Last week, when I read that the actor Zachary Levi had called himself “Christian adjacent,” the news struck a chord. “I still subscribe to much of the truth and wisdom contained within Biblical scriptures,” he wrote on X, “but my faith and beliefs differ from mainstream Christianity.” I, too, was Christian adjacent for a large span of my life. That period ended in 2021 when I committed my life to Christ and was baptized. I was Christian adjacent many more years than I’ve been Christian.

Levi’s comment on X elicited sympathy, curiosity, but also several rebukes. “Sorry, Zachary,” one writer replied, “but God doesn’t call people to almost be a follower of Christ. Either you are or you aren’t.”

I had mixed feelings about this comment. On the one hand, it speaks to the delusion of some who embrace a watered-down version of Christian belief, who embrace God’s love and forgiveness but shy away from the hard parts of the gospel. On the other hand, “Either you are or you aren’t” misses the obvious point that many believers (myself included) didn’t just wake up one morning and accept Jesus as Lord. We followed a path that led us gradually nearer to Him. At some point in that journey, it would seem fair to describe us as Christian adjacent. Jesus Himself recognized such a state when He replied to the wise scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34), even though the scribe did not know who He was or what He had come for. Even Samuel, who had grown up in the house of the Lord, did not know His voice when He called him (1 Samuel 3:4-6), but God still used him to further His purposes.

I’m not strongly convicted about whether Levi falls into the delusional category or whether he, like Samuel, is drawing closer to God. I haven’t been able to find a more detailed account of which Biblical truths he subscribes to and which he rejects, how he defines mainstream Christianity, and what aspects of it he accepts or rejects. I am puzzled, however, about why someone would accept some of the Bible but not all of it. Jesus said He is God. If you think that’s true, why would you doubt anything else that He said? If He’s wrong, then you have to throw out the entire New Testament. In a case of this kind, “either you are or you aren’t” seems well founded.

By contrast, consider the case of Matthew Rubinstein, who in this article on a Reformation website describes himself as “Christ-adjacent” prior to accepting Christ later in life. Though his Lutheran mother was unchurched and his Jewish father had “stepped away from religious practice,” his upbringing prepared him to see Christ “as the fulfillment of the long arc of the Jewish stories.” Bible stories in a Christian day care and music and liturgy at an Episcopal high school likewise attuned him to Christian tradition. In 2019, hearing Johnny Cash reading the New Testament awakened in him a hunger for Christ. Through the confluence of these apparently random influences, he was drawn toward the gospel, inaugurating a stage of his life in which he describes himself as “Christ-abiding.”

Though he doesn’t say so explicitly, it seems clear that Rubinstein considers himself a Christian now, but was not in the period when he was “Christ adjacent.” From Rubinstein’s account, it appears that unbelievers become Christian adjacent as a result of contacts with Christian believers, traditions, and worship. Through these contacts, an affinity develops that, at least in Rubinstein’s case, led eventually Christ.

The few dates he includes don’t allow us to calculate the exact length of this journey. It extended from approximately age 4 to some time in adulthood. Rubinstein evidently considered himself to be Christian adjacent for at least a couple of decades. My own trajectory was nearly three times as long: from age 13, when I was first exposed to the gospel, to age 72 when I was baptized. Was I Christian adjacent for all that time, or only part of it? Would I have known this at the time or only in retrospect? And what is the significance of anyone’s status as Christian adjacent for actual Christian believers?

To answer this question, we need to explore what Levi and Rubinstein mean by Christian adjacent. Both were exposed to Christian beliefs in childhood: Levi through his mother, Rubinstein in a Christian preschool.

For both men, this early exposure led to an affinity for spiritual things in adulthood. Levi sees the world as “very broken.” He leans on faith. Life based just on one’s own understanding would be intolerable. As an actor, he seeks roles that highlight Biblical virtues such as gratitude, humility, and trust. Rubinstein felt a hunger which he tried to satisfy through sermons, theology podcasts, and scripture. He realized that he had “drastically underestimated the depth and vitality of the Christian intellectual tradition” and sought to move closer to God to fill this gap.

If we take these men at their word, their spiritual hunger led them eventually to Christ. A 2026 Crosswalk article reports that Levi now considers himself Christian, apparently having dropped the qualifier “adjacent.” Rubinstein describes himself now as “Christ abiding,” echoing Jesus’ parable of the vine: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

Taken together, these two accounts offer a reasonably coherent account of what it means to be Christian adjacent. Early encounters with Christians create an interest and affinity which lead to spiritual yearning, which in turn leads to acceptance of Christ’s saving forgiveness.

This sequence occurs over a fairly long period of time. Is there any particular moment at which it can be said to begin? Both Levi and Rubinstein trace their trajectory back to childhood. It is that first encounter with the gospel through scripture, worship, preaching, or witness that sets the stage for the spiritual yearning. For these two men, at least, that is the starting point for Christian adjacency. Its end point is surrender to Christ. When you become a Christian, it makes no sense to continue to call yourself Christian adjacent.

Now that we know that being Christian adjacent leads people to Christ, can we discern from the stories of Levi and Rubinstein how it got them there? From a Christian perspective, we know God plays the principal role, calling people to himself as scripture attests. God’s sovereignty, however, need not preclude him using believers to draw someone toward him—or even unbelievers, if their negative witness would somehow further the cause.

For Rubinstein, the staff of the Christian day care and teachers at the Episcopal high school created the initial impression which were eventually amplified by the woman who was to become his wife, a professed Christian. But it was not till years later, when he heard Johnny Cash reading the gospel, that he felt the spiritual hunger that led him to sermons, theological podcasts, and scripture, and ultimately to an evangelical church. All of the people played their part in pointing him along the God-ordained journey they themselves couldn’t foresee. By God’s grace, their faithful witness led him in the direction he needed to go.

As Levi describes in his 2022 memoir Radical Love, his mother and father presided over the start of his journey. Though their marriage was deeply dysfunctional, his parents were both people of faith. As a child he was hardly ever taken to church, but he was surrounded by various stripes of Christian believers. His mother, which had been active in the Jesus freak movement of the 1970’s, grew disillusioned with church, but maintained a group of like-minded friends who regularly worshiped and studied the Bible together in each other’s houses.

All through his life, Levi was convinced God watched over him, but his parents’ divorce, his father’s absence, and his mother’s abusive behavior robbed him of the emotional security that would have allowed him to seek God in earnest. At a moment of crisis in his mid-30’s, he checked into a mental health facility. There he met Beth, a pastor’s wife, who was assigned to his daily care. Her peaceful, empathetic presence encouraged him to share the story of his tumultuous upbringing. He didn’t know at the time what he later realized,

that this kind and gentle woman sitting across the breakfast table from me would be the one to bring me back from the abyss, that God would use her to help save my life—that she was, without question, an angel sent from heaven. (p. 67)

Through her selfless presence, and with the support of therapy and medication, he regained mental stability. “Adjacent” no longer, he now considers himself Christian.

For Levi and for Rubinstein, Christian adjacent is an intermediate stage beginning with the first attraction to the gospel, the first indication that God is drawing us toward him. That stage, for me, lasted 59 years. Because I know my own life story better than I know Levi’s or Rubinstein’s, I can say with confidence that I was Christian adjacent all the way through. Every few years during that timespan I had some sort of encounter in which I now recognize the hand of God either protecting me or leading me toward Him.

Was I aware of this at the time? Not entirely. Levi believed as a young boy that God watched over him. My outlook was more like that of Rubinstein, who “drifted toward postmodern sensibilities” in early adulthood, but retained memories of those holy encounters, memories “that remained like open tabs in the background of my life—occasionally clicked on, but mostly just . . . there, consuming memory.” For the first 30 years or so I felt the significance of these encounters without being able to name it. At roughly the midpoint of the journey, I reached a tipping point and decided I was a theist. Aware that many of the people who influenced me professed Christ, I probably would have embraced the term “Christian adjacent” if I heard it then. I sensed what direction I was headed, but I had no idea when or if I would get there.

Now that we’ve identified three examples of people who fit our description of Christian adjacent, what responsibility does their status confer on believers? If it’s true that God used Beth to save Levi’s life, should we be open to the possibility that He’ll use us in the same way?

If God orchestrates the encounters that guide and encourage people who are Christian adjacent, then there is likely no simple formula for how we should act toward them, apart from the obvious Christian virtues like honesty, kindness, patience, and love. If someone is Christian adjacent, they need to know that the person offering help is Christian if that isn’t obvious from the context. They should have an opportunity to see how we think, what’s important to us, and how we came to believe what we believe.

The comment “you either are or you aren’t” might be true, but I suspect it’s not an apt representation of how Christians are called to address unbelievers and especially not of how God has worked with humanity through the centuries. “Sorry, Zach” might be a fitting comment after a discussion with someone who thinks it’s possible to believe some parts of the Bible but not others, but in other contexts it could be read as dismissive. Would we really want to say that to someone who seeks God but hasn’t found Him yet?

Perhaps it would be better to think of someone who is Christian adjacent as the lost lamb in Jesus’ parable (Luke 15:3-7). If God, the shepherd, will leave the rest of the sheep behind and go to the ends of the earth to find one lost one, should we not meet the person who is Christian adjacent wherever we find him and offer whatever he needs to come into the fold? Wouldn’t we want that person to say of us what Levi says of his caregiver Beth, that God used her to save him, and to see us, as Levi saw her, as “an angel sent from heaven”?

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