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The Atlantic ‘s Megan McArdle is attempting to narrow down the definition of a term created by her colleague Andrew Sullivan:

A number of my commenters are arguing about the meaning of the word “Christianist”. All I can come up with is something along the lines of “Christianist n. Someone who selectively ignores different parts of Christian scripture than I do.” Perhaps my readers have a better one?

I was going to propose this definition, based on the way that Sullivan uses the term:

Someone who adheres to the traditional view of Christianity and/or an orthodox view of Scripture, particularly the passages that condemn homosexuality.

But then I remembered that Sullivan has applied the term to a broad range of people, from me to Barack Obama . So perhaps a more apt definition would be:

Someone who calls themselves a Christian and who Andrew Sullivan thinks is wrong about a particular issue.

Does anyone other than Sullivan even use the stupid term?


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