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The Need to be Outside Christianity

January 26th, 2017 | 1 min read

By Jake Meador

Vanauken:

Davy and I, we later decided, were immeasurably helped in our serious look at Christianity by where we considered ourselves to be: we did not at all suppose that we were Christians, just because we were more or less nice people who vaguely believed there might be some sort of a god and had been inside a church. We were right outside of the fold. Thus we were perfectly aware that the central claim of Christianity was and always had been that the same God who made the world had lived in the world and been killed by the world; and that the (claimed) proof of this was His Resurrection from the dead. This, in fact, was precisely what we, so far at least, did not believe. But we knew that it was what had to be believed if we were to call ourselves Christian. Consequently, we did not call ourselves Christian.

Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).