The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. While many of us know where we’d like to be, it can take years to get there. As such, each of us will find ourselves at different points of spiritual maturity, having different convictions and levels of integrating Christ and the gospel into our daily lives. Yet, there is a way of living our Christian life that goes beyond levels of maturity, falling into territory that is completely dangerous. This is called “nominal Christianity.”
What is Nominal Christianity?
If you’ve heard the term “Sunday morning Christian,” you’ve heard of nominal Christianity. At its core, this person is a Christian in name alone. Little about their lives reflects the truths of Jesus Christ and the gospel. Outside of attending church, there’s often very little that distinguishes this person’s life and values from someone who is still an enemy of God.
To be clear, this is vastly different from a new Christian. Often, nominal Christians have been claiming to belong to Christianity for years, attending church but showing little spiritual growth now compared to where they were several years ago.
So let’s look at 3 dangers faced by nominal Christians.
#1 You can’t engage life biblically
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. (2 Peter 1:2-4)
At salvation, we are given so much more than just forgiveness of sins. Christ gives us the Holy Spirit, who works inside us to make us less like the world and more like Jesus Christ. It’s not immediate, but it’s certainly effective.
As we become more like Christ, we start to see the world as He does. We put value in things that seem foolish to others. We slowly stop chasing after those things that once seemed so important as we turn our attention to Jesus Christ, who is ultimate.
This change in our worldview dramatically affects our lives. Things like success and failure take on new meanings. Power, health, and wealth cease to be our means of satisfaction. We respond to life’s good and bad in ways that are completely foreign to someone who doesn’t have Christ. That’s all through the power of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.
Yet, the nominal Christian often doesn’t understand these things. Their satisfaction is still bound up in what the world calls “good.” They respond to things with little evidence that Christ has done a miraculous work in their lives. Whether it’s dealing with tragedy or where they spend a bonus from work, the nominal Christian and the atheist rarely respond differently to things in the world.
#2 Your faith can’t benefit others
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)
Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)
This is especially dangerous for those with families, although even single people are at risk of being unable to glorify Christ to others. We aren’t called to live isolated lives but instead to let Christ affect our dealings with other Christians as well as non-Christians. If Christ has truly changed our lives, those changed lives will be seen by those around us.
Yet by living nominally, we’re still teaching people about Christ. We teach them that Christianity is little more than taking on a title, going to a building once a week, and maybe hanging some Bible verses around our house. We teach them that our lives don’t need to be devoted to Christ but that Christ is more of a feel-good person who’s there when we need Him.
And with kids or a spouse, this can be devastating to their own understanding of Christ. We often teach them that Christianity is filled with hypocrisy as they sit under a pastor who teaches about repentance and holiness, then go home to see us care nothing about those things. Perhaps they even see us living opposite to what God calls us to without showing any form of grief or repentance of that sinfulness.
We also teach our kids that Christ is an optional part of our lives. Often, a nominal Christian will attend church regularly as long as nothing else demands their time. Things like kids sporting events, hanging out with friends, or other distractions can easily pull us away from what we claim is an important part of our lives. Our actions prove to them that they don’t need to prioritize the things of God if something better comes along.
#3 Honestly, you may not be saved
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)
This is often the classic understanding of nominal Christianity. After all, if the Holy Spirit is truly living within us, we will eventually see evidence of His work in our lives. Those who can sit in a pew for years and show no change should wonder why. It’s possible that they aren’t under good teaching or don’t know how to grow, but it’s worth considering that a person with little care for the things of God is simply not saved.
Despite all our different experiences, each Christian will regularly have a few typical marks in their life:
- They continually hate sin more and more, while at the same time falling more in love with the things of God [You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)]
- They are often grieved by sin, confess it to God, and repent of it [If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)]
- Their lives are devoted to Christ, and their actions are a reflection of that [They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. (Titus 1:16)]
The reality is that calling ourselves a Christian doesn’t make us one. This is why politicians come under such heat from Christians – they claim to be Christian because it’s beneficial, yet their lives demonstrate that what they say and what they do are completely at odds with one another.
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness (Matthew 7:21-23)
Christ is clear that there’s a vast difference between people claiming to know Him and Christ knowing them. We can spend years going to church, posting Bible verses on social media, and telling our kids to love God. Yet if the transforming power of Jesus Christ isn’t radically changing our lives, we should seriously consider whether we’re just “talking the talk.”
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
Christ doesn’t call us to be comfortable in our lives. He calls us to live out our true purpose on earth by serving Him. If we find ourselves comfortable in our Christian lives, content to devote a few hours a week to Christ and nothing else, we must honestly examine whether we’ve really been “bought with a price” or if we still belong to sin.
How to escape nominalism
Nominal Christians will find themselves in one of two camps. Some are still sinners in need of salvation through Christ, while others are genuine Christians who simply have no idea what it means to live a Christian life.
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10)
Those still in need of Christ need to start by realizing their own sinfulness. They need to acknowledge that their good works and church attendance don’t mean anything to God. Their sin has made them enemies of God, breaking His law and thus deserving death. Only Christ’s death and resurrection could pay for our sins, and He offers that payment to us. If we realize the weight and ugliness of our sin, we must confess it to God and ask Jesus Christ to save us from it.
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:17-18)
Those who are truly saved but not living for Christ also need to repent of their sin. Though they don’t need to trust Christ for salvation a second time, they need to surrender to Him as their Lord. They need to realize that in salvation, their lives are no longer devoted to serving sin and its desires, but instead serve Christ and His desires. This isn’t giving up freedom in exchange for misery, but refocusing our desires from the world’s false promises and instead finding satisfaction in the only one who cannot fail us.
Following Christ requires repentance from sin and trust in Him, now and for the rest of our lives. Our day of salvation is just the beginning of the Christian life, and Christ offers far more riches and satisfaction than we could ever imagine. Surrender everything to Him and trust that He is worth it.
