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Having a "Personal Relationship With Christ"

Cain

Straussian
Cain
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I would like to learn the origins of this bit of theology. Many Evangelicals today claim it is the only way to gain salvation. However, I am also told that it's a recent phenomenon, starting 400-500 years ago. I've read elsewhere that it's even more recent (within the last 100 years). My tentative hypothesis at the moment is that it started several hundred years ago and came into prominence in the last century (especially in the US).
 
It is my impression that the idea is an outgrowth of Calvinism, which came about in the mid-16th century, making it about 450 years old, give or take. There may have been some sects that had similar ideas previously, but the Calvinists really popularized the idea.
 
It started when one of Evangelical met Jesus. The two of them got drunk and slept with each other.

But seriously, it sounds like they're just stating their strongly held personal opinions.
 
Cain said:
I would like to learn the origins of this bit of theology. Many Evangelicals today claim it is the only way to gain salvation. However, I am also told that it's a recent phenomenon, starting 400-500 years ago. I've read elsewhere that it's even more recent (within the last 100 years). My tentative hypothesis at the moment is that it started several hundred years ago and came into prominence in the last century (especially in the US).
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It's just a means of keeping the flock in the fold and maintaining the authority of the church. It has little or nothing to do with the message of Christ, I believe, which is Universal. Of course if you put it that way, maybe it is correct? ... except not for the same reason. ;)
 
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I read the Wiki article on Calvinism (Synod of Dort, indeed!), but I haven't had enough caffeine to tell if it deals with the question at hand. The main thing I gleaned is that Calvinists believe that God isn't just someone to ring up at prayer time, but is directly involved in, and responsible for, every last thing in their daily lives. But the article also says that some Calvinists believe redemption through Christ is available to everyone, while others say it's just for the "elect" that God has chosen in his finite mercy.

Cain, can you elaborate on what you (or the Evangelicals) mean by "personal relationship" as a condition for salvation? I've heard the phrase all my life but never asked a believer if it meant anything specific to them...just assumed that to believe a diety died and was resurrected for your sins is to take things pretty damned personally.
 
Gravy said:
I read the Wiki article on Calvinism (Synod of Dort, indeed!), but I haven't had enough caffeine to tell if it deals with the question at hand. The main thing I gleaned is that Calvinists believe that God isn't just someone to ring up at prayer time, but is directly involved in, and responsible for, every last thing in their daily lives. But the article also says that some Calvinists believe redemption through Christ is available to everyone, while others say it's just for the "elect" that God has chosen in his finite mercy.

Cain, can you elaborate on what you (or the Evangelicals) mean by "personal relationship" as a condition for salvation? I've heard the phrase all my life but never asked a believer if it meant anything specific to them...just assumed that to believe a diety died and was resurrected for your sins is to take things pretty damned personally.
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I have always taken the 'personal relationship with Christ' thing to mean that one's salvation was entirely between you and Christ, that you don't need the intermediary of a priest to go to understand the bible or to go to heaven, for example. That was a pretty radical idea in the 16th Century and was one that the Calvinists espoused.

But I suppose you are right that it really boils down to 'what do THEY mean by Personal Relationship with Christ', and if they mean something different than I think they mean, I could be entirely off base by attributing it to Calvinism.
 
As far as the Southern Baptist church I grew up in is concerned, you got it in one, Ny, though they never brought up Calvin.
 
Nyarlathotep said:
I have always taken the 'personal relationship with Christ' thing to mean that one's salvation was entirely between you and Christ, that you don't need the intermediary of a priest to go to understand the bible or to go to heaven, for example. That was a pretty radical idea in the 16th Century and was one that the Calvinists espoused.

But I suppose you are right that it really boils down to 'what do THEY mean by Personal Relationship with Christ', and if they mean something different than I think they mean, I could be entirely off base by attributing it to Calvinism.
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I suspect that you may be ascribing a uniformity of belief to "them" that doesn't exist.

Certainly the idea that one should work out one's own salvation without regard to a priest or other intermediary is an important part of the idea. Another idea that is important seems to be the idea that Christ is a person in one's life with whom one has a "personal relationship," rather than just an abstract figure making moral demands. As an analogy -- I have a personal relationship with some of my co-workers; I will go out of my way to do things for them, like bring in a plate of cookies, because of that relationship. I don't have a personal relationship with the mayor of the town I live in; although I will do what he says (he does, after all, make laws for this town), I won't bother bringing him cookies.

At the same time, there are of course a wide variety of degrees of personal relationships -- I will bring cookies to my co-workers, but I don't typically cry on their shoulders over a margarita (that's considered unprofessional).
 
Gravy,
Forgive me for butting in. What you are asking about may be the notion of fiducia as opposed to ascentia:

http://www.carm.org/questions/faithorworks.htm

I happen to know the notion because I've seen believers use it to dodge questions about reasons for belief: if the believer's relationship with Christ is rather like his relationship with his closest friends, the idea of doubt ( so the argument goes) is just inept.

Regards
 
I think a good starting point is:

Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

This verse refers to our relationship with Jesus.
 
ned flandas said:
I think a good starting point is:

Revelation 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

This verse refers to our relationship with Jesus.
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You need his cell phone number first.
 
At a guess, I'd say it's definitely an idea related to the decline of the importance of the clergy in social life--after all, if you can have a personal relationship with Christ, you don't need a priest interceeding. It's not the sort of dogma you'd expect from a culture that thinks if you die without confession or last rites from the authorized party, you go directly to hell without passing go. So my guess would be that it's probably relatively recent, as the history of Christianity goes.

Sounds like a pretty Protestant idea to me, although what exact branch spawned it, couldn't say.
 
I never understood it. Even though I had some very profound and moving thoughts about God and what he meant to me, he ignored me. He never spoke to me, never answered my prayers. I have profound beliefs and morals about say, the environmental crisis, but I do not have a personal relationship with the environment.
 
Personal relationship with Christ

Cain said:
I would like to learn the origins of this bit of theology. Many Evangelicals today claim it is the only way to gain salvation. However, I am also told that it's a recent phenomenon, starting 400-500 years ago. I've read elsewhere that it's even more recent (within the last 100 years). My tentative hypothesis at the moment is that it started several hundred years ago and came into prominence in the last century (especially in the US).
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There are numerous ways one can answer this. When it started is not so significant as the question "is it possible?" or "is it authentic theology?"

The roots of the personal bit is found in Exodus 3:14 where God gives Moses God's "name" "I AM." I AM is a derivative of the Hebrew word 'hayah' which means "to be." Therefore, in normal Judeo-Christian theology, God not only gave the name "Yaheyvey" (Yahweh), but God revealed God's Self as "BEING," "Supreme BEING," "BEING" without limitation--as opposed to other gods like wind-gods, star-gods, animal-gods, mountain-gods, fertility-gods etc.

Christ is supposed to be the Incarnation of this "BEING." Why? Long story. It has a lot to do with the Gospel testimony about him being able to do the things only God can do: spontaneously generate material substance (fish/loaves), have power over nature, evil, death, and the ability to forgive sin.

According to Christian theology, the Holy Spirit (God the Father as Spirit distinct from but not separate from the Father), proceeds from the Father (Yaheyvey) and the Son (Christ), and dwells in the hearts of the faithful as God who is more 'strongly' felt in fellowship, prayer, and worship.

Thus, if one is a believer in Christ and has grown in faith such that one can "feel" this Spirit, then one has a personal relationship with a Living God who is Christ who is the Spirit: one God forever, amen. :)
 
Religion tends to mirror the values of a society. The whole concept of personal or individual was an offspring of an individuals rights which really began pre-Jesus, but took front and center stage at our point in history which is overly obsessed with individual liberty.
 
ruach1 said:
There are numerous ways one can answer this. When it started is not so significant as the question "is it possible?" or "is it authentic theology?"
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It may not be so significant, but it's the bit that I'm interested in!

I don't give a flyin' flip if it's possible or not, and "authentic theology" seems a bit of a loaded phrase to me, but I'm genuinely curious, now that the OP brought it up, as to the timing of the historical movement towards "a personal relationship with Christ."

It strikes me that the notion of a personal relationship rather than one sanctioned by a specially trained intermediary is a pretty significant turning point in the history of Christianity--actually, not just strikes me, along with selling indulgences, I was kinda under the impression this was one of the bits Martin Luther nailed to a door somewhere--and one that's maybe led to people carrying around their own weird personal theologies without ever having to check 'em against somebody else's. Early Catholicism, at least, seems to be to be rather opposed to the notion of the lay person having a personal relationship with Christ--that way lay heresy! (Even in modern Catholicism, I recall my grandmother calling on saints and Mary on a regular basis, but God not so often. One always got the impression that God was rather busy and should not be bothered except in dire emergence, whereas saints remembered what it was like to fight with your kids and could be safely invoked as a kindred spirit.)

It also seems to me that if one has a personal relationship with one's god, unfiltered by the braking effect of other people, one's a bit more likely to go completely off the rails. Not that priests are any more immune to crazy than anybody else, heaven knows, but if you have to stop and talk to another person about what you believe, you're probably more likely to think it over than if you're just stewing with the god inside your head.

So knowing when this bit became popularized would be interesting to know!
 
UrsulaV said:
It may not be so significant, but it's the bit that I'm interested in!

I don't give a flyin' flip if it's possible or not, and "authentic theology" seems a bit of a loaded phrase to me, but I'm genuinely curious, now that the OP brought it up, as to the timing of the historical movement towards "a personal relationship with Christ."

It strikes me that the notion of a personal relationship rather than one sanctioned by a specially trained intermediary is a pretty significant turning point in the history of Christianity--actually, not just strikes me, along with selling indulgences, I was kinda under the impression this was one of the bits Martin Luther nailed to a door somewhere--and one that's maybe led to people carrying around their own weird personal theologies without ever having to check 'em against somebody else's. Early Catholicism, at least, seems to be to be rather opposed to the notion of the lay person having a personal relationship with Christ--that way lay heresy! (Even in modern Catholicism, I recall my grandmother calling on saints and Mary on a regular basis, but God not so often. One always got the impression that God was rather busy and should not be bothered except in dire emergence, whereas saints remembered what it was like to fight with your kids and could be safely invoked as a kindred spirit.)

It also seems to me that if one has a personal relationship with one's god, unfiltered by the braking effect of other people, one's a bit more likely to go completely off the rails. Not that priests are any more immune to crazy than anybody else, heaven knows, but if you have to stop and talk to another person about what you believe, you're probably more likely to think it over than if you're just stewing with the god inside your head.

So knowing when this bit became popularized would be interesting to know!
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Ursula you're an interesting person.

Your post raises a lot of interesting points. I really like those I put in bold. The "when" seems to be what you're looking for, so I'll give you an answer that I think is accurate.

The notion of a personal relationship with Christ began, as you have expressed, during the Renaissance. Before the Renaissance, Westerners, like everyone else on planet earth, identified with the group. YOU were whatever group to which you belonged, and though there were some outstanding individuals of the Classical period who advocated liberty and individual freedoms, "individualism" as we know it really didn't take hold culturally till the Italian Renaissance. With the advent of "individualism" as we know it, we get the beginnings of individual choice and expression in religion. Thus Luther steps out as an individual in the sixteenth century, and eventually the West begins to have the gathering notion of a personal instead of a communal/hierarchical relationship with Christ.

"Unfiltered by the braking effect of other people" Gold, true gold. :)
 
ruach1 said:
The roots of the personal bit is found in Exodus 3:14 where God gives Moses God's "name" "I AM." I AM is a derivative of the Hebrew word 'hayah' which means "to be."
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[pet peeve]Actually, it's "I will be," not "I am."

The name YHWH uses the root HYH to ihndicate YHWH as the source of all reality.[/pet peeve]
 
surely the "Personal Relationship With Christ" started when the disciples and others actually had a "Personal Relationship With Christ".

Also:
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’


So by saying "i never knew you" indicates to me that it is possible to know him. And by knowing someone, you are in a relationship with that person.
 
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