Voter-registration card Christian

Hi, I'm Andrée. I am a recovering voter-registration card Christian. A voter-registration card Christian (henceforth "VRCC") is a person who had a conversion experience once and still lives off it. She slipped her membership card into the wallet near her license, VISA, and Sam's Club ID, and hasn't looked at it in decades.

It needn't have been a dramatic conversion. There are VRCCs who were raised in the Mother Church, and that is their membership card. It is important to understand that no one ever puts it so crassly. You will not find a man who says he is trusting for his salvation in his 1974 epiphany at Francis Schaeffer's Swiss L'Abri, or in his Christian upbringing. The man will say (if you put him on the doctrinal hot seat) that he is "trusting in Christ."

Old Testament VRCCs are described in Jeremiah 7: "Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.' We New Testament Christians are appalled at such obtuseness, not knowing that God looks at us and says "the bell tolls for thee."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns: "We … have gathered like eagles round the carcass of cheap grace, and there we have drunk of the poison which has killed the life of following Christ … we have paid the doctrine of pure grace divine honors. … Everywhere Luther's formula has been repeated, but its truth perverted into self-deception" (The Cost of Discipleship).

My recovery takes the form of moment-by-moment reality check. The Word says, "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves" (2 Corinthians 13:5). When I do that, and find fear or covetousness, I know I have slipped out of faith and into voter-registration card mode. And I fight to get back into authentic faith.