HOW TO CONSTRUCT A CHRISTIAN BELIEVER

Or do I mean it as a question?

Let's play the game of questions.  

I make a statement, you convert it into a question, got it?

Declarative statements reframed as interrogatives - what could be more fun than that?

Shall I provide a brief example from my own life?

I attended church only three times as a child and all three times, I hated it.

What a dreadfully boring experience it was!

I can still remember the way my father angrily shushed me at those services.

We went to those services more at the request of my grandmother, I think, than on account of my own parents' preferences.

Would that not make me a model Christian?

Let's revisit the discussions we've had about Christianity 

How do you know what a Christian looks like?

Do you suppose they look like you?

Sure, start with yourself as the ideal model for a Christian - why not?

How do you know what a Christian looks like?

You don't know?

We've discussed it before.

This is a question that I have posed to you before and we've established the answer.

Now maybe you want to revisit that or maybe you just don't remember that we've talked about this more than once?

When you ask if we came up with a definitive answer, I'm not saying that precisely.

I don't call it a definitive answer, but I don't even know what definitive would mean in the context of this kind of question. 

I just pose a question and we answer it.

There are many ways to answer the question. 

That's right, we have answered it, I don't say definitively.

All right there's a good question - how did we do it before?

That's the kind of question that is actually in response to the dialogue.

Why bother asking such a theologically esoteric question?

Too simple to bother explicating?

I pose the question to illustrate there's nothing you can tell by looking.

They tell you I'm a Christian and then you go, oh you are.

Not, oh you are or, oh you aren't.

Just, oh you are.

That's it.  

The end. 

It's a self-determinable question, arriving at a self-determining answer.

A person is a Christian because they say so.

The end.

I call that a pretty definitive answer.

To me it's definitive.

Does it feel definitive to you?

Too absolute a question?

Does it not feel definitive enough?

I'll say it again.

A person is a Christian because they say so.

The end.

Depending on the measure one uses?

What other measure could possibly apply?

I'll say it again 

A person is a Christian because they say so.

That's it. 

The end. 

How could one prove it wrong?

You can't prove that statement wrong.

A person gets to be a Christian just by saying so.

At the end of the day you just got to nod your head and go,

Yep, you're a Christian.

Isn't that right?

At this juncture, pause to compare your internal response to my question alongside other questions of self-determination, including but not limited to:

I am a man.

I am a woman.

I am an artist.

I am a businessperson.

I am a teacher.

I am a child of God.

I am a good person in my heart.

I am a contributor to my society and my world.

Well aren't you full of yourself now?