being a christian

For most of my life I've felt like I had a pretty good handle on what it means to be a Christian. Growing up with it helped. I had no sudden epiphanies, no real moments of shock or surprise, just a continual depth of understanding and knowledge that the root of my Christianity is in my own heart, no one else's.

But there are some fundamentals, right? I feel like I've had several conversations lately that have challenged me on this, on explaining what it means to be a Christian--not just calling yourself one, but actually being one.

On Friday at school, one of my little first grade girls was wearing a shirt that had a big Tweety Bird on it and said "Jesus is the tweetest." I made a comment to my assistant that I would never send my child to school in a shirt like that. He asked why and I told him that although I am a Christian and am not ashamed of my beliefs, sending your child to school in a shirt like that is just a cry for negative attention and mockery, and why subject a 6-year-old to that? He made a comment that he is a Christian too, but then proceeded to tell me that he doesn't "believe in the whole church thing...or the Bible, really."

Everything in me wanted to fight at that moment, to tell him why he was wrong (because his logic was not good), and to explain to him that the Bible and the Church are two fundamental properties of Christianity. Sure, you can be a Christian without going to church (although not a thriving, growing one), but there's really no way you can claim Christianity without a basic belief in the Bible. Otherwise it becomes a story, something along the lines of a fairy-tale with extraordinarily impossible events which lend an air of incredibility to the whole plot line of Christianity. If I don't believe the truth of the Bible, I have no foundation upon which to stand.

So many people are "Christians." So few of us actually are.