Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Jesus fans and Jesus followers

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Matt Stone

2008-05-08

“Jesus seems to have a lot of fans these days. But being a fan, and being a Jesus shaped follower of Christ are two entirely different realities.” From the Internet Monk

Tags Discipleship

2 responses to “Jesus fans and Jesus followers”

Mike Webb

2008-05-09

I couldn’t agree more. In fact I recently wrote some of my own thoughts on the subject in a recent blog. I think the major distinction is discipleship…devotion…transformation.

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Matt Stone

2008-05-09

Discipleship, definitely. Devotion, depends what one means by that. I think a lot hangs on how one understands the incarnation, the teaching that Jesus is both 100% divine and 100% human.
If the tension is lost, we slip towards affirming the uniqueness of Jesus over his normativeness for ethics, lifestyle, etc, the result is often disengaged, sentimental, spectator-like devotion. If the tension is lost the other way, if in the process of affirming how much a good example he is we loose a grip on how much good news he is, can we be said to be truly devoted to him as God? Devotion that leads to life transformation is that which sits with the tension of his humanity and divinity.

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