Elections spark Christianity discussion
Many people assume Orthodox Christian priests are not Christians simply because of the way they dress, according to a California priest of the same faith.
Orthodox priest Jonathan Finley said, in a presentation hosted by USU’s Religious Studies Club, not being viewed as Christian is frustrating to him, because he believes Orthodox Christianity is a true way of life established by Jesus Christ as a holy figure.
“They would see the way I’m dressed, and they would assume before we even began a conversation that whatever church I represent is not centered on Jesus Christ,” Finley said, regarding assumptions made of the traditional cassock robe and crucifix he wore during the presentation. “They would assume that it’s centered on ritualism, perhaps salvation by good deeds and such.
“I get asked all the time, ‘Is your church a Christ-centered church?’ I’m supposed to not be offended by that question. I’m supposed to just kind of take that punch in stride.”
He said Orthodox Christianity isn’t a popular religion. Finley, who works for the department of missions and evangelicalism, said his faith does in fact focus on Christ as a teacher and adopts the view that Christ is also a savior of souls.
Finley said the faith can be traced back to the time of ancient apostles and Christ, and the Bible came from an Orthodox Christian.
In searching for what is true, Finley said, one must ask, “What I believe in Christ, has it been believed all over the world?”
He said he believes what his church teaches about Christ has been believed worldwide, and the Christ portrayed in the Bible is who his religion worships. Therefore, he said, his church is a true Christian church.
The presence of Christianity in current presidential debates and the controversy over what Christianity is and what it is to be a good Christian make it increasingly difficult for many people to agree, said USU alumnus Joe Willes, a member of the LDS faith.
Willes, who considers himself a Christian, said he attributes a lot of this confusion to what he considers an increasing gap between science and religion.
“There is a growing misunderstanding that to believe in God is to believe in fairytales or that it is for the weak mind,” he said. “I blame this on viewpoints of philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, who ascribed that someone who is moral is a slave to a lower way of living and they are deceiving themselves.”
Willes said he sometimes gets carried away with judging what’s good and bad according to Christianity, but he tries to focus on Christ as a savior figure. That, he said, is what Christianity entails.
“I would say a Christian is any person who believes that Jesus is the messiah, that the Old Testament and Torah speaks about,” said USU student Jeremiah Johnson, an agnostic — characterized by disbelief in organized religion. “So Christianity is the whole of the Christians. Like a pie chart chopped up into a bunch of pieces but still sharing at least that one belief.”
Johnson said, however, fighting within different Christian sects is something that makes the term “Christianity” hard to define.
“I think Christianity, in and of itself,” he said, “is great and all, but the sect rivalry and bashing that goes on between the different sects makes it difficult to really classify Christianity as a single religious body — similar to how in psychology and psychiatry there are so many different types of borderline personality disorders that two people can be diagnosed with.”
In October, Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress endorsed Rick Perry as a Christian alternative for the 2012 presidency, while criticizing Mitt Romney for his beliefs, which Jeffress said he does not consider to be Christian beliefs.
Many students agree Christianity — all kinds of religious affiliation or bias — must be kept out of politics.
“I think that Christianity, like many other belief systems, definitely has its benefits,” said Tyson Van Alfen, a member of Secular Humanists, Atheists and Free Thinkers (SHAFT). “But also, like everything else, Christianity can be dangerous when taken to the extreme, especially when we talk about getting politics involved. As a general rule, I think it a very bad idea to get dogmatic beliefs tied up with law. It is ugly, messy and irresponsible.”
Brett Merkley, another member of SHAFT, agreed.
“Personally speaking, I find it disappointing that many Christians, especially in the political area, like to presume they have a monopoly on morality,” he said. “It’s as if they hold the belief in their god to be the only legitimate argument for being a good person. Separation of church and state was created to protect religions from government as well as protecting religions from one another.”
Van Alfen said logic plays a part in determining religious frameworks as well as secular laws.
“But when it comes to the more controversial issues,” Van Alfen said, “like gay marriage and abortion and things like that, it is in my opinion a much better approach to decide the issues on the basis of reason and logic and ethics and philosophy, instead of just going with your gut or going with what your church tells you to believe.”
“It is action that determines whether a person is good, rather than actions made good simply by the Christian label,” Merkley said. “If people are willing to treat each other with the respect and dignity due to human beings, it’s a matter of live and let live. There’s no point of judging people by their beliefs when there will always be different beliefs.”
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