‘Sometimes when we look up a word in a dictionary, we find it has a welter of meanings. The word ‘copy’ likes to stand alone but it gets incorporated into other words – like copyright and copycat.
Nothing wrong with that. The same applies to the word ‘apple’ that gets itself into toffee-apple and apple-pie. (and also into the Garden of Eden). The word ‘pavement’ on the other hand gets misused, being often applied to a tarmac footpath. The Americans call that a side-walk. (A pavement, as we all know, is an area covered in paving-stones.)
Unhappily, copy also means ‘fake’. In the art world this is serious stuff. Notable painters had style. Lesser painters copied them. That makes paintings by the master something special, something to argue about. It gives fakes a life of their own.
Then we come to the use of the term in religious experience. Christianity can be reduced to a matter of following the example of Jesus. This is fair enough. but it is like painting a tub in a boating like in the colours of, say, Cal-Mac and pretending we have a ferry going in and out of Oban to connect up the Scottish islands. Something more is needed.
And that something is indicated by baptism, especially baptism by immersion but as near as maybe in the case of a new-born infant. Christianity is response by the whole person. The inadequacy of copying Jesus is apparent when we think of the healings and parables for which Jesus was responsible. If God truly became human, we could expect nothing less but copying of that kind is out of the question. We just are not capable of it.
No, Christianity is Christ. Christians are not altogether agreed how that applies to us. It has some measure of copying, more of obedience (the high priests were obedient to the faith – Acts 6.7) more of the heart’s measure of involvement, more plain belief in God who became man and allowed humankind to take advantage of him – to crucify him.
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