Can You Call Yourself a Christian and Not Be Religious?

Can we be good enough?

“Jesus spent much of his time laying into the pious and the holy and lambasting the religious professionals of his day,” notes Fraser – who points out that God has never wanted the legalism that humans have invented on His behalf. Centuries before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed to God's people this word from the Almighty: “‘The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies’” (Isaiah 1:11).

Can we be good enough?

And in case you think he’s slamming Catholics and other Christians whose worship services follow a formal liturgy, that’s not what he has in mind at all. “You cannot be 'too' Christian. If being 'too' Christian’ makes you think of Christian fundamentalists, I'd want to insist that they are simply not Christian enough,” writes Fraser. “Indeed, that it's their lack of faith that makes them cling to a bogus form of certainty and literalism. Mostly, Christian fundamentalists worship a book. They like the safety of having pat answers. But this is just another form of idolatry of which the Hebrew scriptures regularly warn. Worshipping a book and worshipping God are two totally different things.”

Can we be good enough?

Even Christians have difficulty defining who is a Christian and who is not. There are those in the independent Churches of Christ who make a case that they are the only true Christians – that everybody else is disobedient, particularly if they have not followed a stern formula to become a Christian, which includes these formal steps 1) Hearing the message of salvation; 2) Believing that Jesus is Lord; 3) Repenting of one’s evil deeds; 4) Confessing aloud the new belief in Jesus; 5) Being immersed in water for the specific purpose of washing away one’s sins; and 6) Living a godly life thereafter – which includes faithful church attendance at a Church of Christ congregation.