Apostate vs Backslider – What’s the difference?

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Apostate vs Backslider - What's the difference?
As nouns the difference between apostate and backslider is that apostate is a person who has renounced a religion or faith while backslider is a recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.

As an adjective apostate is guilty of apostasy.

apostate

English

Adjective

(–)

  • Guilty of apostasy.
    • We must punish this apostate priest.
  • * Milton
    • So spake the apostate angel.
  • * Steele
    • A wretched and apostate state.

    Noun

    (en noun )

  • A person who has renounced a religion or faith.
  • (Roman Catholicism) One who, after having received sacred orders, renounces his clerical profession.

    • Related terms

    * apostasy
    * apostatical

    Synonyms

    * deconvert
    * recreant
    * withersake

    See also

    * heretic

    External links

    * (Apostasy)
    —-

    backslider

    English

    Noun

    (en noun )

  • A recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.
  • * 1888 , Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Judgement of Dungara’, Black and White , Folio Society 2004, vol. 1, p. 382:
    • At night the Red Elephant Tusk boomed and groaned among the hills, and the faithful waked and said: ‘The God of Things as They Are matures revenge against the backsliders .’
    She married him thinking to change his ways, and for a while he got religion, but he was ever a backslider ; she soon began finding bottles stashed about the house.

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