What is a Christian?

There are so many unhelpful images associated with Christianity that it has become difficult to discover the truth about what makes someone a Christian.

You might search through history and discover horrendous atrocities committed by those calling themselves Christians. You might visit countless, beautiful, old buildings and miss the heart of the Christian faith. You might have moving, spiritual experiences and still fail to grasp Jesus' most important message.

Calling yourself a Christian to justify violence doesn't make you a Christian. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian. Being deeply spiritual doesn't make you a Christian.

The central message of Christianity is simple enough for the simplest person on earth, yet professors with IQs the size of telephone numbers can completely miss the point!

The main thing

The core of Christianity is Jesus Christ. That might sound a bit obvious, but it's amazing how many people try to leave him out of it. Christianity without Christ is just... well, ianity - it doesn't mean anything!

To many, Jesus is just a historical, or even mythical, figure. To others he is a paradox and presents a message that is difficult to come to terms with. To some he is repulsive, but to a Christian he is the key to life.

The big problem

To understand the centrality of Jesus, it is important to understand the mess that humanity has got itself into. It is difficult to say whether we, the human race, are improving or steadily getting worse. It probably depends how you measure it. What is quite clear is that we seem to have an innate ability to mess things up. Deceit, greed, theft, hatred, violence, murder, war, genocide. We cannot escape it, however well off and insulated we are.

The Bible says that the root cause of the problem is our rejection of God. This makes sense if you consider God as the creator. Failing to follow the maker's instructions is usually asking for trouble. We were designed to live in close relationship with God, but we have decided to go our own way instead. Big problem.

It gets worse before it gets better

Unfortunately, it's worse than just under-performing in life. By rejecting God's way we have rejected God himself and cut ourselves off from the source of life. It's a bit like a diver cutting his oxygen pipe. The consequences of this are eternal and rather alarming.

There are two characteristics of God that have a bearing on this. The first one is that God is just, which would be good news in itself if it wasn't for the fact that we are guilty. (Don't confuse this with the perhaps-I-shouldn't-have, feeling of guilt, we're talking about the guilty-your-honour, fact of guilt.)  Let's face it, we don't usually meet our own standards let alone God's. So God cannot just let us off the hook. That would be to deny his own nature and complete perfection. Darkness cannot live with light.

The Bible says that the penalty for rejecting God is death. Harsh? Well, not when you consider that God is the creator and sustainer of all life. It's the logical conclusion.

The second characteristic is that God is loving. Some good new at last. But we've already seen that God can't just let us off, so how is love going to change anything? That's where Jesus comes in.