Am I a Christian?

I read with interest Tim Keller's conversation with Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. Every time Christianity appears in the Times, most of us pastors pay attention to how we are being portrayed.

I got what I expected from Keller. It's the Keller formula: be generally winsome, quote a philosopher to impress the smart people in the room, evade the hard questions, and revert in the end to a brutal theological orthodoxy.* In this case, Keller told Kristof he was "outside" the bounds of Christianity if he didn't believe in the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Bleh.

Brian McLaren has offered a lovely response on his own website, suggesting that his main point of departure from Keller is with the idea that the boundary line of Christian identity is one that can be defined by belief. McLaren says that Christianity cares less about its peripheral boundaries and more about its essential core--what is at the heart of the faith. And this leads to McLaren's most powerful statement: Christianity is not exclusively (or fundamentally) about Jesus' saving death on the cross and Christ's atoning work.

Instead, McLaren offers this set of questions for reflection upon one's Christian identity:

Do you love the least of these - the poor, the prisoner, the sick, the outsider, the outcast, the enemy?
Which do you love more - the earth as God's creation or money that can be made from exploiting the earth?
Would you rather be known for defeating, humiliating, or destroying your enemies or making peace with them, so they become neighbors and friends?
Do you just want to use correct words about me, or do you want to follow my example and live my teachings?
Is love - for God, self, neighbor, other, enemy, and the earth - your highest aim and deepest desire?

These questions point to a far better definition of Christian identity: a person whose loves reflect the love of Jesus. Christianity is about the ordering of love, the shape of one's desire.

Christianity is a process of becoming, not a fixed identity or destination. It is a life of examining--sometimes confronting--what and who and how it is that we love. How is our love shaped, day by day, by a relationship with the One who loves us? The crucifixion is not the cornerstone in an architecture of belief, but evidence of the limitless depth of Christ's love, and of Jesus' solidarity with us in the brutal suffering of this human existence. The crucifixion offers help in facing every hardship, even and especially our own death, with courage and faith. The cross is essential to Christian identity, but as a part of the whole picture of God's love in Jesus. If your faith needs a single cornerstone, let it be the resurrection of Christ--the ultimate vindication of the power of love.
* - Credit for defining this formula goes to my co-pastor and wife, who used to attend his church.