Who is a Christian? [Part 4]

Tom, a friend of mine, commented about my last post, saying that he apparently doesn't know any real Christians. I think that's a bit strong, but I take his point.

Tom was reacting to what Jesus had said, that people would know that we're his disciples because of the love we demonstrate for each other, as well as what the apostle Paul wrote about doing good things for others, especially for those of the household of faith. I had made the point that, if we did this, there would be enough evidence to convict us of being Christian.

I don't really believe that our all too frequent failure to be recognizable in that way makes us fail to be real Christians. But I do think that real Christians tend to have at least a subliminal recognition that, when life isn't like that, Something Is Very Wrong!.

Sometimes, it seems like the extent of the Christian's life is going to church on Sunday morning, standing in a darkened auditorium, staring at the "praise and worship team" who are conducting a concert on a brightly lit stage, not singing because the music is too loud and it's pitched all wrong for anybody but the lead singer, shaking hands with each other during the mandated fellowship minute, and polishing off the morning by listening to a motivational speaker. 

Even when it's a wonderful motivational speaker, that's not the sort of life that Jesus said would make everybody recognize us as his disciples.

I think we all want more than that.

This is the place where you're expecting me to tell you how to solve that problem. Sorry, my little bottle of Wisdom of Solomon seems to have run dry. I don't have the answers.

What I do know is that busy modern life in large cities (where we tend not to live anywhere close to the people we spend time with during work hours) militates against most of us having fulfilling, close relationships to others, so that the kind of deep family formation we should be experiencing is very hard to do.

I'm open to suggestions from others who feel the same way about this.

Anybody?