If someone says they are a Christian, but supports things that are clearly not Christian, can we say they are *not *a Christian?
No, we can’t say that, presuming the individual has been validly baptized.
La-Petite-Fleur:
For example:
- Hitler claimed to be a Christian; but would it be wrong to say he most certainly was not a Christian?
So far as we know, Hitler was validly baptized in the Catholic Church. That means he was a Catholic. Period. The reason for this is because baptism is, quite literally, a new birth that makes the person a Christian in his very being, no matter how well or how poorly he lives out his faith. Just as physical conception means that a person will always be a human person with inherent human dignity, no matter how detestable the crimes he may choose to commit; so a baptized person, no matter how evil he becomes, remains a Christian.
In Hitler’s case though, and in the cases of those Christians who also entirely abandon the faith into which they were baptized, it
can be said that they no longer believe in Christianity and that they cannot be considered theological Christians. If they completely abandon their Christian faith, then they are, objectively speaking, apostate Christians.
But in the case of someone who believes in Christianity but supports immoral activities or practices that orthodox Christianity condemns, he remains both an ontological and theological Christian. At most, all that can be said is that he picks and chooses the doctrines of Christianity he will believe and the morals of Christianity that he will follow. In some ways, that can be considered worse than total apostasy, since at least the apostate follows his convictions to their logical conclusion by entirely abandoning the faith.
