Emmanuel United Methodist Church

What is a true Christian?

Your answer:_______________________________________________________________.

Recently the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas called Rick Perry a “true Christian” and denounced the Mormon faith of Mitt Romney as a cult, by which I’m guessing he meant to conjure up scary images of something bizarre and beyond the bounds of normality. He didn’t offer a definition of a “true Christian”, assuming everyone understood what he meant. I’m not so sure they do.

The issues of faith and public life are front and center during this long lead-up to the next presidential election. Our current president has been a member of the United Church of Christ, but has declined to be an active participant since he took office.

The Republican Party is fielding two Mormons and several self-disclosed “evangelical Christians” who seem to represent fervid but small subsets of that larger category. So far, we have no Unitarians or Jews or Muslims or Hindus running for that office, so we’ll have to focus our scrutiny on the Christians.

“Some people think that being a Christian means you must believe certain things.” Frederick Buechner has written. “That Jesus was the son of God, say. Or that Mary was a virgin.  Or that the pope is infallible. Or that all other religions are wrong.  Some think a Christian is one who necessarily does certain things.  Such as going to church.  Getting baptized.  Giving up liquor and tobacco.  Reading the Bible.  Doing a good deed a day.  Some think a Christian is just a nice person.” Beyond Words, p. 59

Recent polls indicate that a great majority of young Americans view Christians as homophobic, sexist, judgmental, irrelevant and just plain boring.  Barna Polls

What is a “true Christian”? And does that matter to us as we prepare to elect our leaders?

Bill Keller addressed this issue in an article in the New York Times back in August. “I honestly don’t care if Mitt Romney wears Mormon undergarments beneath his Gap skinny jeans, or if he believes that the stories of ancient American prophets were engraved on gold tablets and buried in upstate New York, or that Mormonism’s founding prophet practiced polygamy (which was disavowed by the church in 1890). Every faith has its baggage, and every faith hold beliefs that will seem bizarre to outsiders. I grew up believing that a priest could turn a bread wafer into the actual flesh of Christ.”

Bill Keller went on to say: “But I do want to know if a candidate places fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon (the text, not the Broadway musical) or some other authority higher than the Constitution and laws of this country. It matters to me whether a president respects serious science and verifiable history – in short, belongs to what an official in a previous administration once scornfully described as ‘the reality-based community.’  I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises.  And I care a lot if a candidate is going to be a Trojan horse for a sect that believes it has divine instructions on how we should be governed.”

I am a Christian. Most of you who read this blog column are Christians. Are we true Christians? How would anyone know? Whose definition would we be comfortable accepting?

I kind of like the definition the apostle Paul uses in a letter he wrote to some early Christians at Thessalonica. Reminding them of their origins, he says “You became imitators of us and the Lord, you followed the example set by us and the Lord” (NRSV).  

Could it be that a “true Christian” is someone who imitates Jesus and the early communities that grew up around his memory? Someone who follows his example? And what would that example be?

Well, let’s see. Jesus called a Samaritan good when no one else did. He offered women the same respect he offered men. He confronted religious leaders when they put commerce before shared sacrifice. He claimed the poor mattered as much as the rich. He talked about money more than any other topic. He told parable after parable that described the realm of God as a reversal of the dominant culture. He made sure there was enough food for everyone at a big gathering one day.  He stilled the stormy fears of his first followers. He questioned the common understanding of sin.  He helped people heal. He often withdrew by himself to pray. And there’s more, if you want to complete the list for yourself.

Perhaps it is as simple and as impossible as this: a “true Christian” is one who imitates Jesus.

Perhaps actions matter more than words after all.