…in 1500 to be Christian was relatively simple: one had to be baptized. To be a Christian in good standing in the eyes of the Church, one was also required to confess, do penance, and take communion once a year. Nothing more. – Lee Palmer Wandel (The Reformation: Towards a New History).
What strikes me as remarkable is that these days people consider themselves ‘good Christians’ without even those 16th century requirements needing to be met. Today, folk are ‘good Christians’ if they went to church when they were 5 and haven’t been back in the 60 or so intervening years.
When Christianity has lowered the bar to the meaning of the faith to the lowest possible level it’s hardly surprising that so many call themselves Christians and so few act like it.
Zwinglius Redivivus 