"Many who had already come close on the way to believing are frightened away by the bad lives of evil and false Christians. How many, my brothers, do you think there are who want to become Christians but are put off by the evil ways of Christians?"
Saint Augustine
To me a Christian is either a man who lives in Christ or a phony. You Christians do not appreciate that it is on this - the almost external testimony that you give of God - that we judge you. You ought to radiate Christ. Your faith ought to flow out to us like a river of life. You ought to infect us with a love for him. It is then that God who was impossible becomes possible for the atheist and for those of us whose faith is wavering. We cannot help being struck, upset, and confused by a Christian who is truly Christlike. And we do not forgive him when he fails to be.
Graduate student at the University of Paris
"The great mark of a Christian is what no other characteristic can replace, namely the example of a life which can only be explained in terms of God."
Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard
And now from me:
Some people believe being born in America makes one a Christian. Some people believe that if one is not a Muslim then one is a Christian. In some countries parents have to choose to put either Muslim or Christian on their baby's birth certificate, as if that decides it. Some people believe that going to church makes one a Christian. I have a friend that is a practicing pagan and she knows better than that. She knows that it is an acceptance, a commitment, a giving over oneself to Christ that makes you a Christian. And yet there are so many "Christians" doing nothing Christ-like, doing no following except being what they consider "good and moral". There is so much more to it than that! There is so much more joy, so much more peace, so much more...
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