The

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

Lausanne Movement defines a nominal

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

as "a person who has not responded in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and Lord"... e"may be a practising or non-practising church member. He may give intellectual assent to basic Christian doctrines and claim to be a Christian. He may be faithful in attending liturgical rites and worship services, and be an active member involved in church affairs."Christian Witness to Nominal Christians Among Roman Catholics

Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, more commonly known as the Lausanne Movement, is a global movement that mobilizes evangelical leaders to collaborate for world evangelization. The stated vision is "the whole church taking the whole ...

Occasional Paper 10. (LCWE) American

Reformed Reform is beneficial change Reform may also refer to: Media * ''Reform'' (album), a 2011 album by Jane Zhang * Reform (band), a Swedish jazz fusion group * ''Reform'' (magazine), a Christian magazine *''Reforme'' ("Reforms"), initial name of the ...

theologian Douglas Wilson disagrees with the category of "nominal Christian" and argues that all who are

baptized Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

enter into a

covenant Covenant may refer to: Religion * Covenant (religion), a formal alliance or agreement made by God with a religious community or with humanity in general ** Covenant (biblical), in the Hebrew Bible ** Covenant in Mormonism, a sacred agreement b ...

with God, and are obliged to serve him; there is, therefore, "no such thing as a merely nominal Christian any more than we can find a man who is a nominal husband". There are, however, "wicked and faithless Christians." According to data from the European Social Survey in 2012 show that around a third of

European Christians Christianity is the largest religion in Europe. Christianity has been practiced in Europe since the first century, and a number of the Pauline Epistles were addressed to Christians living in Greece, as well as other parts of the Roman Empire. ...

say they attend services once a month or more.Christianity and church attendance
/ref> More than two-thirds of Latin American Christians and 90% of

African Christians Christianity in Africa first arrived in Egypt in approximately 50 AD, reached the region around Carthage by the end of the second century. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions ...

said they attended church regularly. Missionaries Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, estimate that 1.2 billion people are "nominal and non-practising 'Christians'."Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, '' Operation World: 21st Century Edition'' (Paternoster, 2001), 13–14.

Sunday Christian

A Sunday Christian or Sunday morning Christian (also once-a-weeker) is a derisive term used to refer to someone who typically attends

Christian church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym fo ...

services on Sundays, but is presumed or witnessed not to adhere to the doctrines or rules of the

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

(either actively or passively), or refuses to register as a church member. These members are sometimes considered to be hypocritical in how or what they practice due in part to their confusion or cherry-picking how they live their religion.

Cafeteria Christianity

Usage

The ancestor term, "

cafeteria Catholicism A Cafeteria Catholic is a Catholic who dissents from the doctrinal or moral teachings of the Catholic Church, including those who choose not to receive one or more of the seven sacraments (for example thinking confession to a priest is not necessa ...

", was coined by E. Michael Jones's ''Fidelity Magazine'' in 1986. The first use of Cafeteria Christianity in print has been dated to the magazine, ''

The Month ''The Month'' was a monthly review, published from 1864 to 2001, which, for almost all of its history, was owned by the English Province of the Society of Jesus and was edited by its members. History ''The Month'', founded and edited by Frances M ...

'', in 1992. Another early use was by

Richard Holloway Richard Holloway Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE (born 26 November 1933) is a Scottish writer, Television presenter, broadcaster and cleric. He was the Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2000 and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Ch ...

in an interview in ''

Third Way The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from a ...

'' in September 2001. Since the cafeteria Christian may be someone who wants "to reject the parts of scripture they find objectionable and embrace only the parts they like", the term can be used

ad hominem ''Ad hominem'' (), short for ''argumentum ad hominem'' (), refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically, this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other ...

, either to disqualify a person's omission of a Christian precept, or to invalidate their advocacy of a different precept entirely. Equated with "Christianity Lite", it is sometimes used to deride the mass-appeal subculture of

megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...

es. "Cafeteria Christianity" is a derogatory term to accuse other Christian individuals or denominations of selecting which

Christian doctrine Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, ...

s they will follow, and which they will not. The related term "cafeteria Catholicism" is a pejorative term applied to Catholics who dissent from

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

moral teaching on issues such as

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

premarital sex Premarital sex is Human sexual activity, sexual activity which is practiced by people before they are Marriage, married. Premarital sex is considered a sin by a number of religions and also considered a Sexual mores, moral issue which is taboo i ...

masturbation Masturbation is the sexual stimulation of one's own genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation may involve hands, fingers, everyday objects, sex toys such as vibrators, or combinatio ...

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...

. The term is less frequently applied to those who dissent from other Catholic moral teaching on issues such as

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, or

just war The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is m ...

Interpretation

Cafeteria A cafeteria, sometimes called a canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school ...

-style means picking and choosing, as if "sliding our food tray along a cafeteria's counter". The term implies that an individual's professed religious belief is actually a proxy for their personal opinions rather than an acceptance of Christian

doctrine Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system ...

. The selectivity implied may relate to the acceptance of Christian doctrines, or attitudes to moral and ethical issues (for example

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

idolatry Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the A ...

) and the applicability of Old Testament laws to Christians. As the Christian version of "

cherry-picking Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...

theology", it is seen as a result of

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

reading of texts, where the reader goes beyond analysis of what requires interpretation, adopting an approach where "anything goes". In ''The Marketplace of Christianity'', economists

Robert Ekelund Robert Burton Ekelund Jr. (born 1940) is an American economist. Education Originally from Galveston, Texas, Ekelund attended St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, earning his BBA in economics in 1962 and his MA in economics and histo ...

, Robert Hébert and

Robert Tollison Robert D. Tollison (1942–October 24, 2016) was an American economist who specialized in public choice theory. Education A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Tollison attended local Wofford College where he earned an A.B. in business admini ...

equate Cafeteria Christianity with self-generated Christianity, i.e. the religion of many Christians which "matches their demand profile" and "may be Christian or based in other areas of thought". They conclude that "Christian religious individualists have existed in all times."

References

{{reflist

Sunday Christian

Cafeteria Christianity

Usage

Interpretation

See also

References

Further reading