New Christian symbol. Same pride and confusion

8/28/2014

Summary: Christians have a new symbol, based on a pagan symbol for Christians. This new Christian symbol furthers the "identity confusion" of believers that call themselves "Christian" according to the term coined by pagans. But God doesn't call his children "Christians". So, why do you?

New Christian symbol

Facebook has many groups for people that identify themselves as "Christians". One of them is "christianyouthnl". On 6 August 2014, at 5.20pm, a member of the group shared his photo of this new Christian symbol:

In his post, he explained that he had chosen to:

"use this symbol to express his solidarity with persecuted christians".

And he wished that:

"Facebook would be colored red with this symbol rather than the blood of his brothers and sisters in divers countries that are killed for their faith in Jesus Christ."

In conclusion, he stated:

"Let us also be proud to be Christian."

This was the first time I saw the symbol, which looks like a happier version of this one eyed smiley:

New Christian symbol

This raises three questions:

How does a cyclops smiley relate to a persecuted Christian?
How does a cyclops smiley connect you to persecuted Christians?
What is the point of this alleged association?

Question #1

On 8 August 2014, the relation between the new Christian symbol and the persecution of Christians was explained. The symbol represents the Arabic letter "nūn", which is the "n" of "nasrani", which is said to be a muslim name for Christians, and looks like this in glyph form:

Cyclops smiley

Apparently, this Arabic letter is used to identify Christians for persecution today, like the Nazi's used a David's star to identify Jews for persecution in the past.

Arabic letter "nūn" in glyph form.

Even though the new Christian symbol is supposed to be a derivative of the Arabic letter "nūn", the symbol bears much more resemblance with the smiley. This however is mostly a matter of taste.

Question #2

"How does your online identification with a smiley from your home connect you to a person who gets offline persecution in his home?"

Answer: "It doesn't".

At least, I'm not aware of an actual connection between the average online user of the symbol and the offline persecutees. Moreover, the persecutees don't need a new symbol, because they already got one from their persecutors.

Same Christian pride

Question #3

"What is the point of the alleged association?"

The post provided an answer, by this remark: "Let us also be proud to be Christian."

It follows that the new Christian symbol is motivated by pride. And by contrast, it follows from the word of God that: "these things doth the LORD hate: yea,are an abomination unto him: A proud look"

But from a proud Christian perspective, the association with a pagan persecution tool could yield these benefits:

from the safety of his home, the non-persecuted Christian can make himself a formal target of the persecution suffered by others, without the risk of actually becoming a target and having to suffer accordingly; and
by doing so, he may gain status by association in the eyes of his peers.

Same Christian confusion

The new Christian symbol shows a desire of Christians to:

embrace a pagan tag given to them by pagans, and moreover
take this tag to a new level, from a letter to a smiley.

This desire is not new.

The term "Christian" was also coined by (pagan) unbelievers to designate a believer. But at some point, believers have taken over the pagan name tag. The cyclops smiley furthers this "identity confusion".

God does not call his children "Christians". Neither does he use a smiley.

The lost identity

The new Christian symbol and its popularity stems from pride, as evidenced by the conclusion: "Let us also be proud to be Christian."

This Christian pride and the related desire to embrace pagan name tags, shows a Christian preoccupation with the opinion of other people about them. And to have this preoccuption, a person must either:

not be a true believer;
be unaware of his true identity, or
lightly esteem it.

And "as he thinketh in his heart, so is he":

If a person is a true believer, being justified freely by God through his faith in Jesus and his blood as the full payment for all his sins, then God calls this person his son.
The person that understands that he is a son of God doesn't call himself a "Christian". Neither will he identify with a cyclops smiley.

Conclusion

God does not use a smiley to identify his children. Neither does God call you a "Christian." So, why do you?