What exactly is an apostate?

by notsureofmyself 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  notsureofmyself

  Would someone care to give me their definition of an apostate and what it means to them?
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  Pathofthorns

  i'll be completely honest.

  I don't give a rat's ass about who or what an apostate is. I know there are lots of good people walking around who were loyal to God and their conscience and I think its a shame they have to carry such a label through life.

  To me one who is an apostate is someone who disregards the clear teachings and spirit of the message of Christ and then seeks to bind others to his own twisted version of what he thinks should be followed. Especially reprehensible are those who deny others their freedom to follow God, Christ, and their consciences.

  Path
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  RedhorseWoman

  An apostate is someone who can give nightmares to good little Dubbies the world over.

  According to the WT definition, an apostate is someone who no longer accepts the pap being served from the huge WTBTS spoon....i.e. someone who has begun to think.

  In reality, according to the WT definition, Russell was an apostate from his original religious beliefs, and the WTBTS is an apostate from the beliefs set down by Russell.
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  TR

  I'll also be completely honest.

  Apostasy, I believe means to renounce one's faith. My faith used to be JW. I renounced the JW faith, so in that context, I'm an apostate. At the time I left, however, I didn't renounce God, Christ, or the bible. So, in that context, I'm not an apostate. Nowadays, my faith in the bible is waning. Maybe I'm an almostapostate.

  Tom
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  AhHah

  NotSure,

  I could quote the literal definition, but I suspect you already know it, and that's not what you are looking for.

  Is your question more about how God feels about persons who reject their religious group? Whether or not God still accepts the worship of those who reject organized religion (especially apostate organizations)?

  Recent threads have touched on whether or not Christianity requires a human organization with authority over the worship and standing of individuals. I personally believe that Christ removed the need for a human religious authority. The individual Christian is repsonsible for his own worship and decisions.

  In some cases Christians may choose to limit their own association with those that they feel represent a spiritual danger to them, but not with a lack of love or with malice or judgement. Those who reject the spirit of Christianity and invalidate it (such as JWs do with all of their pharisaical rules and regulations) are subject to being rejected by Christians who do not share their worldly abuse of Christianity. I believe that the JW org is an apostate organization, in that they have rejected and invalidated Christianity by their practices. As such, an individual Christian may rightly avoid association with them, so as to avoid spiritual contamination -- if one were to use the same scriptures that the WT society uses to justify the rejection of apostates. I believe that it should be an individual decision.

  God then must ultimately choose whose worship he finds acceptable, while considering the conscience of all individuals who are attempting with an honest heart to be noble, spiritual persons. I suspect that persons of any and all and no religious affiliation may be successful in varying degrees in that effort. I find it absurd to think that Almighty God would judge a person's eternal prospects based upon the limited understanding of any human group who dares to claim to represent him and speak for him. I find it offensive that any religion or person (are you listening MDS?) would dare to make such a claim. I suspect that God does also.

  For these reasons I find much of the Bible to be ridiculous in what it would have us believe about the Almighty God. Common sense and our inner sense of justice (that God put there?) tells us that much of it cannot be true. Those who are too afraid to admit the uncertainty of such a position, will instead defend the Bible's contradictory teachings as a mystery designed to test us. One could make the same claim of any other confused, and contradictory literary work -- we don't need God to produce confusion and complexity -- we can and have done that just fine on our own.

  So, in summary, I do not worry about whose definition of apostasy my beliefs may or may not define. I am prepared to wait upon God to fully reveal the answers to my questions of our existence and purpose. If I die before that happens, I die with the confidence that I followed my conscience with an honest heart and with the best of intentions toward God and my fellow man. I know in my heart that is all that our Creator expects of us (if indeed he cares, and I really hope that he does).

  Edited by - AhHah on 21 November 2000 4:35:56
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  Frenchy

  Not Sure:
  Time is slipping away from me this morning but I would like to address your question. I'll be back later...

  -Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
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  Frenchy

  Not Sure:
  Apostate.
  1. One who has forsaken the faith, principles, or party, to which he before adhered; esp., one who has forsaken his religion for another; a pervert; a renegade. -
  According to the Roman Catholic Church: One who, after having received sacred orders, renounces his clerical profession.
  Can also mean: Pertaining to, or characterized by, apostasy; faithless to moral allegiance; renegade. “So spake the apostate angel.” --Milton. ---–Webster

  Not faithful to religion or party or cause n : a disloyal person who forsakes his cause or religion or political party or friend etc. –WorldNet

  Apostasy \A*pos"ta*sy\, n.; pl. Apostasies. [OE. apostasie, F. apostasie, L. apostasia, fr. Gr. ? a standing off from, a defection, fr. ? to stand off, revolt; ? from + ? to stand. See Off and Stand.] An abandonment of what one has voluntarily professed; a total desertion of departure from one's faith, principles, or party; esp., the renunciation of a religious faith; as, Julian's apostasy from Christianity. –Webster

  The Catholic Encyclopedia:

  Most authors, however, distinguish …between three kinds of apostasy: (1)…when a Christian gives up his faith; apostasy…,(2) when a cleric abandons the ecclesiastical state; (3)…when a religious leaves the religious life.
  (Number 1) is the complete and voluntary abandonment of the Christian religion, whether the apostate embraces another religion such as Paganism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, etc., or merely makes profession of Naturalism, Rationalism, etc.

  Note this interesting comment by the encyclopedia: “The heretic differs from the apostate in that he only denies one or more of the doctrines of revealed religion, whereas the apostate denies the religion itself, a sin which has always been looked upon as one of the most grievous…Apostasy belonged, therefore, to the class of sins for which the Church imposed perpetual penance and excommunication without hope of pardon, leaving the forgiveness of the sin to God alone.” Hmmm, ‘leaving the forgiveness of the sin to God alone’. I thought that was interesting also. The article goes on:
  ” When the Roman Empire became Christian, apostates were punished by deprivation of all civil rights. They could not give evidence in a court of law, and could neither bequeath nor inherit property. To induce anyone to apostatize was an offence punishable with death … In the Middle Ages, both civil and canon law classed apostates with heretics; so much so that title 9 of the fifth book of the Decretals of Gregory IX, … classes apostates with heretics in respect of the penalties which they incur. This decretal, which only mentions apostate Jews by name, was applied indifferently to all. The Inquisition could therefore proceed against them. The Spanish Inquisition was directed, at the end of the fifteenth century, chiefly against apostates, the Maranos, or new Christians, Jews converted by force rather than by conviction; while in 1609 it dealt severely with the Moriscos, or professedly-converted Moors of Spain.” And you thought the WTS was bad! More:
  ” Today the temporal penalties formerly inflicted on apostates and heretics cannot be enforced, and have fallen into abeyance. The spiritual penalties are the same as those which apply to heretics. In order, however, to incur these penalties, it is necessary, in accordance with the general principles of canon law, that the apostasy should be shown in some way. Apostates, with all who receive, protect, or befriend them, incur excommunication… They incur, moreover, the note of "infamy", at least when their apostasy is notorious, and are "irregular"; an infamy and an irregularity which extend to the son and the grandson of an apostate father, and to the son of an apostate mother, should the parents die without being reconciled to the Church (emphasis mine) Most authors, however, are of opinion that the irregularity affects only the children of parents who have joined some particular sect, or who have been personally condemned by ecclesiastical. Apostates are debarred from ecclesiastical burial. Any writings of theirs, in which they uphold heresy and schism, or labour to undermine the foundations of faith, are on the Index, and those who read them incur the excommunication reserved, speciali modo to the Sovereign Pontiff [Constitution of Leo XIII, Officiorum et munerum, 25 January, 1897, i, v; Vermeersch, De prohibitione et censurâ librorum (Rome, 1901), 3d ed., 57, 112]. Apostasy constitutes an impediment to marriage, and the apostasy of husband or wife is a sufficient reason for separation (emphasis mine) Others, however, maintain that this separation cannot be perpetual unless the innocent party embraces the religious state.”

  w86 10/15 31: Questions From Readers
  What is the fitting response of the congregation if someone leaves the true Christian faith and joins another religion?
  Such a thing sometimes occurred in the first century. Thus it is understandable that it happens on occasion today. When it does, the congregation appropriately responds to protect the spiritual cleanness of the loyal Christians in it.
  One dictionary defines apostasy as “renunciation of one’s religion, principles, political party, etc.” Another says: “Apostasy . . . 1 : renunciation of a religious faith 2 : abandonment of a previous loyalty.” Accordingly, Judas Iscariot was guilty of a form of apostasy when he abandoned the worship of Jehovah God by betraying Jesus. Later, others became apostates by deserting the true faith even while the apostle John and other early disciples were alive. John wrote: “They went out from among us, but they were not of our sort; for if they had been of our sort, they would have remained with us.”—1 John 2:19.
  What is to be done when a similar thing happens today? The elders, or shepherds, of the congregation might learn of a baptized Christian who has ceased associating with Jehovah’s people and who has apparently become associated with another religion. …They would then simply announce to the congregation that such one has disassociated himself and thus is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Note the words that I have emboldened here. Those words leave not doubt in the member’s mind that THIS religion is THE religion.

  The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) believes itself to be the one true religion. Apostolic succession and all that. The WTS also believes itself to be the one, true religion. Do you see the similarities in their views? Both operate from the premise that they alone are THE TRUE RELIGION. That stance cannot allow for any dissension. From that standpoint disagreement with doctrine is disagreement with God’s will. To reject a religion that sees itself as such is to reject Christianity in their eyes.

  -Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
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  waiting

  Hey guys,

  Well, on a lighter note, the Catholic Church used to burn heretics at the stake (amongst other cruelties). Then, when they became enlightened after approx. 1.5 thousand years, they excommunicated unruly sinners. Now they're so enlightened - they don't really care - "Live and Let Live," at least in the First World Countries.

  The WTBTS never burned, torn asunder, stoned, etc., dissenters - just won't talk to them, semi-breakup families, detroy reputations & friendships, etc.

  In The Grand Scheme of Things, these two religious organizations are similar - but the Catholic Church has acted more aggressively in grossness, imho. But further New Light could change things, one never knows....

  As for the argument of "THE ONE TRUE RELIGION," don't most people who go to war and kill each other in the name of God and Country do so because they feel - and have been taught, convinced, etc., that they - unlike their enemy - have THE ONE TRUE RELIGION?

  I've never heard of a Muslin, Serb, on and on and on - who didn't think they have THE ONE TRUE RELIGION, and most are willing to die and kill for their beliefs.

  Perhaps the question and debate is not on the WTBTS, but on the question: Can anyone - anywhere (besides MDS) prove they have - or know of - The One Ture Religion?

  An apostate is a label put upon a person who disagrees with a religion's teachings. It is a label, nothing more. We give the label power when we buy into the idea promoted by the religion. For that, we must take responsibility.

  Perhaps if we acted - and taught our children - ethics, morals, human dignity, it would be of more benefit than religion. After all, the aforementioned qualities are among God's, are they not? Religion - no matter who's - is hotly debated as to it's value, and rightly so.

  waiting

  Edited by - waiting on 21 November 2000 20:7:41
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  Frenchy

  Perhaps if we acted - and taught our children - ethics, morals, human dignity, it would be of more benefit than religion. After all, the aforementioned qualities are among God's, are they not? Religion - no matter who's - is hotly debated as to it's value, and rightly so.

  Agreed. Religions by their own admission (and PR agencies) are supposed to be doing this. Religion fails when and where it puts its own interests ahead of those of God and man.

  -Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
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  Simon

  As an 'apostate' has rejected certain beliefs and 'loyal' JWs always end up rejecting them as well when they change, I think that the only difference between an apostate and non-apostate is one of timing and one being able to decide for themselves that something is wrong and the other needing to be told.