Instant Christian!

Over the centuries, the business of becoming a Christian has been made ludicrously complex and difficult - compared with the examples portrayed in various parts of the New Testament. 

There are - apparently - several instances of people becoming "instant Christians" in the Gospels. Jesus meets somebody, has a short conversation, that person makes a decision - and he or she becomes "a Christian" - spiritually, a follower of Jesus. 

Even in the descriptions of Acts of the Apostles, after the ascension of Jesus, when baptism seems to have been inserted as an extra requirement - there is the (implicitly permanent and transformative) conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the course of a single conversation. 

There are clear, simple, and apparently obvious lessons from this we ought to learn, concerning what is - and what is Not - necessary to be a Christian. 

To be a Christian, you don't need a priest, don't need a church, don't need to know the Bible. 

Do not need to do anything in particular - do not need to be baptised, nor perform any sacrament, nor subsequently follow a specific life-path (indeed, it is implied that Jesus's followers included continuing "sinners" - i.e. those regarded by the Jewish Law as beyond the pale). 

We do not need to adhere to any specific metaphysical doctrine (such as The Trinity, or regarding the nature of God). We do not need to affirm any particular philosophy 

There is no requirement to be a particular kind of person, not a Jew, nor to know anything at all about Judaism - such as the Old Testament books, commandments, laws, rules of living. 

The simple inference from the actual "conversions" seems to be that anyone can become a Christian by wanting what Jesus makes possible, and by the commitment to follow Jesus to attain it. 

This primary requirement is, indeed, the only necessity - but it is also a thing, the nature of which is not obvious to our modern minds. 

We do not grasp what it means to follow Jesus - and in trying to articulate this, we are often led into vast needless complexity and spurious difficulty. 

This means that we need to set-aside the truly vast weight of accumulations that by-now hems-in the idea of being-a-Christian. 

But it also means that, in setting aside the colossal superstructure of the unnecessary, distracting, and inverted; we do the work of thinking and discernment for ourselves. 

When we (rightly) reject the authority of "other people" and of institutions to dictate our salvation and mortal destiny; we must instead do the work ourselves - otherwise we will not truly have set-aside the needless, but will simply become manipulated by a different (and probably worse) set of external authorities...

As when apostate Christians, who reject the authority of their church/ theology/ tradition - instead, and typically, become servile Leftist-materialist socio-political activists. They merely switch their unthinking-obedience from their church, to the totalitarian demonic agenda.  

This matter of following Jesus is therefore a thing we each need to work-out for ourselves. 

But work-out in a way that recognizes the true answer needs to be recognized as clear, simple and obvious... 

Such that its meaning can be conveyed sufficiently in the course of a single, brief conversation with a stranger.