The Adherence Spectrum

Introduction

A person may be an adopter of a particular belief system, yet not subscribe to all of its doctrines. To what extent a person subscribes to an established belief system, or in other words adheres to it, can be quantified using a gauge called the adherence spectrum. The adherence spectrum measures a person's extent of adherence to a belief system by evaluating to what degree they subscribe to the belief system's most important doctrines.

As previously mentioned, in addition to Foundational Doctrines and Secondary Doctrines, a belief system may also have Miscellaneous Doctrines. Miscellaneous Doctrines are defined as the doctrines that are established by the belief system's authority that are outside of the belief system's Foundational and Secondary doctrines. The adherence spectrum does not incorporate Miscellaneous Doctrines into its gauging, but instead incorporates only the Foundational Doctrines and Secondary Doctrines. This is because the Foundational and Secondary doctrines are the most important doctrines of a belief system, central to maintaining the belief system's unification and consistency, and furthermore, any occurring Miscellaneous Doctrines will often base their existence upon them.

Subscription

For the adherence spectrum's evaluation procedure, a doctrine is counted as being subscribed to if, and only if, it is subscribed to by a person, and in addition, they do not subscribe to one or more other doctrines (i.e. typically non-belief system doctrines) that in effect negate the doctrine. If a person subscribes to any non-belief system doctrines that don't negate any adherence spectrum included doctrines, those non-belief system doctrines do not have an effect on determining the person's adherence spectrum classification. To "not subscribe" to a doctrine means that a person knows what a doctrine states, and makes a conscious decision/determination to not accept it, give credence to it, or to not strive to conduct themselves according to it. A person who professes to subscribe to a doctrine, but consciously and habitually acts in a manner that is in opposition to what is stated in the doctrine, is evaluated as not subscribing to the doctrine.

The Adherence Spectrum for Christianity

Incorporating the previously presented Christian doctrine classifications, below is the Adherence Spectrum for the Christian belief system. Printed above its line is the name of the two man groupings of that occur along it, "The Christian Left" and "The Christian Right", and below the line are the names of all of the adherence spectrum's, categories; which consist of sub-groupings of the main groups plus the additional classification of "Nominal Christians".

Categories

Far-Right Conservative Christians (a.k.a. Far-Right Christians or Fundamentalist Christians) - People who subscribes to all of the Essential Doctrines and all of the Essential Doctrines and at least three-quarters of the Secondary Doctrines. Consequently, they believe that basic human rights, and moral values are objectively determined by God (eg. John 5:30, 1 Cor. 3:18-20) and are universal, and thus they don't believe in moral relativism (See: moral relativism in Terms and Definitions). They consider that moral values are different and separate from the standards and norms that may be established by/in a society (though such standards and norms may reflect God established moral values). Typically, to a very large degree they base their action, opinions and decisions about events and issues in the world that are related to the Christian belief system, upon Christian doctrines. Typically, to a very large degree even if they do not at a given time completely understand the reason behind some of the doctrines that they subscribe to, they will always or almost always defer to the doctrines over their own, or other people's, feelings or reasoning.

Middle-Right Conservative Christians (a.k.a. Middle-Right Christians, or Mid-Right Christians) - People who subscribe to all of the Essential Doctrines, and at least half but less than three quarters of the Secondary Doctrines. They typically have the same traits and tendencies in regards to their views, actions, decision making, and deferral to doctrines as do Far-Right Conservative Christians, but have them to a little but significantly lesser extent.

Middle-Left Liberal Christians (a.k.a. Middle-Left Christians or Mid-Left Christians) - People who subscribe to all of the Essential Doctrines, and at least a quarter but less than a half of the Secondary Doctrines. They typically believe that basic human rights, and moral values come from God, yet may choose to not to accept some of the doctrines or scriptures which relate to moral values. Depending on the reason(s), that may indicate an acceptance of a form of moral relativism. Notably, and opposite to what Conservative Christians believe, moral relativism says that moral values are usually synonymous with societal standards and norms.

Typically, they base their action, opinions and decisions about events and issues in the world that relate to Christian doctrine, upon Christian doctrine, though they are often less likely than Conservative Christians to do so; one of the main reasons usually being that since their version of the Christian belief system is a very significant subset of the whole Christian belief system (i.e. as represented by the sum of its adherence spectrum doctrines), there are fewer private and public issues, and events in the world that relate to their personal version of the Christian belief system. They are significantly more likely than Conservitive Christians, to instead of Christian doctrines, choose to base their opinions, decisions, and actions upon their own or other people's feelings or reasoning, curent prevalent scientific (eg. Biology, Sociology) opinion, social trends, or some other basis. It is not uncommon for them to use some general Bible principles and commandments (e.g. "Love thy neighbor as thy self.") as a substitute for a doctrine or some subject matter that is explicitly declared in scripture.

Far-Left Liberal Christians (a.k.a. Far-Left Christians or Progressive Christians) - People who subscribe to all of the Essential Doctrines, and less than a quarter of the Secondary Doctrines. They typically have the same traits and tendencies in regards to their level of doctrinal and scriptural acceptance, interpretation, and deference as Middle-Left Liberals, but to a somewhat even lesser extent; and have the posibillity of believing in some form of moral relativism, and in generalizing Bible principles and commandments, to a greater extent.

Nominal Christians (a.k.a Christians in name only) - People who do not subscribe to one or more of the Essential Doctrines (even though they may self-identify as being a Far-Right Christian, Mid-Right Christian, Mid-Left Christian, or Far-Left Christian). If they subscribe to at least a vast majority of the Essential Doctrines they may be considered "Christian leaning". They may believe that all basic human rights, and moral values come from God, but often instead seem to believe in some form of moral relativism.

Notes

Non-Judgmental
The adherence spectrum does not assert or imply that any of its categories is inherently better or worse than any other. Such a value judgment is to be made on a personal basis, and is dependent upon the relevant belief system, and perspectives of a particular person.

Difference Not Division
The Christian adherence spectrum with its various categories, is not meant to encourage or facilitate un-biblical division within the body of Christ. Instead, just as the apostle Paul went and discussed with the apostle Peter about Peter’s stance concerning an important matter, Christians should discuss amoungs themselves differences in opinion about Christian doctrine. However, this should be done with a goal of resolving any disagreements by researching and discovering the truth of the matter(s) in question, and also hopefully receiving an increase in scriptural understanding and insight. The Bible in numerous places tells of the importance of Christians holding to sound doctrine. Knowing and subscribing to the central doctrines that are declared in the Bible is important for a Christian to be able to grow in their walk with Christ, and live a fulfilling and God honoring life. Importantly, though there may be disagreement among people or groups over one or more Non-Essential doctrines, such differences do not disqualify anyone from accurately being considered fellow brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. Christians may have disagreements (relatively insignificant or significant)concerning issues related to doctrine, but all are still to be considered as fellew brothers and sisters in Christ nonetheless, and not as people outside the body of Christ.

Non-Subscription
Not subscribing to an adherence spectrum doctrine is done in one of three fashions: outright rejection of it, ignoring it, or reinterpretation of it.

Belonging To Multiple Categories
The Christian adherence spectrum only pertains to the Christian belief system. There are other spiritual belief systems, and belief systems belonging to other spheres, each with their own sets of doctrines. Therefore it is possible, for example, that a person who is a Far-right (Conservative) Christian, may be in the Capitalism belief system of the economics sphere, a Far-right (Conservative) Capitalist; or alternately, the person might be a Mid-left (Liberal) Capitalist.


Other Terms

There are are a few terms that are often used, particularly in the news media, that it would seem should be used somewhere in connection with Christianity's adherence spectrum, but are not. These terms and the reasons why they are not used are given below.

Evangelicals - This term is often used in contemporary culture, particularly in the news media, to refer to conservative Christians. However, it is an ambiguous, and confusing term; this is because it is written in the Bible for every Christian to evangelize through overt action and/or through living in everyday life in a manner consistent with their authentic Christian beliefs. The term "white evangelicals" is also often used (but only occasionally the term "black evangelicals" or "Hispanic evangelicals") in the media; seemingly to imply or sometimes possibly promote, (un-biblical) racial divisions within the body of Christ.

Radical - An ambiguous and contradictory term, since the word "radical" by definition can mean either, "pertaining to the root of ~", or "of making extreme changes to ~". It is sometimes used by people, especially people in the media, when discussing matters related to members of any one of several different spiritual belief systems. The end result of the term's usage is that it often brings confusion or misunderstanding to the underlying issue being discussed or considered. It sometimes seems to be used by some people in the news media to intentionally obscure certain significant points of a given issue under discussion.

For the sake of clarity and understanding, it is recommended that instead of using the term "radical", the appropriate adherence spectrum classification be used. In other words, for someone in the media who uses the expression "radical ~", if by that expression the person basically means someone (i.e. an assumed adherer of a given belief system) who strictly follows practically all of the belief system's doctrines, then "Far-right (Conservative) ~" should be used, or if the person mean by the expression someone who disregards a lot of the doctrines of the given belief system, and/or who inserts or substitutes a lot of their own beliefs or views in their own personal version of the belief system, then "Far-left (Liberal) ~" should be used.

Extremist - "Extremism" is defined as "the holding of extreme views or the taking of action based on such views"; and "extreme" has as definitions, both "the furthest out from a point of reference:", and "above normal; seemingly unreasonable". Therefore the use of the word "extremist" is ambiguous since it is based on 1) a subjective selection of a point of reference, which can vary from person to person, and 2) definitions of "normal" and "unreasonable", which are also subjective and so can vary from person to person.

Real World Applications

Understanding of the various Christian doctrine categories and Christianity’s adherence spectrum can be very useful in enabling an accurate viewing of various present day topics and issues related to the Christian belief system.

Case #1 – Connecting Fundamentalist Christians To Terrorism

In the discussions of terrorism that typically occur after a major terrorist attack, various people who appear in the television news shows and variety programs, periodically bring up Timothy McVay, the Oklahoma City bomber who killed over a hundred people, as an example of a "Christian extremist" or "Christian fundamentalist", and as an example of why “extremism”, and fundamentalism (ie. being on the Far-right) in any religion is not good (e.g. on ABC TV’s "The View" after the Paris terrorist attacks a few years ago).

Actually, according to reports it appears that McVay was an atheist or agnostic, not a Christian. However, assuming the persons appearing in the media were correct and he proclaimed to be a Christian, in light of the adherence spectrum’s doctrine categories and upon his actions, he would not be considered a Fundamentalist Christian, but would be considered a Nominal Christian (i.e. a Christian in name only). On the other hand, based upon the doctrine categories, someone who would be an example of a Fundamentalist Christian would be the late Rev. Billy Graham.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that certain people in the media making the blanket connection between religious fundamentalists and terrorism is erroneous and (hopefully not intentionally) misleading.

Case #2 - Christian Self-Dividing

Case #3 – Another Name For Phobia and Violence: The Far Right

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