The question then becomes, If you bring a car into church, does that make it a garage?
Seriously though, the labels and definitions we use for ourselves and others are often decided by what we do. But what about when the definition of something, in this case ‘being a Christian’, is defined by a person saying and believing they are one, nothing more.
I have a daughter who is soon to get her Ph.D in Neuroscience. She will be a given the title ‘neuroscientist’ because an established institution says she is one. But what if, over the years, she never progressed in her field? What if she failed at her experiments, failed at getting grants, failed at getting a professorship and making a career of it. If she continued to show up at some lab and put on a lab coat, would she still be a neuroscientist?
She would be if her institution said the criteria was that she only had to say, “I am a neuroscientist” and believe she was one to be one. Then she could go into any neuroscience lab and fiddle around; do good, do damage, do whatever, all because she simply said and believed she was a neuroscientist, and that was good enough.
That is how much of Christianity works. If you say you are a Christian, then you are. You don’t have to prove it, you don’t have to act like one, you just need to say you are one. If you do that you can go in any church and fiddle around; do good, do damage, do whatever.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Lawrence Peter, 1919-1990, American Author and Academic. Author of ‘The Peter Principle”.
The Peter Principle states:
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence … in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties … Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.”
