativity, or something related to our Christian holiday celebrating the incarnation of God. And you see pieces on FoxNews, MSNBC, and CNN, for instance, that want to examine religion in the public sphere or essentials of Christianity. Sometimes you see general critiques of Christianity from big names associated with it, such as this one by Jay Bakker (yes, the son of that Bakker) and Marc Brown entited “What the Hell Happened to Christianity.” That you’re seeing it so overtly shows how its part of a media flood that happens twice a year. You’ll see it again around Easter. Its a fascinating aspect of American culture, and some of it is good, some of it isn’t.

That’s preamble to this piece that I heard about through connections at my seminary alma mater, the University of Chicago Divinity School. One of my erstwhile professors, Dr. Dwight Hopkins (who taught my Constructive Theology course), was on Anderson Cooper with Jim Wallis (of Sojourners fame) and Richard Land (a prominent Southern Baptist) talking about all sorts of things related to contemporary Christianity. Cooper is examining the rather broad question “What is a Christian?”. This is the excerpt pertaining to the interview with these three:

If you ask me, this is much better discourse than the “is Christmas under attack” trope. It doesn’t go very deep into any particular issue, and its more of a hodge-podge of things, but still its interesting. Anyway, I thought you might appreciate this conversation. It’s worth the 9-10 minutes. And I’m quite glad to have had the opportunity to study under Hopkins, and I am a fan in general of Wallis’ project. Enjoy.

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