A friend related this real-life incident to me. A young woman was sitting in the school canteen when she was approached by two young men from the Campus Crusade for Christ. One of the young men asked her, “Excuse me, are you a Christian?”
The young woman looked up and smiled. “I’m a Catholic Christian,” she replied.
The young man looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, “So, you’re not a Christian then.”
The three of them then sat down together for about half an hour answering their questions on Catholic practices.
I can understand why some Christians believe that Catholics are not Christians, but I’m not going to go into apologetics today. What I want to focus on are Catholics who are really not Christian.
What is a Christian?
What is the defining mark of a Christian?
Is a Christian one who reads the Bible?
No, because for the first few hundred years after Jesus rose from the dead, there was no Bible.
Is a Christian one who is baptized?
No, a baptized person simply means that he or she is a member of the Church, but may not be a practicising Christian anymore.
Is a Christian one who goes to church?
No, there are many non-Christians who go to church for one reason or another, and many Christians who don’t go to church.
Is a Christian one who wears a cross on his or her person, or displays one at home?
No, there are many who wear crosses as fashion symbols, but are not Christians.
Is a Christian one who is pro-life and pro-family?
No, there are many Christians who are neither, and there are many who are both but not Christian.
Is a Christian one who accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour?
No, that is a saved person, but not necessarily a Christian yet.
Is a Christian one who has the full and complete truth as revealed by God?
No, that is a Catholic, but not necessarily a Christian either.
A Christian is a disciple of Christ. How do we know a Christian from a non-Christian? The first time the disciples of Christ were known as Christians was at Antioch, and people knew that they were Christians by their love. That is the only way to tell a Christian from a non-Christian.
Rather, a Christian is one who loves God in the example of Jesus. We have no way of showing our love for God except by love for our neighbour. This is why Jesus says that the most important commandments are to love God and neighbour.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, but do not love. Rather, they force others to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour too with threats like, “If you don’t confess Jesus is Lord, you will go to Hell and burn for all eternity!”
There are many who claim to be Christian because they fight for the rights of the unborn and for the family, but they do not love. Instead, they attack all who oppose their agenda, frequently resorting to character assassination.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they wear a cross on their person or display one at home, but do not love. Instead, they condemn those who wear a cross for other reasons than their own.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they go to church, but they do not love. Instead, they want to bar late-comers from entering and drive away all little children and teenagers who talk during Mass or service.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they have been baptized, but they do not love. Instead, they live life in the same unloving way that they have always done before their baptism, treating people as they have always been treating them.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they read the Bible, but they do not love. Instead, they go around showing off their knowledge and putting down others who do not have as much knowledge of scriptures.
There are many who claim to be Christian because they have the full and complete truth, but they do not speak it with love. Instead, they go around telling other people that they do not have the full and complete truth, and try to find ways to show others how wrong they have been.
A Christian is one who loves. The Christian does not need to have read the Bible, or have been baptized, or go to church, or wear a cross, or be pro-life and pro-family, or accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, or be a Catholic. It is good that they do so, but what the Christian really needs is to love. That is the mark, indeed the only mark, of a true Christian.
Coming back to what some say about Catholics, where I would have previously disagreed with them, I now understand that not all Catholics are Christians.
Some Catholics are not in love with Jesus Christ. There are many things about the Catholic Church that Catholics can be in love with. These are just a few:
Some are in love with the Catholic Church as an institution.
Some are in love with the liturgy.
Some are in love with Catholic doctrines.
Some are in love with the rituals.
Some are in love with the charitable giving and services.
Some are in love with the clergy.
Some are in love with the moral agendas.
Some are in love with the philosophy.
Some are in love with the devotions.
Some are in love with the Catholic identity.
Some are in love with the beauty and art.
Some are in love with the music.
Some are in love with the architecture.
Some are in love with the fellowship.
Some are in love with the prayers.
Some are in love with the idea of having the complete truth.
These are good things to be in love with, but Catholics who do not love their neighbour don’t really love Jesus. Such a Catholic is then not truly a Christian.
The question now for us then is not which Catholics do we know that are not really Christian, but rather, how can I, as a Catholic, be truly Christian? How can I love those that I have not loved?
I leave you with something from the writings of St. Teresa of Avila:
If a sister is praying in the choir and another sister asks for her help in charity, and if the sister in the choir says, “I cannot help you now, I am praying”, whatever she is doing or thinks she is doing, she is not praying. Prayer is never interrupted by charity.
Filed under: Love
Great post, CW.
God bless.
Thanks WillyJ!
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Hi Catholic Writer,
I really like the points you brought up in this article. Especially the following statements:
1) “Is a Christian one who accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour? No, that is a saved person, but not necessarily a Christian yet.”
2) “Rather, a Christian is one who loves God in the example of Jesus. We have no way of showing our love for God except by love for our neighbour. This is why Jesus says that the most important commandments are to love God and neighbour.”
I would add to that “part” of love is to walk righteously (not practice sin) to the best of one’s ability according to their knowlege of scripture in this area. I don’t believe one is fully walking in “love” toward God or others while practicing sin, since sin always involves our relationship with God and either directly or indirectly involves others. But, as you know, not all saved people actively walk in love (and no one does this perfectly).
I appreciate the fact that in your definition of Christian you distinguish the fact that one can be “saved” yet not actively be walking according to scripture. I think there is a problem with how many define Christianity by implying you cannot be saved unless you are actively living a disciplined “Christian” life.
I have recently seen several articles trying to define what a true “Christian” is and I love the fact that it is you (a Catholic) who really hit the mark.
hello, finished reading Mere Christianity some time back. C.S. Lewis gives an interesting (and logical, methodical) explanation on how he thinks the term ‘Christian’ should be used. don’t know if you have read it.
His view is that the term ‘Christian’ is one of language, used to describe people who believe in the Christian version of God and are willing to accept the church’s doctrines etc.
People who exhibit poor behaviour contrary to the church’s teachings should be called ‘bad Christian’ and people who are nice without really accepting the Church’s teachings are simply ‘good people’, just like a man who is effeminate is not always gay, and a gay man is not a woman, but a gay man.
Since no one is perfect, then who can be truly Christian? If we take this (‘but what the Christian really needs is to love. That is the mark, indeed the only mark, of a true Christian’) as a yardstick, then there can be no Christians in this world as none of us can love perfectly.
Secularists who display good behaviour may be seen to be ‘Christian’ more than the baptised who is a grump – but that’s not really an accurate way to identify a ‘Christian’. After all, he does not accept the doctrines of the church, his generous humanity only happens to coincide with church’s teachings. He may quite think the church is shitte on issues like abortion, sex etc. all with very good intentions.
As opposed to say the person born with a nasty personality/ disposition who accepts the churches teachings but has such a hard time working on his nature.
So i find CS Lewis’ way of explaining the logic of the use of language very useful and accurate – because if ‘and people knew that they were Christians by their love’, what is the definition of ‘LOVE’, then? It’s usage has become so misused and warped that we don’t really know what it means anymore – and equating Christians//Love seems to create some sort of diluted haze.
That girl should have just said: ‘Yes, I’m Christian.’
Lol.
Hi Kristine,
Thanks for your affirmation. You are right that a Christian (one who loves God and neighbour) needs to walk righteously (not practice sin). They go hand in hand because sin is actually a breach or damage to the relationship that we have with God. It therefore follows that a true Christian (who loves God and neighbour) will walk righteously because he loves God and neighbour. I believe that walking righteously flows from the love we have for God and neighbour.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Hi Clare,
It is good to hear from you again!
I think C. S. Lewis’ definition of Christianity would be to define a person who is churched, that is, a person who accepts the doctrines of a Christian church.
In C. S. Lewis’ definition, you wrote that we cannot call secularists ‘Christian’ because they don’t accept the doctrines of the Church, and that their generous humanity happens to coincide with the Church’s. That is true, for C. S. Lewis’ defintion. However, on my part, I would not call secularists ‘Christians’ because they do not love God, and their apparent love for neighbour does not come from a love for God.
I do think that it is not necessary for a person to love perfectly in order to be a Christian, for only God loves perfectly. There are many degrees of love, but the kind of love that we’re talking about is described in C. S. Lewis’ “The Four Loves” as agape. We can find the characteristics of that kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, and we can find it demonstrated for us in the way Jesus loves.
In a nutshell, love is a gift of self. When we love God, we make ourselves a gift to God. When we love neighbour, we make ourselves a gift to our neighbour. When we love another person in an exclusive relationship for life, we make ourselves a gift to that person exclusively for life. These two kinds of love are agape and eros, which we tend to think do not have overlap. However, Pope Benedict XVI, in his first encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” (God is Love) reflects more deeply on the relationship between these two kinds of love and their relationship with the teachings of Jesus.
This reminds me of a discussion I had recently. It is said that Eskimos have many words to describe snow, as compared to us in the English language. This is because they have been so immersed in living in an icy environment that they can tell one type of snow from another, whereas to us, it all looks the same.
Similarly, Christians, especially in the early Church, have different ways to describe love, because we are so immersed in love and we can tell one kind of love from another. Whereas in the modern day context, we are so unfamiliar with love that we only have one word to describe the diluted haze you mentioned.
There is a quote of St. Therese of Lisieux that I read this week. It goes like this: “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
When we talk about how much love we do something, we are not talking about the difficulty of the task, or how much effort we put into it, but how much of ourselves we put into it. So that’s the love we’re talking about – the gift of self. The degree of love we have is how much of ourselves to we make into a gift for the other. Perfect love is a perfect gift of self in imitation of Christ.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
What a wonderful post! I am planning on sharing this with many. You are so right, we must love our neighbor as Christ has first loved us. Blessed be God forever!
Kimberly
JMJ