Description: Retelling the same old stories
Retelling the same old stories
I’ve been thinking about the Christian concept of apostasy lately. Part of that has been because of the recent news about Joshua Harris, former Christian author and megachurch preacher, publicly leaving the faith. The other was because of my yearly visit to my parent’s church, which I make every July to celebrate my mother’s birthday. This was the first time I’d been there since I told my parents I was converting and, as has become usual, it was a bit of the elephant in the room everyone steadfastly refused
So, a quick definition. Apostasy, for Christians, is the rejection of faith by a former believer. In the Bible, it’s frequently described as a kind of adultery (Jeremiah 2:1–3; Ezekiel 16), or as a “falling away” (Luke 8:13; 1 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 3:12). Personally, I like the “falling away” image better, but for me it felt a little like the opposite was happening–losing my belief felt like everything else was falling away, like the structure I had built out of my faith had become unsteady and collapsed.