Furthermore I loved the variety of responses he garnered from the question. Everything from "No one really knows, even the Bible doesn't really say" to "I'm sorry you feel challenged in your faith." There was even a few run of the mill "Well if you don't believe in Christianity they are wrong and stupid and hypocritical and judgmental and mean and jerks and....." It was even suggested that the real Christians are the ones that live like the Jews did. You know, the ones Jesus pissed off to the point they tried to stone him several times and finally manipulated the government system into allowing them to crucify him. They were mostly pissed at him btw for his disregard for their laws and the ways they showed off their holiness.
My friend said, almost in conclusion to the variety of posts "There is no observable difference"
So, when you walk into a church, how do you play the Where's Waldo? game of finding the real Christians and setting them apart from the posers? Considering the mass confusion of what exactly makes a Christian on the inside that came off of just this post, and the much larger confusion I see in the general public, I can understand how Christians get labled "hypocrites" and "judgmental" and "Jerks" and so on. Most of the people addressed Ideologically what makes one a Christian and many of them appeared to be answering from outside the camp, and a couple from inside a church building.
What I want to tackle is actually the much stickier "When you walk into a church building in US of A, how do you tell who is really a Christian" Who gets the doctrine the evangelical, trinitarian, Christian church pulls from the Bible? (which is, by the way, according to the JW magazine the view you would adopt if you read the Bible apart from their SPECIAL insight into it)
It's tough, you walk in, there's usually a greeter who hands you some booklets, and smiles at you, shows you a seat, and everyone seems to look at you a little funny. Somehow you manage to feel both like an unwanted intruder and a piece of meat at the same time. The pastor rambles about stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense, church breaks, and people split off into their pre-designated groups that don't include you. On your way out the door people invite you to come with them to a restaurant you didn't plan on going, so you head off, they talk about stuff that isn't relevant in your life, they ask you very few questions about yourself, and you wind up paying for more than you intended when you showed up. If you continued going the invitations to do other things would quit coming, and getting involved in small groups very often could make you feel more and more of an outsider because anyone that doesn't just thoughtlessly swallow their particular denominational dogma gets the cold stare until they shut up and let the "grown ups" talk which consists of stupid rhetoric like this "When the Bible says 'not even a sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed' what's it saying, put it in your own words" and it's answered with "Well I think it's saying that if a poor little sparrow falls to the ground God knows about it, and we're a lot bigger than sparrows, so God's gonna pay attention to us!" And everyone nods with glazed over eyes as thought the verse really was talking about God's attention to seismic disturbances across the face of the earth.
What I find truly amusing is that those who clearly do not affiliate with the church will look at me wondering why I go to church and how I know such things, and those who are always at the church will shake their finger at me for saying it.
I find a LOT of fakers in the american church, I find it truly amusing that in the JWs, Mormons, and Catholics, there's actually a decent number of people who misunderstand the religions preached there for Christianity and will likely wind up in heaven because they were not correctly taught the false teachings being pushed by others. Though I'd push this is not the ideal way to get into heaven.
First I want to make a clear-cut internal distinction between a Real Deal, True Blue, covered in Christ's blood Christian, and the guy that no one is sure about. The real Christian has absolutely no doubt in his mind that Christ is the only answer for sin, that sin is so severe, so crippling, so cancerous that without Christ, death, the second death, is the only option and direction. I often find the guy that is questionable see-sawing. I find him saying "Well if you don't believe in hell you won't go there." Really? that's the answer? The only people who will go to hell are the ones who believe in it? Well then the solution is not Christianity, it's repression of the knowledge and idea of hell, ultimately in my mind, the solution would be to redefine hell as like Heaven, but with weed and sex. You'll often find them claiming the "blessed are the peace keepers" in the beatitudes, and saying things like "You can't just pick a sin and tell people they'll go to hell for it" they will also say stuff like "Oh, if you read the Bible literally like that, you should sew four tassels on your coat and grow a beard!"
Externally, Cory is very close, at first glance there is absolutely no difference between the Christ-following and the non, between those who are daring enough to take the Bible at what it says, dive into the difficulties, and let it change their lives, and those who use select portions of the Bible as a beating stick to make everyone play nice together.
What I find is as you get to know a person, the truth leaks out. Unfortunately, not many in the world, and, hell, even in the church get close enough to tell the difference, and I believe I know why: Being around a real Christian is a little like getting sunburned all the time. They are gracious, they don't condemn you, and yet, at the suggestion that sin isn't that big a deal, that it'd be okay to sleep with your boyfriend, or tell them about what so and so did the other night, and a sudden hardness appears. They might not even say anything, they certainly won't tell you that you're going to hell for it, but it's like you crossed some invisible line in the sand, and they are extremely uncomfortable about it and are watching you from the other side of the line. You'll resent this because often it is mistaken for them being morally superior. If you looked closer you'd detect concern and sadness, not superiority. Indeed an analysis of your feelings would show that the anger at their 'moral superiority' is actually emanating from your own attitudes. It also irks you that when you chastise them for doing things you don't approve of (like not congratulating your gay friend on his recent move-in with his boyfriend) You feel that same sad hardness like they are pitying you from across the line, rather than them feeling bad for offending your ethics.
If you're a Christian, or close to becoming one, their presence becomes a little like a soothing balm you dread to open. You'll find yourself asking their opinion on questions that are none of their damn business, because somehow if they say it's okay you can shut your conscience up about the whole issue, and you know what they'll say, and when you say it, you blame them, but at the same time the fact that they will always let you come back, they will not bring up your past offenses over and over, gives a stability to the relationship that you'll often begin to crave. They aren't too hot on the rules, they let people do a lot of things their own way, but they are rock solid and can seem downright mean on what they say the Bible says. But there's something immovable under there. They genuinely believe in this Jesus, that him dying on the cross changed something fundamental and relevant to their lives, and you find them tying it into unexpected things, but they won't tie it into others you might expect them to.
They'll talk of love, but their love is weird. You'll go off on love and sometimes you run against that sad resistance to your words when you thought you were trying to lift up love just like them. Most of all, perhaps most frustratingly of all, when you ask them questions, they'll irritatingly explain in terms of a relationship to Jesus. I'm not talking "what do you want for lunch" questions. I mean questions that start off almost as jokes and then they start to take a serious turn. "Do you have regrets?" starts with telling about a bad haircut, and somehow you wind up listening to a story of them doing things you didn't think they could ever have done, and they smile with relief as they talk about Jesus removing their shame. Unfortunately usually the non-believer will walk away confused, feeling like the person they've been getting to know is a hypocrite or a liar. Either they never did what they say they did, or they aren't the good person you thought because they have done some of the things that they look at you sadly for doing.
I think the big miss in this is that Christianity is a completed belief. It's not a "try harder" or "Do harder" or "Live better" philosophy, it's a "Jesus did it, and I'm free" that when embraced, and once set loose in your life, attacks you on a personal level, and dynamically alters your perception of your self and the world, and will work this alteration in you until the day you die.
So it becomes vastly confusing to a non-christian and I don't mean someone who doesn't go to church, I mean someone who has never just trusted Jesus act of salvation and trusted and allowed the Holy Spirit to literally beat the hell out of them. It is confusing because this person has done wrong, and still condemns it, most importantly, condemns it in themselves.
One of the most effective witnesses I ever gave was to a person who challenged me that if I had never been where she was I should shut up because I don't know what it was like. When she found that I HAD been there, she got quiet for a moment and told me "Well, it's okay" and I had the incredible opportunity to look at her and say "No, it wasn't and it isn't, and I can't change it." that THIS is why Jesus is the necessity.
So yah, when you walk in the door and see the greeter, you have to go in understanding that entrance, and a name on the membership roll and knowing all the songs, being in the praise band, shouting Amen, wriggling on the floor, and raising your hands do not define you as Christian. Further you need to be aware that many of them ARE Christians mechanically and on technicality, but they are dysfunctional, and like a dysfunctional family, they kind of work, but they damage themselves and those around them as they do. and finally that even if you walk into a church without a single real functional Christian, this does not negate the truth of the Good news that Jesus completed our righteousness and provided what we are dually undeserving of: salvation, that is the privilege and ability to abide in him, to be with him, to talk to him, to walk with him, and this is not just getting what we pray for, it's not the performance of miracles, it's not miraculous healing, it doesn't put a halo on our heads, or make us sprout wings, it doesn't make us rich, or give us nice houses, it doesn't end our pain, it doesn't remove our disease, it doesn't eliminate our sadness, it doesn't liberate us immediately from the curse, it opens the door for us to go and enjoy the relationship we were built to have. That in the end, the Gold in the streets of heaven is there because we all dropped it when we were able to enjoy the relationship with the God in heaven. Heaven is where Jesus is, and if you aren't into just Jesus, heaven will be significantly different from what you'd desire it to be.
How do you spot a Real Christian? I'd challenge you to stop trying to spot one, and just become one.
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