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filtherton -- the only problem I have with your definition of being a Christian is that it's not very useful. It's probably true that the important thing is a desire to follow Jesus. But it's hard to tell if a given individual is following Jesus, so often it just ends up meaning "Someone I like" (or dislike, depending on what you think of people who follow Jesus). If I'm being careful, I tend to like to use 'Christian' to mean 'someone who believes in the Apostle's Creed'. It's broad enough to encompass all the Christian denominations, yet exclude belief systems I tend to think different enough to not count (based on my intuition).
On this note, and of most relevance to this thread, are the things this doesn't require you believe. It probably doesn't require you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven or that non-Christians are going to hell. It doesn't require a belief in hell, or any belief in the afterlife in the conventional sense. (All it says about the afterlife is "I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.")
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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