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In short, the Christian religion as such does not exist unless and until there are Christians---persons who understand themselves as they are given and called to do through Jesus and who then express their self-understanding by somehow bearing witness to his decisive significance by all that they think, say, and do. On the other hand, the Christian religion does exist, or is constituted as such, as soon and as long as there are Christians who do thus understand themselves and somehow give expression to their self-understanding and the understanding of existence it mediates. 

Wiki MarkupIt seems clear that this answer to the original question both confirms and is confirmed by understandings of "the Christ event" (or "the Christian event") as "the coming into being of the church" (Knox); "the institution of the Christian proclamation" (Bultmann); "the believing reception of the fact" (Tillich); or "the primal datum of the church" (Marxsen). According to all these understandings, this event has two essential components: "the person" and "the community" (in Knox's terms): "Christ" and "the word/ministry of reconciliation" (in Bultmann's terms, following Paul in 2 Cor 5: 18 ff); "the fact _\[sc._ of the New Being in Jesus as the Christ\]" and "believing reception of the fact" (in Tillich's terms): or "Jesus" and "faith," or "Jesus" and "the believer" (in Marxsen's terms). The first component, I should say, is the explicit primal _ontic_ source of the event's decisive authority, while the second, expressing as it does the explicit primal _noetic_ source of its authority in the faith experience of the first Christians, is the sole primary authority authorized by it.  

I June 1990: rev. 3 September 2003; 9 July 2007; 10 December 2008