What an odd tangent. The topic of the thread isn't existence. The topic is "definition of Christian". Someone must do something to be Christian, even in your own understanding of correct theology, so we're talking about behaviors which are consistent with what it means to be Christian. What good is a theology if it's not acted on?
As you've rightly pointed out: no good. That's why I've said over and over, in contradiction to your mischaracterization of my position, that the Christian ought to have both: good theology (in a multi-confessional environment such as this one, I'd define that in basic terms to mean nothing more specific than 'Nicene', out of respect for the fact that not everyone is Orthodox) and good fruit of their beliefs in action (love, kindness, longsuffering...you name it).
If they have one but not the other, they are at best not living a balanced Christian life. At worst, they place themselves outside of Christianity entirely.
But that's not the lesson behind the Samaritan story.
Though we should never ignore its lessons, the fact remains that there is much more to the faith than the story of the good Samaritan.
Why would Jesus randomly throw a priest and Levite into the story? He wouldn't. They are examples of correct theology failing in practical terms. The Samaritan turns out to be the good guy because of his behavior, not his theology.
Of course. It makes him the one who is acting rightly in comparison to the Levite. What it does
not do is
make him a Levite, and since the topic of the thread is "Definition of a Christian", not "Definition of who is acting in a better manner than someone else", eventually we must talk not just about behavior, but also about doctrine.
As I've written many times in this section of the website, if we were having a 'niceness contest', Mormons would almost definitely win. Maybe it's a matter of relative sample sizes (I've known few Mormons compared to the number and variety of Christians I have known), but I have found all of the Mormons who I have personally known to be moral, very friendly, and genuinely kind people. In many respects, I would probably be luckier to have a Mormon neighbor than a Christian or other non-Mormon neighbor. This does not make me lose sight, however, of the ultimate fact that the Mormon
religion risks the souls of those who subscribe to it precisely due to its very basic theological errors which deny the truth of God.
As you have sought several times to treat the Samaritan as the exemplar by which Christian behavior is given (and not without reason, although I would also point out that the fact that this story occurs between two groups of non-Christians speaks well to my point of why we can't take "being loving" as the measure of
specifically Christian behavior), I would like to make an example myself of the right-hand thief crucified together with Jesus.
In the thief we have a man who certainly had not behaved in anything approaching a Christian manner, and was thus being crucified for his life of evil deeds. We also have a man who had, as far as anyone knows, no theology to speak of, had not received catechism and baptism, etc. He was least fit to be a follower of Christ, at least from outward appearance and behavior, as well as theology.
Yet, on the cross, beside the Savior Himself, he called out to Jesus, saying "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." By refusing to blaspheme the Lord anymore as the left-hand thief had only moments before, by at last showing his proper fear of God and the recognition of Christ, He received the reward of the faith he had shown even in his last moments, and the Savior answered him, saying "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise." (Luke 23:39-43)
What are we to take from this? No one needs theology
or proper behavior, because look at the thief? No, of course not. The salvation of the thief was miraculously given as his confession of faith (=
theology and act together!) at that moment was heard and accepted by the Lord, not to the exclusion of what he had or had not been before it, but in his transformation then from a lowly thief to perhaps the greatest anonymous believer that has ever been. St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) teaches on this incident that the salvation of the thief was no less a miracle than the moving of the rock had been. St. Hilary (d. 367) writes of him: "for the thief says,
Remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. It was the groan he heard, I suppose, when the nails pierced the hands of our Lord, which provoked in him this blessed confession of faith: he learnt the Kingdom of Christ from His weakened and stricken body!" It was in that time, by the power of the Lord Himself as manifested upon the cross, that the thief came to give his good confession, an
act which demonstrated his embrace of the true God. Did he therefore necessarily have a highly developed theological sense? No. When would he have learned any such thing? But he knew the truth and he knew God when He saw both in our Lord Jesus Christ.
So even those who have acted subjectively much, much worse than any Mormon has probably every acted may too attain salvation -- not by behaving rightly in a social sense (as he had spent his life surely
not doing that), but by submitting to the truth
and acting upon it when it was before him. Again, it's both together.
From your point of view, the Samaritan's behavior should be dismissed on the basis that his neighbor-loving cannot act as a substitute for bad theology while the priest and the Levite would be the good guys because, despite their lack of neighbor-loving, they had the correct theology.
I'll thank you not to tell me and the rest of the website what my point of view is while completely ignoring what I say my own point of view is. This is intensely disrespectful. Knock it off.
I don't understand how you don't see this. This lesson is so basic. It's like you've intellectualized your arguments to the point that there's no more sincerity left in them.
Now I'm not just wrong, I'm also not
sincere either? Excuse me? Isn't this just a little bit beyond the pale? Who are you? I've never interacted with you before this thread, and do not know you from Adam. I am not getting personal with you. I'll thank you to please grant me the same courtesy, as this kind of posting can very easily be seen as a personal insult, which is against the guidelines of this website.
You criticize the Mormons for their, "we're the one true church and everyone else is lost" attitude, but don't you Oriental Orthdoxers have similar beliefs?
The word is "Orthodox", not "Orthodoxers" (e.g., I am Oriental Orthodox, not an Oriental Orthodoxer). And yes, we do have a very similar ecclesiology to the Eastern Orthodox (I would say the same, but it's not my place to unilaterally declare that for another communion that I am not a part of).
I talked to an Eastern Orthodoxer the other day who said anyone who does not participate in the communion ritual is disobedient and cannot be right with God (i.e. lost). I'm guessing the similarity between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox is close enough that you have the same position on that issue?
No, that should not be assumed to be the Oriental Orthodox viewpoint. Although I don't know the context in which an EO or OO person would claim that (there could be some context in which it might be perfectly true to say that, but since it was presented without context, I cannot endorse it at all), it should be pointed out that as the OO were historically and are currently often in situations in which it cannot be assumed that they will be able to attend liturgy on a regular basis (say, if a terrorist blows up our church like they do sometimes in Egypt, or if you're in a situation where the nearest church is an unreasonably long distance away from where you live, as is common in certain parts of America and elsewhere in non-OO areas), we never developed any kind of set/canonical rule or custom which says "miss X number of liturgies and you are in trouble." As far as I can recall, the EO
do have such a rule (though I don't remember the specifics; I think it's three or four in a row, but you'd have to ask them), hence it could be with reference to that rule that they could say that not attending liturgy is a problem. At my old church in New Mexico, though, there was a family who, for various reasons related to work and the distance which they had to travel to attend (from out of state), could only attend liturgy once or twice a year, often only on special occasions (e.g., when HG Bishop Youssef would visit). I only met them a handful of times during the 4 years I lived there. Whenever they showed up, they worshiped with us and were communed with us just as they would have been if they had been able to attend regularly. It's not a problem for us.
It's sad to see groups fighting with one another over such petty disagreements
They are not petty disagreements. Theology matters.
like the apostles arguing over who should be the greatest.
This is not what anyone in this thread is arguing over.
Anytime any person starts with the argument, "you can't be saved if you don't perform our rituals or attend our church" they've lost the argument already.
No one in this thread has made that argument, as far as I've seen.
That's why I'm neither offended by such arguments nor even bother trying to convince people to abandon that narrow minded point of view. It's more productive to overlook those arguments and instead focus on encouraging real fellowship in practical areas where Jesus did clearly teach, like neighbor loving.
It may be more productive (whatever that means in this context), but it's no less unbalanced than focusing too much on the letter of the law. Remember: "These you should have done without leaving the others undone" is not the same as "Only do the more productive of the two", or "Completely ignore the one you'd prefer not to focus on."
