DNA

I work with DNA. (Okay, my software works with DNA, but ...) DNA does not resemble the thing that it makes. It is, in form, simply a double helix of billions of bits of data that are used to define and shape whatever the thing is that it makes. Science tells me that the the DNA of a human and the DNA of a monkey are perhaps 95% alike. (Please, set aside the possible misleading conclusions to which you might jump from that data point.) Yet we know that monkeys are not humans. So, what makes a human as opposed to a monkey? At what point is it human ... or not?

Of course, my question isn't at all about DNA and humans versus monkeys. My question is about Christianity. While there are lots of things out there that call themselves "Christianity" and while they often resemble in many ways what people perceive to be "Christianity", there is that fundamental "5% difference" (or more) that makes them, in fact, not Christianity despite the similarities and even the claims to the contrary. So what makes Christianity as opposed to something similar but not?

I've been reading the positions of a pastor of the PCUSA, the liberal outcropping of the Presbyterian church. He claims (quite obviously) to be Christian. Is he? Where Christianity has always held that homosexual behavior is a sin, he claims it's perfectly acceptable. I do not point to that as "proof", but a starting point of divergence. Where Christianity has always held to Creation, he has jettisoned that as myth and actually has an Evolution Sunday. Indeed, he has tossed off all those Old Testament stories as not factual accounts, but myth, legend, epic texts, a loose account with some touches of fact and a large dose of prehistoric mysticism and superstition. The Bible holds that "all have sinned"; he believes that people are basically good and that, indeed, there are lots of people (essentially all children) who have not sinned. While the Scriptures plainly hold that sinful humans justly deserve God's condemnation, he argues that God is a kind God and condemns no one. While Jesus spoke clearly and often of Hell, he is quite sure there is no such thing. The New Testament holds the blood of Christ as the fundamental premise upon which we are justified, but he says that this is an archaic and barbaric belief and that Jesus died to show us a better way, not "for your sins" like some heathen-god-sacrifice thing. Paul says, "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Cor 15:14), but he assures his congregation that no resurrection took place. That's mere rhetoric, myth, a nice idea but not real.

At some point in all of that (and so much more), most of my readers would have concluded, "No, that's not 'Christianity'. That's something else." Where? When did it cease to be Christianity? I say "most of my readers" because a few would argue that it is Christianity simply because he professes "faith in Christ" although neither the faith nor the Christ in which it is placed resembles any of the biblical image. If this is the case, is there any point at which it becomes "not Christianity"? Or, back to the DNA analogy, are monkeys human simply because they share some DNA?