| has gloss | eng: Backsliding is a term used within Christianity to describe a process by which an individual who has converted to Christianity reverts to pre-conversion habits and/or lapses or falls into sin. Within churches which teach Arminianism, backsliding is a state in which any free willed being can adopt, which is a doctrine rejected by Calvinists. Historically, backsliding was considered a trait of the Biblical Israel which would turn from the Abrahamic God to follow idols. In the New Testament church (see Acts of the Apostles and Christianity in the 1st century), the story of the Prodigal Son has become a representation of a backslider. |