Semantics: what is a Christian? Just how flexible is that definition?

Hi there guys, I'm leaving the series on my recent trip for now as I want to address a very interesting question that my regular reader Amanda has raised recently. When I attempted to answer her question, I found I had a lot to say about it despite the fact that it did initially feel like a very simple question but it warranted such a complex reply. So her question was: is your mother a Christian? She probably expected a yes/no answer but I had to say, "sort of, not really, it depends on your definition." Given how much I had to say about the matter, I thought I would lay it all out on a post today and get your opinion on the matter, especially since I'd love to hear what other Christians have to say about the issue. Allow me to give you some context: my mother "became a Christian" very late in her life, it was after her retirement, she was bored and lonely because she was no longer working and her kids were grown up - my father has a very distant relationship with her and he ignores her most of the time. Furthermore, she is so old that she doesn't know how to use technology to access a whole range of entertainment online via social media, so she got incredibly bored. My sister then persuaded her to attend a church service where she was surprised at just how friendly everyone was at the church and so when she was invited to attend another service, she agreed and that was how she started - that doesn't seem that unusual until I point out a number of factors which raises the question: what is a Christian? What do you have to do in order to legitimately claim to be a Christian? Is there a check list of conditions you have to fulfill before you can be a proper Christian? So here's the disclaimer: I was a Christian when I was younger, I am now and atheist but I did spend many years attending church and bible studies at Sunday school and so I know what was expected of me then as a Christian.

I don't have a tactful way to say this: my mother is uneducated and no, she's not one of those people from a poor family who couldn't afford to go to school but if given the chance blah blah blah, she is genuinely quite stupid. Just to give you an example of her stupidity and autism, I once had to make a phone call with a client in Sydney and she happened to be visiting me in London then. She claimed it was impossible to figure out what time it was in Sydney and I had to say to her, "it's called time zones, Sydney is currently nine hours ahead of London. If it is 11 pm in London, then it is 8 am in Sydney. So if it is 10 am in London, what time is it in Sydney?" She just had this blank look on her face as if I had just asked her to translate ancient Greek - the concept of doing simple addition 10 + 9 = 19 and then working out that it is 7 pm in Sydney is beyond her. I think that most 7 year old kids would be able to do sums like 10 + 9 = 19 and understand how there are 24 hours in a day, but that's way too difficult for my mother. Now at this point you may claim, come on Alex, okay so your mother can't do maths but you don't need to be good at maths to become a Christian. You can be a Christian who sucks at maths but it was her attitude that I found troubling. Rather than acknowledging, "okay please tell me what time it is in Sydney now." She assumed that because she didn't know what time it was in Sydney and she didn't know how to work it out, that it was impossible for anyone to know - that's a manifestation of her extreme autism, to see the world entirely from her own point of view which makes her a really bad student. If you want to be a Christian, there's much you need to learn about Christianity - you shouldn't be allowed to get away with massive gaps in your knowledge. 

I can accept that my mother has very low IQ and is (for want of a better word), extremely stupid. That's fine, but what is not okay is her stubbornness to see things from another person's point of view or even acknowledge that someone else might know the answer to questions that she can't answer, such as in the case of the time zones example above. In order to be a good student, you need to accept that your teacher knows more than you and my mother has a problem with that. If I were to ask a question like, "what is the capital city of South Sudan?" The answer is Juba. Rather than try to learn a new fact and ask questions like, "what is the population of Juba? What is the climate like there? What language(s) do they speak in Juba? Are there people there mostly Christian or Muslim?" No, instead she would argue that it is impossible to know facts like that, that nobody could be expected to have such knowledge and that it would be simply unreasonable to expect her that answer such a question. The reason why she reacts like that is because of the Asian concept of 'face' - she believes that she would 'lose face' if she didn't know the answer to the question and be humiliated, but if she argued that the question itself was impossible to answer then she could spare herself that humiliation. That's a slippery slope as it really stops her from learning anything new; she would spend ages defending the indefensible rather than just take a moment to try to learn something new by saying, "please explain to me how time zones work." By that token, she hasn't learnt anything new in decades because of her attitude - so how the hell is she going to learn about her new religion with this kind of attitude? It would be impossible for her to learn anything like that. 

The answer is, no, she doesn't. Having attended that very same church when I was living in Singapore, allow me to explain the rigorous process they subject most of their congregation to. In order to become a fully fledged member of the church, you need to be baptized and in order to qualify for baptism, you need to attend months, even years of bible study classes and demonstrate to the teachers there that you have not fully understood the Christian doctrine but you have also demonstrated your commitment not just to your faith but the church. Those seeking to be baptized have to put in many months, even years of dedicated study to get through this process which will involve difficult exams - the bar is set pretty high and it is seen as a way to test the faith of those seeking to be baptized. Of course, this process will differ from church to church: some churches will set the bar lower to make sure people are not deterred from going through with this process whilst others set that bar a lot higher to test the sincerity, faith and commitment of those seeking to be baptized. Ironically, my mother's church sets that bar very high but it doesn't force everyone who attends to seek baptism. The bible study classes and the baptism process is always there on the table, but it is up to the individual to decide for themselves if and when they are ready to go through with it. Thus for someone like my mother, the thought of subjecting herself to this very difficult learning process and probably failing this exam over and over is too much for her to bear - therefore my mother has not even attempted to begin this long process and is not baptized (and probably will never be).

The word semantics refers to the meaning of words: so for example, if someone claims to be a gymnast then I would expect that person to be a person who not only can perform some gymnastics skills, but I would expect that person to still train regularly. If someone claimed, "I did gymnastics as a child and enjoyed it then, but I'm now 45 years old and have not done that in decades." Then we have to use the past tense to say, "this person was a gymnast." But what if this person never ever did gymnastics at all, but was simply someone who enjoyed watching it on television or on Youtube? Well then, this person is clearly not a gymnast but we can describe them as a "gymnastics fan". Certainly you wouldn't get away with claiming that you're a gymnast if you can't even perform a cartwheel as that's like the most basic gymnastics skill. So that's the first test for my mother: some people would analyze the situation and say that strictly speaking, my mother is not a Christian but merely someone who attends that church on a regular basis because she hasn't been baptized yet. She could become a Christian if she does become baptized but until then, she is at best someone who attends church regularly - the same way someone who watches a lot of gymnastics videos on Youtube is just a gymnastics fan and isn't a gymnast yet, but could become a gymnast if they decide to then follow up by actually attending some gymnastics classes and learning some gymnastics skills. Thus you could say that by attending church quite regularly, my mother could be on her way to becoming a Christian but no, she isn't one yet at this current moment. 

I know it sounds obvious but we expect Muslims to behave like Muslims, that's what defines them as Muslims and by the very same token, we expect Christians to behave like Christians. So the important question is: does my mother behave like a Christian? I don't think so. If she is unwilling to attend the bible study classes to learn about Christianity, how is she going to learn about the rules of Christianity in the first place? What she has done instead is created her own version of her 'religion' by placing herself in the center of her religious belief in a most narcissistic way instead of god, Jesus or the bible. So in her head, there is a god and this god has infinite amount of love for her, she is special, she is favoured, she is loved and cherished by this god. This god forgives all her sins and would conveniently ignore any and every transgression she makes towards her fellow human beings. Allow me to be very clear: my mother is a wicked, cruel and evil person who doesn't really care what the bible has to say about that aspect of her behaviour. My sister used to get a maid to help my elderly parents around the house with chores, but my mother took every opportunity to abuse and beat the maid to the point where we had to say, "that's it, you can't be trusted, you will either have to learn to clear up your own mess or live with the house in a mess because we cannot leave you alone with the maid, you're a fucking psycho bitch when it comes to the maid." My mother would spend an hour screaming her head off at the maid, threatening the maid and then get changed, go to church and pretend to be such a pious Christian there. It is very disturbing indeed. 

In Christianity, there are the ten commandments to begin with and then there are so many other laws and rules to follow from the bible - my mother has never ever read the bible. Like even if she opened the bible at page one and tried reading it from Genesis, an uneducated woman like her simply cannot understand the bible. The only way for her to learn about the bible is to attend the classes aimed at very young children and ironically, the church has a great Sunday school programme for young children and they would break down the complex concepts in a way the children can understand. But of course, my mother would never want to attend such a class because she is terrified of 'losing face', she would never admit to anyone at church, "I don't understand what the pastor said, can you explain it to me please?" No, she would rather live in ignorance than ask for help. The irony is that the church is such a friendly place with kind people, I don't think any of the people there would judge her or call her stupid if she asked for help like that. They would probably take great joy in helping my mother out, but my mother is so Asian in her mindset, that she worries that people would look down on her or judge her if she dared to ask for help. At that church, there are a few older 'aunties' who have been attending that church for decades, they have had a lifetime's experience with studying the bible and my mother probably looks a lot like them given that she is the same age, but the massive difference is that these aunties have plenty of knowledge of the religion whilst my mother knows very little and most of the time, she is making it up as she goes along.

Let's create a hypothetical situation where my mother is visiting a country which insists on all tourists paying US$800 for a visa, but if you're a Christian, you get a visa waiver and you don't need to pay for a visa. So my mother turns up at the airport and claims, "hello I am a Christian and so I am entitled to a visa waiver." The customs officer at the airport says, "yeah, everyone claims that because nobody wants to pay $800 for a visa to enter our country, so I am going to make you take a test on the bible - if you can score at least 80% on the test then I believe you are a Christian. The test isn't difficult, if you do attend church regularly and have been paying attention, you will have no problems passing it." Would my mother score 80% on the test? No way, even if that was a relatively easy test, I'd be amazed if my mother could score 20% on it given that she knows nothing about Christianity despite attending church week after week for years. After all, nobody in the church is going to pull her aside and say, "you really don't know what the hell is going on do you? You sit there as if you're listening but you're daydreaming all the time and you are just looking forward to the fellowship where you can eat some nice food. We're going to subject you to a bible knowledge exam every week and if you fail more than once a month, we shall ban you from our church!" Nah, they are so nice at that church, like even if they realize that my mother is this sad, lonely old woman who comes to church because she has no friends but doesn't understand what the hell is going on, they are going to react with compassion rather than insist that she attends bible study classes on a regular basis to learn the basic principles about the religion. The people at that church simply put up with my mother. 

There was the curious case of a social media influencer called Oli London who 'came out as Korean' in 2021 causing huge controversy - he is a white British guy who underwent a lot of expensive plastic surgery to look Korean and of course, it was the kind of controversial issue that provoked a massive reaction online and Oli got exactly what he wanted: attention. Most people pointed out that whilst his plastic surgery has given him a more Korean looking face, his ability to speak the Korean language was very limited and he has only spent one year in South Korea teaching English. He doesn't live in South Korea, he doesn't have South Korean nationality. Basically everyone on the internet was lining up to point out how there was no way Oli could be Korean because he simply wasn't Korean enough; many pointed out that long term resident expatriates in South Korea were a lot more Korean than him in many ways as they have mastered the Korean language to a higher standard and had a far more profound understanding of Korean culture than Oli. By that token, Oli could become more Korean by studying Korean language and culture to silence his critics the same way my mother certainly could become more Christian by actually attending bible study classes and making a far greater effort to live her life according to Christian principles. When does it outright become fraud then? I once encountered a man who lied on his CV: he claimed to have worked for a bank in Frankfurt, but when I contacted the bank to verify that, they had never ever heard of him and so he then changed his tune and claimed that he did an internship there but his mentor there had left the company and retired. At what point do we say, "stop it, you are clearly making false claims. It's all lies." 

Let's put this to a test to see how far you're willing to tolerate someone's false claim: meet Terri who claims, "I'm a model." That statement would give you the impression that Terri actually makes a living as a model, that it is her career, her job, her profession - that she makes a living by participating in fashion shows and starring in advertising campaigns where she does what models do, that she is being paid good money to use her looks to promote a certain brand. But what if we find out that Terri has never ever set foot on a catwalk before, nor has she ever been in an advertisement before - in fact, she admits that nobody has ever paid her to be photographed before. So you ask her, what kind of modeling do you actually do then Terri? She claims it's all online stuff for the internet. Then you take a look at her 'work' on the internet, it turns out that she has been taking selfies and posting them on her Instagram account, some of those posts have no likes at all and she has very few followers on her account. You then find out that in order to pay the bills, she is a primary school teacher. So when you question her how taking selfies qualifies her as a 'model' when really, most people would view her as a teacher as that's where she works full time. Terri claims, "I hate being a teacher, the job is terrible, the kids are impossible to control and the pay is crap. But when I put on beautiful clothes and take my selfies for Instagram, I feel so happy, I feel like a super model and so I prefer to identify as a model rather than a teacher as it is my dream to work as a model." At what stage do we draw the line and say, "Terri you're not a model, you're a school teacher who hates her job. You wish you were a model but you're not. You are making a fool of yourself by claiming to be one." 

But allow me to use a different example from that church to argue a different point of view. When I attended that church a long time ago in Singapore, there was this disabled boy - we'll call him Joe (not his real name). During a complicated birth, Joe's brain was very starved of oxygen. The doctors managed to save his life but he became severely disabled as a result of the damage done to his brain. Not only was Joe severely mentally handicapped, he didn't even have the power of speech. Joe's mother was a member of that church and would regularly attend with Joe; the congregation was extremely supportive and welcomed them with open arms. Joe was always treated with so much love, kindness and compassion; we all knew what a hard time his mother had taking care of Joe. For Joe's mother, going to church was a break from her daily grind of having to do everything for Joe. She could count on the other adults at the church to fuss over Joe and take good care of him whilst her friends there would focus on her, "how are you doing? Is there anything we can do to help you this week? Do you need us to take Joe to a medical appointment or therapy?" There was never any suggestion that just because Joe was so disabled, that he couldn't be saved, that salvation wasn't for people like him because he could not intellectually process the concept of salvation according to the Christian doctrine. No, instead it was taken for granted that someone like Joe would be given a 'waiver' on that front because of his medical condition and baptized into the church (and that did happen). And of course, that would seem like a reasonable thing to do for Joe since it wasn't his fault that he can't do bible study classes, due to the damage that has been done to his brain at birth. 

So in Joe's case, it was very straightforward but what about someone like my mother whose IQ is low (not as low as Joe obviously but a lot lower than the average), is uneducated and on top of all that is autistic? Can we place her in the same category as Joe then and offer her a "bible study waiver"? What about the millions of Christians in impoverished third-world countries like Bolivia, the Philippines and Zimbabwe who call themselves Christians, attend church regularly but because they are so poor, are completely uneducated and thus are unable to make any sense of a bible study class? What if they were so poor, they are completely illiterate or barely able to read, so they are not even in a position to pick up the bible and read it. Without even basic education, their understanding of religion would be very shallow but you could argue, it's not their fault that these people were born into abject poverty and denied the chance to have an education, so if a Christian god is merciful and compassionate, then surely such unfortunate people who were unlucky enough to be born into abject poverty should be given a "bible study waiver" by the same token? What if there was a very poor person who works seven days a week to support his extended family but wants to become a Christian? Does this person get a "bible study waiver" because of his poverty? I don't think there's a clear answer as to where one draws the line as to when somebody would get a waiver and when you put your foot down and say, "no, you don't get a waiver, just attend some bible study classes for half a year. You might actually like these bible study sessions, otherwise what's the point of being a Christian, if you don't even wanna learn about your god?" So, let's look at these four case studies.

Case 1 Joe: We've already talked about Joe - he is mentally handicapped because of a traumatic birth during which his brain was starved of oxygen causing extensive damage. He doesn't have the power of speech and will be totally reliant on his mother to care for him for the rest of his life. His mother brings him to church regularly and both the pastor and the congregation are more than happy to welcome Joe at the church. So does Joe get a "bible study waiver" then? 

Case 2 Maria: Maria is born in a remote village in Peru near the border with Brazil in the Amazon rain forest. Her family as very poor and there isn't a school in the village near where she lives, thus Maria is illiterate. One day, some missionaries come to Maria's village and they tell her about Jesus. Maria is intrigued by these missionaries as they don't get many outsiders visiting her village, so out of curiosity, Maria is very receptive to what they have to say. The missionaries realize that they are dealing with a woman who is completely uneducated but still want to try to tell her the gospel - despite the best efforts by the most experienced missionaries, they are really struggling to communicate with her as she has never set foot in a classroom in her life before. So does Maria get a "bible study waiver" from you then?

Case 3 Pedro: Pedro is a jeepney driver in Naga, Philippines - he has three children and elderly parents to support, so he works long hours seven days a week. One day, he drops off a group of missionaries at a church and they invite him in for a meal. During the meal, they share the gospel with him and invite him to come for their Sunday service. Pedro says he likes the idea of going to church and he thinks that the missionaries are very kind people, but he has to work every Sunday and has no time for church. He explained that his family are not just very poor but are in debt, that's why he has to work day and night to make ends meet - even when he is sick, he cannot afford to take a day off that's why he simply does not have any time to go to church. Pedro asks the Christian missionaries for the equivalent of a "bible study waiver" because of his dire poverty situation and very long working hours. So does Pedro get a "bible study waiver" then? 

Case 4 my mother: My mother is a woman in her late 70s in Singapore. She started attending church late in her life but finds the sermon impossible to understand as she is uneducated; furthermore, there is a real language barrier as English is not her first language and the church doesn't offer any services in her native language Hokkien. She is too embarrassed to admit that she doesn't understand the sermon in English but enjoys being treated with kindness by the congregation there, so she keeps coming back Sunday after Sunday. However, despite attending church for years, she has no idea what it means to be Christian, has no understanding or concept of the gospel or salvation - so she claims to be a Christian but what she has really done was invent her own simplified religion with her at the center of it, with her god loving her, blessing her and condoning everything she does and as it is her own religion, she gets to make up all her own rules without actually caring what the bible says. It is a form of religion of sorts, but it certainly isn't Christianity as we know it; does she get a "bible study waiver" on the basis of her age and the fact that she is really quite uneducated? 

I think the only consensus amongst Christians would be that for the case of Joe, yes he definitely gets the "bible study waiver" but the opinions will be rather mixed as to whether this privilege ought to be extended to Maria, Pedro and my mother. I think a lot of Christians will simply say, "in this case, only god can judge so I what I think doesn't matter, I won't judge any of these people." In any case, whether or not you wish to consider someone a part of your religion is subject to your own agenda: so a person who wishes to feel holier than thou would look upon someone like my mother quite disparagingly to say, "look at that woman, she is a disgrace. She doesn't regularly attend bible study classes like me, so she isn't as pious as me, I'm a much better Christian than she is." Whereas someone who is desperate to grow the congregation at my mother's church will gladly include her in the statistics as a Christian and church member just to be able to say, "look at our figures - from this time in 2020 to 2022, we have grown our congregation by 8.6% despite the pandemic in this period and our church is growing from strength to strength thanks to the efforts of my team!" I refuse to accept that my mother's claim to be a Christian as a valid one because I have met plenty of real Christians who do fulfill many of the criteria that Christians are expected to fulfill and my mother's behaviour falls well short of what is expected of a good Christian and whilst she is undoubtedly a stupid and old woman, I don't think she is so stupid that she qualifies to get a 'bible study waiver'. So where does this leave us - how do we define her awkward relationship to her religion then? 

We live in a world where we get to define whom we are - it's a double edged sword. I'm constantly being asked whether I identify as he/him and I have the option of identifying as she/her or even they/them despite the fact that I'm biologically a man, an anatomically complete grown man at all but hey, society is now willing to ignore my genitalia and allow me to choose my own gender identity. Some people will be more liberal by that token and say, if your mother wants to identify as a Christian then that's what she is - it is her identity and she's in control of that, you may judge her as a good or a bad Christian based on her actions and behaviour but she still gets to call herself a Christian. That's when I roll my eyes and think, "yeah, by that token, I am now self-identifying as a unicorn because I'm as similar to a uniform as my mother is to a real Christian but if you're allowing us to pick our own identities then I'm a fucking unicorn as unicorns are so awesome. I love unicorns." So there you go, that's it from me on this topic then. What do you think? Would you consider me a Christian if I simply declared 'I am a Christian' or would you verify that claim to see if I actually knew anything about the bible, salvation and understood basic Christian doctrine? What is your definition of a Christian? Would you consider my mother a Christian or not? Or is religion something so personal and complex that you simply back off and avoid judging people altogether, or do we get to apply the basic rules of semantics in this case and judge people reasonably so it all makes sense before we all get to self-identify as unicorns? Do leave a comment below please, many thanks for reading.