The Name Belongs to You

I was on YouTube and a video caught me — somebody arguing that the word Christian is some kind of evil, antichrist term. It caught me because the handful of verses where that word actually appears are the same verses I use to define my own faith. I am not a Christian by culture, and I'm not one by tradition. I am a Christian because of what the word means in the Book. So let me show you all of it — every place Scripture uses the name:

"And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." — Acts 11:26

"Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." — Acts 26:28

"Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf." — 1 Peter 4:16

Three times. That is the whole of it. And look closely: the disciples did not name themselves. They were called — the word was pinned on them from the outside, a derogatory label, a snare meant to mark them. A pagan king tossed it at Paul almost in mockery. And by the time Peter writes, the word already has teeth — if any man suffer as a Christian. Suffer. Because within a few generations that label had become a death sentence; to confess it out loud was to be handed to the executioner. The disciples did not run from it. They embraced it. The sneer became the badge of the persecuted — and then, centuries later, the same name became the official religion of the very empire that once fed Christians to the lions.

Sit with that arc, because it tells you everything about how a faith drifts.

What drew me to Christ was never the culture. It was the prophetic power of his word — the miracle of reading the present time written in prophecy from ancient times, of seeing how certain terms had been translated and what was buried underneath them, of watching the Book line up with and explain the geopolitical order of this world. That is what convinced me. Not a building. The word itself.

And here is the thing about that word: biblical Christianity is a revolutionary movement. It always was. But you know what happens to revolutions when they win — the power structure swallows them. A faith born in martyrs' blood became the imperial religion, and from there the church became the kingmaker of medieval Europe, crowning emperors and breaking kings. The root note got buried under the throne.

So let me say my frustration plainly. Most Christians today wear the faith as a cultural identity. There is little reflection on the history — on where the church stood when atrocities were committed, the times it blessed the wrong thing or said nothing at all. But hold onto this, because it matters: there has always been a remnant. In every dark chapter there were believers who spoke truth to power and fought the evil head-on. They were the minority. They were still Christian. They were the ones still tuned to the root.

Now let me speak to the people this letter is really for.

There are Bible believers out there — serious disciples, teaching the truth of the word — who have started saying they are not Christian. Not because they've left Christ, but because they want distance from the institutions that did terrible things in that name, and because they are tired of a Christianity that chases prosperity while staying silent about corruption and the powers running this world. I understand them. I agree with them — not on everything, but on most of it. And it grieves me, because here is what is happening: a person goes deeper into their walk, discovers things the church never taught them, and concludes they must leave the identity to keep the truth. That is how you manufacture division.

So let me say it to them straight: you are the Christians. It is your discipleship — your study of the word and the history — that produced every one of those criticisms in the first place. What other name is there for a person who follows Christ, holds the word of God as the final authority, and walks with the Holy Ghost? There isn't one. Christian is the only word that fits. So do not surrender it. Do not hand the name to the counterfeits and walk away from it. If anything, it is the ones who wear the name with none of the discipleship who fail the definition — and the honest move is to call them out as not Christian, instead of indicting Christianity itself. Because if we are Christians, the word of God is the final authority, and the word is what defines the name. However Scripture defines a Christian — that, and only that, is what a Christian is.

Understand why this is breaking open now. The church lost its monopoly on knowledge a long time ago. The Reformation rode in on the printing press — the moment ordinary people could read the word for themselves, everything changed. We are in that moment again, multiplied. The internet means anyone can trace where a doctrine came from and what the historical record actually says. The ministers have to keep up, because there are teachers online putting out depth you will not hear from most pulpits. People are moved by it, and they bring it to church expecting their pastor to be on the same page — and often he simply is not aware. How often do you hear Genesis 6 preached? That thread runs from the Old Testament clean into the New. Do we even know who the sons of God were? Some still teach they were only godly men from the line of Seth — but that does not hold, because everywhere else that exact phrase appears, like the divine court standing before God in the book of Job, it means heavenly beings, not men. And when a believer raises this and gets pushed out of his church for it, he feels excommunicated. He starts to wonder if he was ever really Christian at all.

But look back at the gospel. This is the oldest story we have. Christ sent his disciples to preach in the synagogues — and after he rose, as they preached, they were put out of those very synagogues, banned, and killed. "They shall put you out of the synagogues," he warned them, "yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service" (John 16:2). Being cast out by the religious establishment was never proof the disciples had left the faith. It was proof they were standing in it.

So when I see all this discord, I keep coming back to one image. Everybody is calling for unity — but what they usually mean is tune to my agenda. That is not what the Bible means by one accord. A chord has a root note, and the other notes are not identical to it — they are different, distinct, each with its own voice — and yet they harmonize with the root. We are different parts of one body, different notes on one chord. The only thing every one of us is asked to tune to is Christ and his word.

And we had better get this right, because the evil is no longer hidden. It is out in the open now — the Epstein files, the wars and the merciless way they are waged. That evil runs straight into the body of Christ and how we read the Scriptures. And there is only one note we can honestly gather around. Not a denomination. Not an institution. Not a personality. The root, who is Christ.

So if you are weary — if you went looking for the truth and it cost you your seat at the table — hear me clearly. You did not leave the faith. You went deeper into it. The name is yours. Wear it the way the disciples did, all the way to the cross.

— Olusegun Morrison