Apostasy in Christianity
Apostasy in Christianity is the abandonment or renunciation of Christianity by someone who formerly was a Christian. The term apostasy comes from the Greek word apostasia meaning "rebellion", "state of apostasy", "abandonment", or "defection". It has been described as "a willful falling away from, or rebellion against, Christianity. Apostasy is the rejection of Christ by one who has been a Christian. …" "Apostasy is a theological category describing those who have voluntarily and consciously abandoned their faith in the God of the covenant, who manifests himself most completely in Jesus Christ." "Apostasy is the antonym of conversion; it is deconversion."
B. J. Oropeza, who has written one of the most exhaustive studies on the phenomenon of apostasy in the New Testament, "uncovered several factors that result in apostasy." Some of these factors overlap, and some Christian communities were "susceptible to more than one of these." The first major factor in a believer committing apostasy is "unbelief." Other factors potentially leading to apostasy include: "persecution," "general suffering and hardship," "false teachings and factions," "malaise," "indifference and negligence towards the things of God", and engaging in sinful acts or assimilating to the ungodly attitudes and actions reflected in a non-Christian culture.
Biblical teaching
For additional biblical teaching on the possibility of apostasy seeThe Greek noun apostasia is found only twice in the New Testament. However, "the concept of apostasy is found throughout Scripture." The related verb aphistēmi carries considerable theological significance in three passages.
In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Wolfgang Bauder writes:
1 Timothy 4:1 describes "falling away from the faith" in the last days in terms of falling into false, heretical beliefs. Lk. 8:13 probably refers to apostasy as a result of eschatological temptation. Here are people who have come to believe, who have received the gospel "with joy." But under the pressure of persecution and tribulation arising because of the faith, they break off the relationship with God into which they have entered. According to Hebrews 3:12, apostasy consists in an unbelieving and self-willed movement away from God, which must be prevented at all costs. aphistēmi thus connotes in the passages just mentioned the serious situation of becoming separated from the living God after a previous turning towards him, by falling away from the faith. It is a movement of unbelief and sin, which can also be expressed by other words. Expressions equivalent in meaning to the warning in 1 Timothy 4:1 include nauageō, suffer shipwreck, 1:19; astocheō miss the mark, 1:6; 6:21; 2 Timothy 2:18; cf. also aperchomai, go away, John 6:66; apostrephō, turn away; arneomai, deny; metatithēmi, change, alter; mē menein, do not abide, John 15:6; … the pictures of defection in Matthew 24:9–12, and Revelation 13."
Wolfgang Bauder goes on add that piptō, fall, and ekpiptō, fall off or from, is used figuratively in the New Testament to refer to "the consequent loss of salvation, rather than of a mere failure from which recovery can be made. It is a catastrophic fall, which means eternal ruin. If it were not so, all the warnings against falling would lose their threatening urgency. To fall into sin and guilt, as an expression of a total attitude, is to plunge into irrevocable misfortune."
The following passages where the verb skandalizō and the noun skandalon : are theologically important as well:
Heinz Giesen, in the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, writes:
In the passive voice σκανδαλίζω more often means … "fall away from faith." In the interpretation of the parable of the sower those identified with the seeds sown on rocky ground, i.e., those "with no root in themselves," the inconstant
ones, go astray to their own ruin when persecuted on account of the word, i.e., they fall away from faith. The Lukan parallel reads appropriately ἀφίστημι . In Matt 24:10 Jesus predicts that in the end time many will fall away . The result is that they will hate one another, wickedness will be multiplied, and love will grow cold. Yet whoever endures in love until the end will be saved.
… In the Johannine farewell address σκανδαλίζω does not only imply an "endangering of faith" … but rather "falling away from faith" entirely, from which the disciples and Christians are to be kept. … In the active voice σκανδαλίζω means "cause someone to fall away from faith," as in the saying of Jesus about the person who "causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin ". The Christian is enjoined to reject anything that might be an obstacle to faith, as emphasized in Mark 9:43,45,47 in metaphorical, hyperbolic language: Hand, foot, and eyein Jewish understanding the loci of lust or sinful desiresmust be given up if they threaten to become the cause of loss of faith and thus of salvation. This … underscores the seriousness of conviction within which one must persevere if one wishes to enter life or the kingdom of God. … Matt 5:29, 30 also issues an exhortation to decisive action . … According to 1 Cor 8:9 a Christian's freedom regarding eating food offered to idols reaches its limit when it becomes a stumbling block to one's brother. Hence Paul emphasizes that he will never again eat meat if by doing so he causes his brother to fall and thus to lose salvation, since otherwise that weaker brother is destroyed by the knowledge of the "stronger". Whoever sins against his brothers sins also against Christ. … Within the context of the protection of the "little ones" in the Church, i.e., probably the "weak ones", Jesus utters an eschatological threat against the world because of temptations to sin ; though he allows that such temptations must come, he finally hurls an eschatological "woe!" against the person by whom the temptation comes. σκάνδαλον used here of the temptation to fall away from faith. The parallel, Luke 17:1, like Matt 18:7b, also underscores that such temptations are unavoidable; nonetheless, the person by whom they come receives the eschatological "woe!" that already places him under divine judgment. … In Rom 14:13 Paul admonishes the "strong," whose position he fundamentally shares, not to cause the "weak" any stumbling block to faith through eating habits. … In Rom 16:17 the σκάνδαλον are the various satanic activities of the false teachers who endanger the salvation of Church members, who are being seduced into falling away from correct teaching; such teachers also threaten both the unity and very existence of the Church. Similarly, in Rev 2:14 σκάνδαλον refers to a stumbling block to faith in the context of false teaching. According to 1 John 2:10 there is no cause for stumbling or sin in a believer who loves his brother … i.e., no cause for unbelief and thus a loss of salvation.
Paul Barnett notes that James warns his readers of the possibility of temptation leading to apostasy. While a person is not tempted by God to sin, they can be "lured and enticed by his own desires" to sin. He adds, "This letter has in mind a 'way' of belief and behavior, from which one may be "led astray" or 'stray from'. Either way the one who is away from the true path is in jeopardy in regard to his or her personal salvation."
Barnett also mentions that "2 Peter addresses the grim situation of apostasy expressed by immorality, under the influence of false teachers who have 'denied the master who bought them'." Furthermore, in the book of Revelation:
It is clear that the churches of Asia are subject to persecution and its accompanying pressure to apostatize that arise from a Jewish quarter in Smyrna and Philadelphia and from the emperor cult in Pergamum. At the same time various false teachings are touching the churches of Ephesus, Pergamum and Thyatira. The language of "deception," that is, of being "led astray," is applied to the false prophetess, Jezebel. Satan, the source of all these persecution and false teachings, is also "the deceiver of the whole world". The metaphor, "deception", implies a path of truth from which one might be "turned aside." Against these Satan-inspired obstacles the reader are called upon to "conquer," that is, to overcome these problems.