From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Given Muslims' abuse of the term "Christian", and general confusion about the meaning of the word, is it time for true believers in Christ to stop using that designation?

A reader who is a university student writes: "Is it not time to abandon the designation 'Christian'? At university I often speak to Muslims and find that they have a completely perverse idea about Christianity, mainly because most if not all Old Testament academics deny that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. Ditto for the mainstream churches in [my country]. Since I do not wish to be classified with them, I describe myself as a Biblical Theist."¹

The Muslims' Broad Brush

This is indeed a problem. Muslims place any European or American who does not openly embrace some non-Christian religion, in the broad-brush classification of "Christian". Muslims blame "Christians" for the Crusades of the Middle Ages. They likewise blame "Christian" America for most of the world's evils. But the fact is that neither of these have anything to do with authentic Biblical Christianity.

The purpose of the Crusades was the conquest of Palestine and recovery of the "holy sepulcher" through the defeat of Islam by force of war, and the establishment of a kingdom sponsored by the Roman Catholic pope, with Jerusalem as its capital. Although there were other political causes, the immediate cause of the Crusades was the Muslims' mistreatment of Roman Catholics who went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and other Biblical sites to supposedly gain favor with God and reduce their time in purgatory. Those who went on the Crusades, for the most part, did so for the same two un-Biblical reasons.

All that the Crusades did was to amply demonstrate Jesus' statement to Pontius Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here" (John 18:36). Man could not establish the kingdom of God by such means, nor could he find favor with God by such methods. But in the providence of God the Crusades did help pave the way for the Protestant Reformation by helping to check the expansion of Islam into Europe, and by further institutionalizing Romanism's ecclesiastical and theological abuses, against which the Reformers would speak out.

Some Evangelicals have gone so far astray from the truth as to say that true believers in Christ need to apologize to Muslims for the Crusades. That would be reprehensible. The Crusades stemmed not from authentic Biblical Christianity but from another Jesus, another gospel, and another spirit that are contrary to God's Word (2 Corinthians 11:4). It is the false church of Rome that owes the apology, if any is to be given.

Muslims Aren't the Only Abusers of the Name

This also points out the fact that Muslims are not the only ones who abuse the name "Christian" by applying it to people who have no right to it. Many people who are not true Christians apply the name to themselves â?? Roman Catholics, mainline church-goers, and even members of cults such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism. Unbelieving Jews identify "Christians" using the same indiscriminate broad brush as Muslims.

This, of course, leads us to the key issue: Only those who are truly born again by grace alone, through faith alone in the person and work Christ alone, by the regenerating work of God the Holy Spirit, are entitled to the name "Christian".

The Use of "Christian" in Scripture

The name "Christian" is only used three times in the New Testament. It began, perhaps, as a term of ridicule ("And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch" â?? Acts 11:26). The name subsequently became a term of religious identity ("Then Agrippa said to Paul, 'You almost persuade me to become a Christian' " â?? Acts 26:28). By the end of Peter's life, the identity "Christian" was an accusation equivalent to that of "thief" or "murderer". Peter writes, "Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian [here he speaks from the point of view of the Roman accuser], let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter" â?? 1 Peter 4:16).

However, in the overwhelming number of cases â?? over 800 times â?? we find the New Testament writers using other terms to identify those who are genuinely born from above. These include "the saints", "believers", "brethren", "disciples", "the church (literally, "the called-out ones"), "those of the Way", and others. It is almost as though the Biblical writers avoided the term Christian as such. Their avoidance of the term was probably because the origin of the term was actually a debasement of the title Christos (the Anointed One or Messiah) which belong to Jesus alone. Historians tell us that it was not until the second century that the true saints of God began to accept the name "Christian" as a badge of honorable identity with Christ.

True Believers Must Reclaim Hijacked Terminology

All of the terms for believers that are used in Scripture have been hijacked by various groups of unbelievers for their own purposes â?? just as doctrinal terms such as "justification", "sanctification", and "adoption" have been. The answer is not for believers to avoid Biblical terms, but to reclaim them from those who have stolen them. We must take every opportunity (as our questioner is apparently doing), to make sure they are properly â?? that is, Biblically â?? defined.

We must communicate to Muslims, Jews, and nominal "Christians" that God's usage of the terms "Christian", "believer", "saint", etc. in the pages of Scripture denotes something very specific â?? something very exclusive, not inclusive. We must proclaim to Muslims and to the unbelieving world at large that the people who misappropriate those titles have no right to them in the eyes of God. We must point them to faith in the Christ of the Bible as the only way to obtain, by grace, "the right to become the children of God" (John 1:12).

References:

1. Our policy is to only publish questions that are sent to us when the questioner gives us permission, and never to reveal a questioner's identity without permission.

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