"It is used these days in a very loose sense by a great many people. Some people mean no more by it than a person who attempts to live a good life. In that sense I suppose there would be Christians of all sects and creeds; but I do not think that is the proper sense of the word, if only because it would imply that all the people who are not Christians -- all the Buddhists, Confucians, Mohammedans, and so on -- are not trying to live a good life.
I do not mean by a Christian any person who tries to live decently according to his lights. I think you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian, it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions."
This is a quote from "Why I am Not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell written in 1927.
Wow, in 1927! Today these words ring even more true!
People in general, (Christians included) do not know what it means to be a Christian. The word does not have the same strength or meaning it used to! There is a lack of understanding of the basic orthodox doctrines of Christianity. In 2009, our culture is even more relativistic and post-modern than it was in 1927.
