Is she a Christian?

I know a lady who grew up in a Christian home, but it wasn’t until her early twenties that Christ became real for her. She points to a meeting at her church as the time she became a Christian, and since then, though she knows she could do better, she has lived out her Christianity with sincerity and integrity of heart.

Today, when she’s at work and she’s stressed out or annoyed at someone or something, she prays while she works, “I’m doing this for You, Lord. This is for Your glory,” and the results show it. She treats everyone with incredible grace and her prayers have to be some of the more beautiful prayers I have heard. She is, quite simply, a fantastic example of genuine Christian living.

Now, the problem. For fifteen years she lived with a man and had his children and only got married to him four years ago.

Does this negate her claim to Christianity?

I don’t think so.

For a start, I don’t know what knowledge she had growing up. She comes from a culturally Christian society, but whether Christian morals were taken seriously, I don’t know.

Secondly, she was not promiscuous but stayed with the one man. In essence she was married in all but name. Should she have been married before they lived together? Yes, I think so, but I don’t think failure in this negates her Christianity.

Thirdly, though it may surprise people, I don’t think those sort of sins are as Biblically heinous as we evangelical Christians often make out. Yes, there is a right way about marriage, but I don’t think getting it wrong sets you outside the family of God. Look at Mordecia, a righteous man who married encouraged his cousin to marry a foreign king (against the Mosaic Law) and Esther, a righteous woman who willingly married a foreign man with many wives and concubines.

I am in no way condoning living with someone outside of marriage, but I am saying that it is not necessarily evidence of a lack of Christian faith, or a lack of Christian character. Is the crass materialism of so many Christians in the West necessarily evidence that their faith is not genuine? Is the blatant racism of Christians in South Africa and the Southern States of America necessarily evidence that there is/was no genuine faith? Just what is the evidence of genuine Christian faith?

I think Jesus in a person’s life is the telling factor. Do they confess that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 4:15)? Do they have the Spirit of Jesus in their life (1 John 4:13)? Do they act from the love of Jesus (1 John 4:7)? Then whether they are living with someone outside of marriage, throwing stones at people of another race, ignoring the poor by feathering their nest, even refusing to believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God – the evidence is that their Christianity is genuine.