What makes someone a Christian?
A Connections reader wrote me some time ago, “not all people who are in church are Christians.” That may well be true, but what does identify a person as a Christian, if it’s not merely being in the church?
For about the first forty years of my life, I assumed being a Christian mainly meant being in a church. Of course, it also meant being “nice” and “sweet” and polite, I thought, and obeying all laws and authorities and following all rules. It essentially meant doing what most people I knew did.
In more recent years, however, my understanding has changed. I now see that at times being a Christian can actually require breaking rules and customs and disobeying institutional authorities. It can mean not doing what friends and fellow church members are doing. It might even require not being in the institutional church.
