On "A Sabbatical?" or "My Anti-Testimony"
Originally written July 27, 2001. The Shock of Apostasy It is invariably a shock to Evangelical Christians to come across someone who has turned his or her back on “the faith once delivered unto the saints.” Most believers will quickly dismiss an ex-Christian by piously pointing out that anyone who turns away from Christ was never a real believer. Or, as an insider might say, “They were never born again.” There is Biblical support for this assertion. 1 John 2:19, which addressed the problem of First Century apostates, states: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (KJV) I’d like to point out here that the previous verse, verse 18, suggests that the writer also believed it was the end of history and that the Antichrist was about to appear. It seems that whoever penned 1 John was premature in announcing it to be the...