Christian
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A Christian is defined to be a person who either (1) professes to be a disciple or follower of Jesus Christ or a member of a Christian church or (2) is an affiliated member of a Christian church (e.g. has fulfilled the membership requirements). This is a fairly broad definition which encompasses within it all the various traditions, denominations, and interdenominational associations of Christianity.
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[edit] Categorizing Christians
[edit] Profession
In Romans 10:9, the Apostle Paul wrote, "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (NASB). Profession of faith is therefore a very important part of identifying Christians. Many countries either have public opinion polls in which they ask for a person's religion, or the question is included on a government census. In some countries (mainly those with voluntary polling) such questions have less importance than they do in more restrictive countries where to declare Christianity as one's religion on a government census can lead to persecution of various levels.
Thus, when confronted with the question of whether one is a Christian or not, there may be really only two responses: either a public confession or an avoidance of a public confession (e.g. avoiding the question, lying, not responding, etc). After all, Paul didn't say you had to confess to everyone: you could confess your faith to close family and friends but not respond to a government survey. Thus we can have two categories of people: "professing" and "secret believers" (also sometimes called non-professing or Crypto-Christians).
[edit] Affiliated
Just as confession is an important part of faith, so is affiliation with other believers. Jesus said, "They will know you are my followers by the love you have for one another." Several times Jesus taught his followers to serve each other, and He instituted several sacraments to bind his followers together, including particularly the Lord's Supper.
Affiliation is the act of becoming a member of a church. In most cases this requires a certain level of teaching or discipleship coupled with baptism. In some churches young infants are counted as members; in others, they have to be of a certain age. So, on the question of affiliation, we can have two possible situations: affiliated or unaffiliated.
[edit] Identifying a total number of Christians
The total number of Christians is usually an "educated estimate" based on the numbers identified by both through church rolls and through professions on secular polling instruments. Once a total number of Christians is identified, then it is easy to identify the number of secret believers and unaffiliated believers:
- Secret Believers = Total Believers - Professing. If Professing Believers = Total Believers then there will be no or very few Crypto-Christians.
- Unaffiliated Believers = Total Believers - Affiliated Believers. These are people who profess to be Christians on a public opinion poll or government survey, yet are not members of a church. It could be that they are only nominal believers, or they may be unable to attend a church (disabled), or any one of a number of reasons.
