Hate to answer a question with a question, but is ANYONE who claims to be Christian really a Christian?
A fair question really. Let's look at what the leading expert on who is a follower of Jesus (you know, Jesus himself) says about who is really a follower of Jesus.
Mark 16:17-18 "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Well, there certainly are snake handling churches, which are notable for the fact that many of their participants are scarred for life or have died as a result of being bitten by poisonous snakes. I have yet to see anyone actually cast out a "devil". Though there are, and have been cases of people speaking a language they did not previously know, or speaking in an apparently unknown (as in, made up) language, there is no actual evidence to demonstrate that such phenomena are the result of divine interaction. Maybe they are a closet Tolkien fan and are just babbling on in Quenya, which most people are not familiar with. At any rate, there is no evidence or reason to say that "God did it", especially since the phenomena does not seem to be limited to Christians. Furthermore, I have yet to meet anyone who could drink Drano, gasoline, or mercury without suffering rather severe consequences, including but not limited to, death. Finally, there is no evidence of Christians going around healing people by laying their hands on them. If they really possessed this ability, they would not need health insurance or go to the doctor. Children of so called faith healers often die of easily treatable conditions, in spite of their faith and laying on of hands. So, according to Jesus via Mark, there are no true Christians.
But why stop there? There are other means by which Jesus tells us that we can identify his genuine followers.
Luke 10:19 "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you."
Seeing as there are not any invincible Christian superheroes with a big J emblazoned on a pair of tights, and that those identifying as Christians seem no less likely to be injured than non Christians, then again, according to Jesus, this time via Luke, there are no true Christians present, nor have there ever been.
But let's get yet another example, shall we?
John 14:12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
Two separate claims are made here. The first is that the true, real, honest to God followers of Jesus will, according to Jesus, be able to do all of the miracles that Jesus could do. Jesus is alleged to have walked on water, turned water into wine, fed thousands of people with a few McFish value meals, made blind people see, crippled people walk, and raised people from the dead. There are no documented or confirmed cases of any Christians doing these things.
The second claim is that Jesus' followers will be able to do
even greater things than these. Since Jesus brought dead people back to life, Christians should be able to do things even more impressive than that, like, I don't know, maybe restore a missing limb to an amputee? Nope, doesn't happen. Or maybe they would be able not die in the first place? That would certainly be more impressive than bringing a formerly dead person back to life. And it would have to be something that would DEFINITELY kill them, like being put through a wood chipper. Yet for whatever reason, in spite of their faith and in spite of Jesus promises, we don't see Christians lining up to be ground into hamburger meat. So, yet again, according to Jesus there are no true Christians.
Let's go to the fourth gospel writer and see what we find there.
Matthew 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
So here we have Jesus, who again, is presumably an authority on who his real followers are, saying that those who really believe in him will be able to move mountains, and that
nothing will be impossible to them. They should be able to fly like Superman, be bullet proof like Superman, should be able to stand at ground zero of a nuclear explosion and remain entirely unharmed, ought to be able to throw a baseball from here to the moon, should be able to time travel, should be able to lie on train tracks and get squashed and ripped to pieces, and then get up again, healthy and whole and unharmed. Since none of these things are ever done by those claiming to be Christians, and they don't even seem to claim that they can do such impossible things, one can safely conclude that, per Jesus himself, there are not
any real Christians.
So in answer to your question, according to Jesus himself, none of those claiming to be Christians really are Christians. Note however that they very often claim to have a personal relationship from God and receive instructions or advice or messages from him. In other words, they are in fact claiming to be prophets, but are obviously false prophets, who, according to the Bible, are to be killed and often bring their destruction upon themselves.
Seriously, do people even take the time to read and think about this stuff? Sounds like a horrible system to me, and one which contains nothing at all resembling morality or ethical (or even desirable) behavior.
