Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Christian?

\Chris"tian\, n. [L. christianus, Gr. ?; cf. AS. cristen. See {Christ}.] 1. One who believes, or professes or is assumed to believe, in Jesus Christ, and the truth as taught by Him; especially, one whose inward and outward life is conformed to the doctrines of Christ. The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. --Acts xi. 26. 2. One born in a Christian country or of Christian parents, and who has not definitely becomes an adherent of an opposing system. 3. (Eccl.) (a) One of a Christian denomination which rejects human creeds as bases of fellowship, and sectarian names. They are congregational in church government, and baptize by immersion. They are also called {Disciples of Christ}, and {Campbellites}. (b) One of a sect (called {Christian Connection}) of open-communion immersionists. The Bible is their only authoritative rule of faith and practice. Note: In this sense, often pronounced, but not by the members of the sects, kr[=i]s"chan.
\Chris"tian\, a. 1. Pertaining to Christ or his religion; as, Christian people. 3. Pertaining to the church; ecclesiastical; as, a Christian court. --Blackstone. 4. Characteristic of Christian people; civilized; kind; kindly; gentle; beneficent. The graceful tact; the Christian art. --Tennyson. {Christian Commission}. See under {Commission}. {Christian court}. Same as {Ecclesiastical court}. {Christian era}, the present era, commencing with the birth of Christ. It is supposed that owing to an error of a monk (Dionysius Exiguus, d. about 556) employed to calculate the era, its commencement was fixed three or four years too late, so that 1890 should be 1893 or 1894. {Christian name}, the name given in baptism, as distinct from the family name, or surname.
\Chris"tian\, a. {Christian Endeavor, Young People's Society of}. In various Protestant churches, a society of young people organized in each individual church to do Christian work; also, the whole body of such organizations, which are united in a corporation called the United Society of Christian Endeavor, organized in 1885. The parent society was founded in 1881 at Portland, Maine, by Rev. Francis E. Clark, a Congregational minister. Christian Era \Christian