Moral and moralistic Christian and Christianistic

Who is a Christian?

There are *moral* and *moralistic* responses to the question of suicide,
assisted or not. The "moralistic" response is that suicide is wrong (so
says the moralist) and therefore should be prohibited. The moral response
is that suicide is often the choice of someone whose judgment is impaired by
circumstances, and that it is moral to require a legal process to be
followed to insure that suicide is the rational choice of the person seeking
it. A waiting period, as for gun ownership in many states (to inhibit
persons from buying guns while in a hot rage), and perhaps a sanity hearing,
might resolve the moral question concerning suicide.

This distinction between "moral" and "moralistic" approaches might be
applied to the question of "Who is a Christian?" If a Christian is defined
as someone who is a follower (a "disciple") of teachings attributed to
Jesus, then a person who, without particular attention to Jesus's teachings,
follows the teachings and dogmas of churches or persons *about* Jesus, or
about various emanations and penumbras from their *idea* of Jesus, might be
called a "Christianist". Consider how few (if any) of the dogmas of the RCC
actually state or explain any actual teaching of Jesus. Name one, just one,
if you can.

Yet, many laws and policies implementing social, political, economic, or
class prejudices are justified in the name of "Christian" teachings. Thus,
as with "moralists" who cluck about affronts to their personal prejudices
while ignoring real substantive moral questions, the "Christianist" (at
least in the US) fusses about same sex marriage and abstinence only sex
education while voting for persons and policies which oppose feeding the
hungry, clothing the naked, and other social justice issues that Jesus
talked about. What would a "Christian" be more concerned about, "welfare
reform" to make it harder for poor people to eat, or feeding the hungry?

To the extent that scripture is a useful guide, it appears that Jesus did
not spend much time talking about theology, but did spend a lot of time 1)
talking about how we should behave toward each other and 2) behaving that
way. As far as I can tell, he didn't talk about a single dogma of the RCC,
and not a single dogma of the RCC explains a single teaching of Jesus. And
the other Christian (Christianist?) flavors are not noticeably different.

Jim Burt to GoddeWords