Religion: What Is a Christian?

The question before the court in Iowa's Black Hawk County Courthouse last week was tough to answer: What is a Christian? On the answer depended $75,000.

It had never occurred to Ophthalmologist William B. Small of Waterloo, Iowa, a prominent Methodist layman, that the answer might be difficult. When he died in 1939, his will directed that the income from $75,000 of his estate should be distributed "to persons who believe in the fundamental principles of the Christian religion and in the Bible and who are endeavoring to promulgate same." When his wife died in 1949, ten nephews and nieces sued to...

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