Nominal Christian

Nominal Christian
The evangelical Lausanne Movement defines a nominal Christian as "a person who has not responded in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and Lord"...[he] "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." American Reformed theologian Douglas Wilson disagrees with the category of "nominal Christian" and argues that all who are baptized enter into a covenant 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 say they attend services once a month or more. More than two-thirds of Latin American Christians and 90% of African Christians said they attended church regularly. Missionaries Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, estimate that 1.2 billion people are "nominal and non-practising 'Christians'." According to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, Christians in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States have high levels of commitment to their faith.
The Pew Research Center studied the effects of gender on religiosity throughout the world, finding that women are generally more religious than men. Pew Research Center data in 53 countries, found that 53% of Christian women and 46% of Christian men say they attend services at least once a week. While Christians of both genders in African countries are equally likely to regularly attend services.
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 services on Sundays, but is presumed or witnessed not to adhere to the doctrines or rules of the religion (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", 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, in 1992.
Another early use was by Richard Holloway in an interview in Third Way 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, 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 megachurches.
"Cafeteria Christianity" is a derogatory term to accuse other Christian individuals or denominations of selecting which Christian doctrines 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 moral teaching on issues such as abortion, birth control, premarital sex, masturbation or homosexuality. The term is less frequently applied to those who dissent from other Catholic moral teaching on issues such as social justice, capital punishment, or just war.
Interpretation
Cafeteria-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. The selectivity implied may relate to the acceptance of Christian doctrines, or attitudes to moral and ethical issues (for example abortion, homosexuality, racism or idolatry) and the applicability of Old Testament laws to Christians.
As the Christian version of "cherry-picking theology", it is seen as a result of postmodern 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 Hébert and Robert Tollison 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."
See also
Adiaphora
Apatheism
Backsliding
Biblical law in Christianity
Christian atheism
Christian agnosticism
Christian deism
Christianity and homosexuality
Christian views on the Old Covenant
Cultural Christian
Cultural Mormon
Double belonging
Dual-covenant theology
Hermeneutics
Humanistic Judaism
Lapsed Catholic
Legalism (theology)
Moralistic therapeutic deism
New Covenant
New Wine into Old Wineskins
No true Scotsman
Non-denominational Christianity
Postchristianity
Red-Letter Christian
Rice Christian
Sabbath in Christianity
Sunday Christian
Supersessionism
References
Further reading
Eddie Gibbs, In Name Only: Tackling the Problem of Nominal Christianity. Fuller Seminary Press, 2000.
Rommen, Edward. "A framework for the analysis of nominal Christianity : a West German case study," in Reflection and projection: Missiology at the threshold of 2001 : festschrift in honor of George W. Peters for his eightieth birthday (Bad Liebenzell : Verlag der Liebenzeller Mission, 1988) p 322–337.
Christian terminology
Christian secularism
1990s neologisms