9mo ago

What's the term for someone that likes Jesus of Nazareth, but doesn't identify with church, religious dogma, or whatever?

They think, "Jesus was cool. I like him, and I'm gonna try to be like him." Kind of like their guiding light is what would Jesus do? But there isn't a focus on identification, recruiting others, judging others based on their religion, fear of God, fear of punishment for sinning, respect for clergy as an authority, rituals, worship, etc. Basically, just the example of Jesus' life.

inb4: Christian lol!! got em!

95 comments

Like uh... normal? Jesus, as described, seems like a pretty chill dude. It's christianity that gets into the crazy shit.
- I take it you haven't read the book of John?
  
  Yeah. There's some good stuff there, like 8:32, but it's full of so much crap that... urgh.
  "And you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
  Give the whole chapter 5 a check, specially 5:14; crippling people is apparently their god's punishment for sinning. Or 3:36, someone gets really pissy if you don't believe him!
  
  John is way sus.
  
  Nah, I was brought to church as a kid but I haven't really read the Bible closely. Honestly, I'm just going off a general read of "dude who helps people in need and isn't an ass".
  
  Not since catechism. What weird shit happens? Cuz I don't remember. I mean, besides the supernatural BS during the crucifixion and resurrection.
- Well, he explicitly condoned slavery, so...
There is a lot of good messaging in the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, etc. You don't need to be religious to appreciate that. Just like how somebody who appreciates in the mission and words of The Amazing Randi does not need a special label.
The labels start to come into play when discussing your belief or disbelief in a god or gods.
- Randi, no?
  
  I'm assuming we're talking about the late, great, Randy Savage. So, their spelling is correct. Oooh yeah!
  
  Yes. Thanks for catching that.
- Yep! I was trying to find a short way of describing my situation in this area when asked about it.
  
  While not a term maybe a short blurb like "While I am not religious, I admire many of the lessons of Jesus as portrayed in the Bible, and I try to model parts of my life after his example."
  If applicable you can also add "Along with others I consider to be positive examples for leading a good and virtuous life."
- I'm a freaking Nostradamus 🧙‍♂️🔮✨
My Grandmother always called this sort of thing being a "red letter Christian". Basically like you take a highlighter to everything Jesus specifically did or said and discard the rest.
My Mom's family all followed this principle since like the 70's thus saving my trans ass from any hint of intergenerationally inflicted religious trauma so I am a fan. My 92 year old great uncle went to bat to fight for non-binary gender accommodations in his seniors home because one of his nurses is an enby who was getting a raw deal from a number of their paitents. Honestly, though I don't think the Christian God is what he says he is, his kid seems weird but as a rules for life kinda thing the results seem good. .
- For context, in some versions of the Bible, the words of Jesus were printed in red font while the rest was black.
  
  Interesting, I thought GamGam was just calling them whores
Sounds like you're describing that you view how he is depicted as a good role model. I think the best way to describe it would just be "I'm atheist/agnostic/etc but view Jesus as a good role model" or something to that effect.
Or just lean into chaos and go with "Jesus is my role model" with no elaboration and let people make of it what they will.
- Yes! I like this one. Thank you.
Jeezie. Like Swiftie, but for fan fiction on the Hebrew Bible.
- I'm really going to use this. And when there is a dilemma that's easily solved by WWJD, it's gonna be easy Jeezy
  
  Jeezy has a bit of a negative stigma since Kanye went full antisemite
An enthusiast?
Agnostic or spiritual.
I use the term Atheistic Christian, which essentially means I believe in a lot of the teachings of Jesus, but I don't believe he was any kind of divinity.
- Not to be confused with “secular Christian”, which in popular parlance means “I hang around church for the community but I’m not spiritual”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuism
Neither are perfect because Christian Athiests includes people who are "culturally Christian" as that can include clergy as an authority and rituals, and Jesuism would include splinter religious groups and is very easily confused with the Catholic Jesuit order. hopefully it's a starting point though!
- This is it!! Thank you very much 😁
I'd call you a fan. I'm a fan of Gandalf.
Do you need to be an -ian? Like, if you like the teachings of Ghandi, or Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius, you don't have to call yourself a Ghandian, or a Socratian, or an Aurelian. You just agree with their teachings.
I feel like you're just making a dig on Christians, and it's not like a lot of them don't deserve it, but what you're talking about isn't a religion. You don't need an -ian to like a philosophy.
- Nah, I don't need to identify. That's too restrictive. I'm looking for a shorter way to describe it when asked.
  
  If there exits one, most probably next question to you would be “What is that ?” And then you give the long explanation.
I met a group that called themselves 'Jesus Freaks', but they were just annoying trying to indocrinate people on music festivals.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYE9VMwR9w
  
  Ha, they weren't a band though, just people that walked the crowd trying to convince people of jesus.
  I was a ruthless teenager questioning their beliefs until they got pulled away from me by a higher up.
  They somehow couldn't answer why I would need jesus, when I'm already doing all the things they claim they only do because they found jesus.
  Today I'm different and don't question people's believes as long as they don't start harming others in the name of their god.
What a coincidink, I just commented this on another thread.
The Thomas Jefferson bible might be up your alley. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
- Thank you! I found a free copy on on Google Play Books, so I'm gonna give a look with my balls of eye.
  ~~Fun fact: I remember learning about this in school. Apparently, that's the Bible that people in court typically swear upon. 🧑‍⚖️~~ maybe not
  
  Really!? I find that a little hard to believe. It's basically pamphlet sized. I have one.
The Jesus fandom.
From reading your post it seems like you could be interested by the Jesus movement (that is the jewish followers of Jesus, before catholicism was codified and adopted by the Romans as state religion). Everything that wasn't authoritarian fear-based catholic was branded as "gnostic heresy" and purged from the canon, but there's some real good shit that is very close to the core message of Christ.
A recent(-ish) example of gnostic christianity is catharism, which was a heresy that lasted for a few centuries in the South of France. They had no clergy, just a caste of ascetic wise men and women who would walk the land and dispense wisdom and judgement. Very egalitarian, very spiritual, very christ-like. As you can imagine, they got crushed in one of the rare "self-crusades" in history (meaning the King of France sent his own armies to burn down cities in his own country and murder thousands upon thousands of his own subjects). As you can imagine there is not one history teacher in France who will tell you about this episode.
- I learned about it in school though
  
  where was that ? My hometown is like 20km from a city that was entirely burned down and had its population eradicated during the first Albigense crusade - i swear to God it was never mentioned to me. My parents hadn't ever heard of it either.
fan of Jesus?
A Jesuit! Oh wait...
This describes me. I think about this often. The best I’ve come up with is Buddhist. Ultimately isn’t that what Christ taught?
Maybe like nonreligious christian? I feel like the word christian doesn't inherently imply actual religion even though it's usually used that way, the same way identifying as a satanist can mean many different things. I'm neither a theologist nor a linguist though so maybe everything I said is nonsense
Atheist?
- To me, that seems to exclude the Jesus part tho.
  
  I'm agnostic. I believe there may or may not be a god (regardless of religion) and that we may or may not find proof once we die but while I'm alive I'm just gonna live the best life I can with my own values. If Jesus was alive today I believe we would be homies, dude seemed chill.
  
  What part does it exclude?
  
  Adherence to a moral standard is secular, even if the source is a mythological text that is the foundation of a religion.
  Keep in mind that the religious figure of Jesus predates Christianity.
  
  The guy was a real scientifically proven to have existed person. Being interested in him and not religion is having a interest in history therefore being atheist.
I don't think that there's a specific term for picking a religious figure solely as a behaviour standard, with no regards to the beliefs. But you could describe yourself as "morally Christian", I guess?
I thought that is kind of what Quakers are?
- You might be right. My grandmother was raised Quaker and this was very much how she brought me up in regards to religion.
So you have your faith but don't subscribe to crazy rules writen by men that have nothing to do with the faith?!
I would call you "Intelligent"
Good question, but I guess it also goes down to what you think Jesus was. Do you think he was God Incarnate or had a divine nature? Do you think he was a prophet of God, but himself simply human? Or just a cool guy, but nothing divine? In the first case, you are a Christian, even if you don't identify with any of the well known versions of Christianity. After all, many different conceptions of Christianity have existed.
In the third case, I don't think there is or should be a term for it. After all, is there a word for someone who thinks Marcus Antoninus was a cool guy? If that's not something that constitutes an important part of who you are and how you think, why should you be called anything in regards to it? Maybe depending on just how much you like him, we might call you a Jesus fan. Jesus fanboy or fangirl at worst. But there needsn't be a specific word.
Now, the middle case, where you recognize Jesus as a prophet is an interesting one, because several religions would qualify, including Manichaeism, Islam and Druzism; and as far as I know there isn't a term that englobes them all without also including Judaism... If I were to invent a term for that, I might go with "jesuic" or "yeshuaic", by analogy with the word "abrahamic" that englobes those who recognize Abraham as a prophet.
- Thanks! This gave me a lot to think about
Isn't this just the Golden Rule? I've tried to live like this everyday for 20 years, but it can be difficult in this day and age. Most people don't think like that. It's easy to hold the door for people or say thank you, but it's hard when you don't receive the same courtesy. Jokes on them, though, cause they'll burn in hell!
Such term would be useful. Christianity does not seem to follow this leftwing liberal immigrant.
Follower? Fan? Enjoyer? lol
- Disciple would fit
In terms of religion, atheist. Adherence to a moral standard is secular and does not require a supreme being.
Christ-like, I'm certain its a secular reference to exemplars of Christ-like behaviors and humanistic interests
- I like this one too! Thank you
- Usually when I hear people described as "Christ-like," it's used to demote how much power and influence that person has over others - for example, "Donald Trump is a Christ-like figure among the alt-right." Someone going around and calling themselves that would come across as strange at best.
Church of England? They are pretty vanilla and low key in my experience.

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