Recently, I was researching a car accident that killed a family of four for a story — two married parents and two children. When the news article listed the mother’s occupation as “stay-at-home mom,” I thought, “I wonder if they were Christians.” Sure enough, I soon learned that the family had been heavily involved in an evangelical church of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

This journalistic hunch has proven correct more than once, and its accuracy is not even limited to news reports. My wife and I enjoy watching cooking competitions, and we can usually predict which contestants are Christians simply by observing how normal they are. Is the person happily married to a person of the opposite sex? Check. Does he or she have children and enjoy their company? Check. People whose lives look “normal” are most likely Christian, at least based on my anecdotal but careful observation.