Christianity — Defined, Not Marketed
The New World Dictionary of American English, Third College Edition, defines Christianity with a simplicity that should shine light on the modern religious world:
Christianity: the state of being a Christian.
Not an institution.
Not a legal status.
Not a cultural membership.
A state of being.
That definition alone exposes the confusion at the heart of modern legal orginized religious groups—a system that operates comfortably inside the same secular, legal framework it claims to transcend.
There are two realms at work in the world, and they are not the same.
The secular state, ordained by God for order, operates over legal, birth-registered persons—administrative identities created for taxation, travel, licensing, and economic regulation. This realm governs activity, not conscience. It manages records, not souls.
That system does not govern the man or woman a living soul created by God.
It governs what it registered.
Jesus never disputed the existence of civil authority.
He refused its ownership over the soul.
To follow Christ—to be His disciple—requires crossing a threshold. Not of paperwork, but of allegiance. Not partial alignment, but decision.
Christ did not offer a hybrid identity.
He said plainly: all or nothing.
A man or woman cannot serve God while remaining inwardly bound as a consenting agent of a secular legal construct. That is not persecution—it is contradiction.
The Apostle Paul stated it without ceremony:
“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.”
— Galatians 6:3
A legal person is a something—an administrative thing, a created instrument of law.
A man or woman is not a thing.
They are a living soul.
One is animated by record.
The other by the breath of God.
A true disciple must choose which identity he will serve.
Either:
a man or woman, created by God, living in the world but not of it,
or:
a legal person (human, citizen), an artificial construct, operating fully within the secular system as an implied agent.
This choice is not forced.
It is elective.
It is a decision of conscience, mind, and heart.
And like all real separations, it is not casual.
Divorce—of any kind—requires a hearing.
A line must be drawn.
A judgment must be rendered.
Christianity is not rebellion.
It is clarity.
It is knowing who you are—and refusing to pretend otherwise.