Nominally Speaking

"When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There is a line of thinking, particularly prominent in the American Protestant tradition, that says of the apostate or nominal Chrisitan, "Oh, he was never really saved/born again/regenerate to begin with." Quite simply, he is not a Christian. I have heard similar things said of Christians from other denominations, such as Roman Catholics and even Protestants of other creeds. This assumption (what I believe to be a mistaken one) stems from two different theological principles.

1. The theology of Eternal Security, which looks different depending on which branch of Protestantism you hail from.

• Within the Fundamentalist Evangelical denominations it is sometimes refered to as the Free Grace doctrine or "Once Saved, Always Saved." The idea is that, once you undergo a conversion experience, you cannot be unconverted. Some key verses are 1 John 2:19, John 10:28, 1 Corinthians 8-9, and 1 Corinthians 3:15.
• Within those denominations that descend from the Calvinist tradition, the key theology is the Perseverence of the Saints, in laymen's terms, that God will see to it that those He has brought to salvation will persevere in the faith until the end. Inextricably linked to this doctrine are the concepts of Predestination (God preordains some souls to become regenerate and others not to) and Total Depravity (only God can produce good works in us; we are incapable of doing so on our own).

2. The concept that Sacraments are merely symbolic.

Catholics and other Orthodox Christians believe that the Sacraments instituted by Christ are "outward signs of inward grace," meaning that they really and truly do convey God's grace to the person receiving them. In other words, when administered correctly, they actually "do something."

The Westerminster Shorter Catechism views states things a bit differently, defining a sacrament as "sensible signs" by which "Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers." In other words, they don't "do" anything in and of themselves; they are signs of things that are being done through the faith of the believer. But, the Reformed Churches who adhere to this Catechism do at least believe that the sacraments are beneficial on the believer's road to salvation.

Such is not the case with many Fundamental Evangelical churches. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention does not even use the word "sacraments" when referring to Baptism and Holy Communion, prefering the term "ordinances," specifically because they believe that these "ordinances" are in no way related to a person's salvation.

Evangelical Churches (and some Reformed and mainline Protestant sects) also adhere to something called credo-baptism, meaning that only those who have already professed belief in Jesus Christ may be Baptized. If a person was baptized as an infant but comes to faith later, they must be re-baptized in these churches. This is very telling. So important is this credo, this profession of faith, to the identity of "Christian" that a Baptized person who has not professed faith is considered not Christian.

The reason for this prerequisite of professed belief for Baptism is incredibly important for this discussion, because it equates the identity of "Christian" with the reality of salvation. This idea of salvation being inextricably linked to religious identity is astonishingly unique to Protestant Christianity, specifically Fundamental Evangelical Protestant Christianity. Allow me to illustrate by taking a cursory look at the other "religions of the Book," Judaism, Islam, and the Orthodox Christian faith.

A Jew is not a Jew because he is saved. He is a Jew because he is Jewish, because he was either born into Judaism or chose to convert to the faith of Israel. He is a Jew whether or not he keeps kosher, whether he goes to temple, or whether he even believes in God.

In Islam, a Muslim is considered a Muslim (either by birth or conversion) regardless of his present confession to the creed of the Islamic faith. This is why it is considered a crime in many Islamic countries to convert a Muslim citizen--whether or not he ever believed in Islam, he is considered a Muslim, and to draw him away from his faith even if he never professed that faith himself is a serious crime.

In Orthodox Christianity, a Baptized person is a Christian regardless of creed or lifestyle. Even nominal Christians or so-called "Christmas Catholics" are Christians. They may be apostate; they may be fallen away; they may be, as C.S. Lewis says "bad Christians," but they are nonetheless Christians.

Now, I have no desire to wrestle with sacramental or salvation theology today. That is a much larger topic than I could possibly cover in a single post, and in any case, far finer minds than mine have already done. (You might like to read some of the works cited in this article if you'd like to explore some of their arguments.) No, instead, I would like to pose a question: What do we do with the nominal Christian?

What happens when someone who was clearly a Christ follower falls away from the faith, whether through complacency or apostasy? I'm not talking about a new believer who's worn off their Jesus high but rather someone who has shown evidence of the Holy Spirit working in their lives for years, perhaps even decades. We all know them, these men and women who mentored us, inspired us, discipled us, taught us, maybe even were instrumental in bringing us into relationship with Christ--who have abandoned their faith for an unbiblical lifestyle or who have simply become lukewarm, like the Church at Laodicea. They may still even talk the talk, but they aren't walking the walk.

Disillusionment follows, and we ask: Are they still our brothers? Were they ever our brothers? Are they fallen-away sisters, or no sisters at all?

Now, obviously, I am a Catholic and so I hold with the profession of the Church that a Christian is a Christian is a Christian from Baptism through eternity, whether or not they are ever "baptized with the Spirit and fire," whether or not they ever find a personal relationship with Christ, whether or not they ever undergo a conversion experience, whether or not they are saved. I believe this, and I also believe there is profound value in this and that something incredibly important is lost when we do not acknowledge the membership of all Baptized persons in the universal Church of Christ.

This begs two questions: (1) What is the value of maintaining that even nominal and apostate Christians are still members of the Church? and (2) What is lost when we do not acknowledge this membership?

The value is found, first of all, in truth and second, in charity. The truth is that a Baptized person is a Christian by virtue of their Baptism because a Christian is any person who has been identified with the Church of Jesus Christ. This is how the term was originally used to describe the follwers of Christ at Antioch around the year 40 A.D. Now this identification could come from being born into a family of Christians and Baptized by them in infancy, or it could come from a conversion experience later in life. Ideally, it stems from both, though for salvation only the latter (accompanied by Baptism) is necessary.

Some people would disagree with me, insisting that salvation is necessary for one to identify oneself as Christian. In response, I would ask them to open their eyes. There are millions of people all over this planet who call themselves Christian (or who are called Christian by people of other faiths) who are not regenerate, who perhaps do not even profess a belief in God, let alone in the redemptive power of His Son, Jesus Christ. To insist that these people are not Christian is like saying that an American who is unpatriotic is not an American. That maybe how we feel--it may even be how the unpatriotic American feels--but it is not true. And, it is not helpful. Moreover, it is uncharitable. It strikes at the heart of someone's personal identity and says, "I know you better than you do." How presumptuous and arrogant. How very unkind.

Finally, let us examine one final question: What is lost when we deny the Christian identity of an apostate or nominal Christian? Well, potentially, his soul.

That is a very weighted assertion, so let me explain. I am not saying that any man or woman has the power to withhold or avert another person's salvation. However, I do believe that we human beings often have a major role to play in evangelization; there's a reason it's called the "Great Commission," and there's a reason Jesus left the task to us mere mortals. It is my belief that we are called to evangelize even within the Church, for as I said before, not all the Baptized are saved.

When we deny the fact that a Baptized person is a Christian, we are (perhaps inadvertently) pushing them away from the Church. We are representing ourselves (and thereby the Church) as arrogant and uncharitible in our presumptions. In addition, we are letting the apostate Christian off the hook. This is, in my opinion, the greatest loss and the one most closely connected to the issue of salvation.
When we deny that a Baptized person is a Christian, we are quite literally setting them outside of the Church. We are negating any past encounter they have had with the Living God, whether through the Sacraments, the Liturgy, the Word, sacred music, or fellowship with believers. We are denying their obligation to fulfill their Baptismal vows, whether they spoke these vows themselves or whether they were made on their behalf by parents and/or godparents.

Some people may say that those who did not profess their own faith have no obligation to fulfill vows made in hope on their behalf, but I would argue that this is simply not so. In times of war, the birth citizens of a country are obligated to defend their nation by virtue of their birth just as much as those citizens who immigrated to that country by choice. In a similar way, the Church is comprised not of citizens but members, and those members are all the Baptized.

Even if you disagree with this and maintain that only those who were Baptized through credo-Baptism have any place in the Church, then you still have to grapple with the reality of the apostate believer. When someone was once a faithful Christian and has walked away, there are only two things you can say of him. You can say either that he has fallen away temporarily and will return to the faith (only time will tell if this is a truthful assumption), or you can say with C.S. Lewis that he is a "bad Christian." What you cannot do is say that he is not--or never was--a Christian. Your own experience will tell you that he is and was what he always was, just as an unobservant Jew is still a Jew and an unbelieving Muslim is still a Muslim.

Perhaps it is because we are American and we Americans are so obsessed with self-made identities that this phenomenon seems so particularly prevalent here. We increasingly fight for the right to define ourselves on our own terms. In a world of sometimes disturbing technological advances, our society now maintains that we can even define our own gender identities, regardless of how we were born, raised, and how we have lived in a gendered reality our whole lives. Many conservative Christians are eager to point out that God made us all a certain way and that to deny or alter this is to defy God's Will. Yet, many of these same people are equally eager to deny Christian identity to many of their fallen away brethren.

Why? Are we afraid to be identified with them? The world already identifies us with them. And, what's more, there is no "us" and "them." Jesus told us that a "household divided against itself will not stand" (Matthew 12:25). What can we reasonably expect to happen to a Church divided against its own members? Proverbs 11:29 warns that he who brings trouble on his family will "inherit the wind." What can we expect to inherit if deny our own brothers and sisters?

In the broader scheme of things, what right do we have to even define who is Christian and who is not? Who is saved and who is not? Time will reveal all truths, and only God knows what is in each of our souls. If someone says she is a Christian, even if she doesn't live like it, why tell her she is wrong? Why not welcome her as a sister and help her to walk aright in the light of the Christ whose name she embraces as a part of her own identity?

As always, I am not a theologian or a Bible scholar. These are merely the musings (albeit the researched and thoughtful musings) of a homemaker, wife, mother, writer, artist. Dialogue is welcomed and encouraged! Surely such dialogue is the very heart of ecumenism, understanding, and charity, which are of worth to all people, Christian or not.