"You Never Were A Christian"

"There is no such thing as an ex-Christian."

"You never really believed."

"If you truly knew or loved the Lord you would have never walked away."

I hear this stuff all the time from Christians (mainly the evangelical sort), and it truly does get tiresome, what with all the constantly having to explain that yes, I was once just as they are now. It gets old, really. Now, I'm not starting this thread to rag on or complain about anyone, but rather to address the issue, which is in fact two separate issues.

The first issue is semantics - what is the definition of a Christian? The original definition of the term (coined by the Romans) was "a follower of Christ". Functionally, the only proper definition of the term can be "one who believes in the tenants of Christianity". Ironically, I agree with CS Lewis on this matter as the following link shows:

CS Lewis from Mere Christianity

Now, given that my opinion of CS Lewis is rather low (the man advocated the execution of witches - see the end of Mere Christianity, Chapter 3) it should seem ironic that this agreement is the case.

The second issue is more important (from a Christian perspective) - that of whether being a Christian equals being born again/saved (the same concept really). I contend that, according to the bible, this must be the case. Why?

According to the vast majority of Christian doctrine, the bare bones minimum requirements for salvation are as follows:

1) Belief in fundamental Christian doctrines, mainly that there is one god, Jesus was his son/him, everyone is a sinner, and that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for the sin of mankind

2) Conscious and freely given submission to Jesus as lord

If I am missing anything, please correct me. Now, if any individual who meets those two requirements is saved it is plain then that anyone who meets the definitional requirements of the term Christian (above) is indeed born again/saved by definition especially since requirement 2 above is a tenant of Christian belief.

Now, it should to plain to anyone that a person can believe in Christianity and meet those two requirements (thus being saved/born again) and then later change his or her mind/beliefs/willingness to submit. Thus, it is therefore obvious that a person can indeed have been a truly born again Christian and leave the faith, thus becoming an ex-Christian.

As an aside, in regards to the last quote above, it should be obvious to anyone that an individual can fall out of love with a person just as well as they can fall into love with them, even if they know the individual well. People change, especially when they learn new information or let their blinders fall away in regards to information they knew but glossed over before for the sake of love.

Now, with such understanding rather easily reached, one is forced to ask why many Christians insist so doggedly on maintaining that we (yes, there are many ex-Christians) are in effect lying when we say we were once Christians. The only reasons I can think of, based on experience and conjecture, are as follows:

1) Dogma - The individual heard it from some preacher or other authority figure somewhere, so that's it. Period. This type of individual is obviously ignorant, stubborn, and closed minded in the extreme, unwilling to deal with new information simply because it contradicts what they already "know".

2) Arrogance or Need To Be Right - An individual of this sort may believe that since they "know God" and "God" (really some authority figure) said that there's no such thing as an ex-Christian that that is the end all and be all of the "discussion". Alternatively, such an individual, having dogmatically picked up this erroneous idea, simply be so horrendously insecure that he has a pathological need to be Right, regardless of anything else, and thusly cannot admit to being wrong especially in such a sensitive issue. This second permutation is especially common in Christian men in my experience.

3) Fear - The individual is afraid to admit that another person could find perfectly valid reasons to leave behind the faith that the individual still embraces. Perhaps they are afraid that to admit such would allow fatal cracks to appear in their own faith, and, as they are afraid of the consequences that their religion gives to unbelief or perhaps fear the identity crisis that deconversion can bring, they would rather deny contradictory information than allow this to happen. It is plain to see though that this betrays a crippling insecurity in their own faith, a fear that it could stand up to such contradictory evidence.

4) Compassion - This would seem to be the rarest motivation for such insult (indeed, is it not insulting to tell another person that their true accounting of their own life is a lie?), such an individual is generally - but not always - aware of Hebrews 6:4-6 and other such biblical verses (there is one I can think of, but can't find at the moment) which essentially state that any who fall away from the faith is eternally damned and can never return to it. In either case, the motivation for such individuals would seem to be that them want to maintain the hope that an ex-Christian can still return to the fold and be saved from damnation. This can be due either to general charity or specific like of the individual ex-Christian in question. While this is admirable, it owns up to neither the facts of the situation nor to the harshness inherent in their chosen religion.

Obviously, the any given individual evidencing such a belief can have more than one reason behind it. Further, the reasons for such belief may not even be consciously known to the individual, which is where it gets tricky.