Am I a Christian? or Why being a Christian is about more than having a ‘magical moment of mental assent’.

Firstly I need to say, it is NOT my job to say who is a Christian and who isn’t. Thank God! It is God who judges not me.

But the Bible does give us some a rounded view of what markers should identify a Christian – someone living in the light of God’s love – as opposed to someone not living in God’s light. My personal hunch is that a lot of people who might not think they are Christians might actually be and vice versa.

‘By their fruit you shall know them’ is one such guide – in other words what are the outcomes of someone’s being in the world?

We are also meant to be identified as people who love one another ‘see how these Christians love one another’ (Ahem!) We are, after all, only given two commandments to live by: ‘love God and love your neighbour as yourself’ .

So is being or becoming a Christian about what we say, what we think/believe or what we do?

In Matthew 25 Jesus himself tells a very repetitive parable that very clearly states that the basis for judgement rests on what we DO’. But, for the sake of balance, I must point out that John says it’s what we believe (John 5:24). Hmm, maybe, it’s all three? But James – in his New Testament letter – a letter by the way which Luther rejected outright as not part of scripture because it appeared to undermine the basic tenant of Protestantism, salvation is by faith alone) – said that ‘faith without works is dead’ – so in other words don’t try saying and thinking one thing if you live out a completely other way of life in your actions.

To go back to the story from Jesus from Matthew’s gospel particularly emphasises that it’s the actions we have towards the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned that matters. In our society it would reasonable to translate those categories as the down-trodden, the oppressed, the homeless, the refugee.

We do NOT earn our salvation by doing certain things (even if those are good things to do) but loving and generous actions should be a natural outcome of our faith/belief/intellectual assent.

There is a case currently in the news which has brought this question into sharp focus. It is of a young man whose words and actions felt to me to be greatly at odds with what it means to be a Christ follower which he also claimed to be.

This person was unlawfullly killed and that is unequivocally wrong.

But this news story will pass. However, the question it raises might not. So this article is not a criticism of this individual, it is a concern about the fact that this flawed Christian or non-Christian (depending on your viewpoint) is being held up as some kind of litmus test for whether others are Christians. In some social media circles then the expectation is that if you don’t think the same way as this man did (that women are less than men, that black women are less than all, for example) then you can’t be a follower of Christ either. Not all Christians think that way – thankfully and given that in terms of the global church the ‘average Christian is a young African woman’ nor should they.

This young man undoubtedly proclaimed publicly and boldly that he believed in Jesus “as his personal Lord and Saviour” and (to repeat my first sentence) it is not my place to judge the legitimacy of that claim. But it is my place to call out that there was a great deal about his other words and actions that disrespected others and made others afraid. (Just as others can and should do if or when my actions bring the Christian faith into disrepute).

I simply want to point out that being a Christian is about more, so much more than having had a ‘magical moment of mental assent’. It is about how you live and how you live should be more and more like Jesus lived.

At the start of almost every Anglican church service we pray a powerful prayer.

Almighty God,

To whom all hearts are open,

all desires known

and from whom no secrets are hid,

Cleanse the thought of our hearts

by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit

that we might perfectly love you

and worthily magnify your holy name

Amen

This prayer acknowledges that God alone knows the state of our hearts. None of us are perfect in our actions or our motivations. The best we can hope for when we come to worship is that God will accept our intention, our desire to be cleansed and our willingness to keep loving. It’s all we have to bring. We fall short. I love the honesty of this prayer. Being a Christian is not about being perfect, none of us would pass that test.

But it does raise difficult questions when there is a huge gulf between the values of the faith we say we believe in and the values we express in our words. Especially if we are in place of power and influence where our words carry weight. In the media there are two depictions of this young man who was unlawfully killed. Maybe neither depiction tells the full story: God alone knows his story. God alone knows mine. And that should make me humble.

I know that social media feeds me only the chapters I want to hear. I need to understand that I may not be hearing the full story.

Bekah Legg who heads up Restored – a charity supporting female Christian survivors of domestic abuse, writes very wisely of the similarity between this current news story and the experience of women survivors of domestic abuse: such women have learned to live with the two ‘realities’ of an abuser who presents a decent, reasonable, likeable face and yet who is also cruel and manipulative. They have also learnt that their view is sometimes not believed.

Her blog is here https://www.restored-uk.org/blog/charlie-kirk-a-separation-of-realities/?fbclid=IwY2xjawM2YxFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHhx7-tQrOyakNNGs45SPJJ45lvn1w_O7pnqJtafjVpcKEwUVGxyUmltTdoxU_aem_4F56NLHm7OxVdWB08Ltk9A

She makes a series of excellent points about what we should do. I am challenged by the one that says that ‘silence favours the oppressor’ so I am choosing to speak up and speak out against unfiltered adulation of someone who was clearly flawed – even if only flawed in the way we all are, formed by our upbringing and culture. Bekah also says that ‘how we talk matters’ – and how we write. So I have written this as my plea for words that heal in world where words are more often used as weapons.