Reprobate

Reprobate (pronounced rep-ruh-beyt)

(1) A depraved, unprincipled, or wicked person; degenerate; morally bankrupt.

(2) In Christianity (from Calvinism), a person rejected by God and beyond hope of salvation and damned to eternal punishment in hell, forever hearing only their own screams of agony, smelling only their own decaying flesh and knowing only the gnashing of their decaying teeth.

(3) Rejected; cast off as worthless (archaic).

1400-1450: From the late Middle English reprobaten (condemn, disapprove vehemently; rejected as worthless) from the Latin reprobātus (disapproved, rejected, condemned), past participle of reprobāre (to reprove or hold in disfavour).  The construct was re- (back, again (here indicating probably "opposite of, reversal of previous condition")) + probare (prove to be worthy).  Used often in the form reprobacioun (rejection), the usual spelling in Church Latin was reprobationem (nominative reprobation (rejection, reprobation), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of reprobāre.  A doublet of reprove.

Notorious dispensationalist and reprobate, crooked Hillary Clinton in pantsuit.

The earliest use in English was as a verb meaning "to disapprove”; the specific religious meanings were adopted in the mid-fifteenth century, the general sense of an unprincipled person emerging decades later.  The sense of "reject, put away, set aside" dates from circa 1600 and the meaning "abandoned in character, morally depraved, unprincipled" is attested from the 1650s.  The specifically religious idea of "one rejected by God, person given over to sin, from the adjectival sense was from the 1540s whereas the generalized "abandoned or unprincipled person" was noted from the 1590s.  The use in theology was more specialised still.  The meaning "the state of being consigned to eternal punishment" was used since the 1530s and from the 1580s, this extended to any "condemnation as worthless or spurious" the more broad sense of "condemnation, censure, act of vehemently disapproving" used since 1727.  Other nouns once used in English include reprobacy (1590s), reprobance (c. 1600), reprobature (1680s, legal); never common, most are now archaic except a technical, historic terms.  Although the word has many synonyms (tramp, scoundrel, wastrel, miscreant, wretch, rascal, cad, rogue, outcast, pariah, wicked, sinful, evil, corrupt) it has always attracted authors who enjoy detailing the reprobacy of the habitually reprobative.

You are a heartless reprobate, sir; a heartless, thankless, good-for-nothing reprobate.  I have done with you.  You are my son; that I cannot help - but you shall have no more part or parcel in me as my child, nor I in you as your father.

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Barchester Towers (1857)

The fate of all reprobates.  The Harrowing of Hell (c 1499), by Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516)

Christians are much concerned with the fate of reprobates, all of whom should be condemned.  Israel Folau (b 1989), a Tongan-born Australian football player (of the country’s three oval-ball codes) however attracted some condemnation himself when he posted on Instagram: “Warning – Drunks, Homosexuals, Adulterers, Liars, Fornicators, Thieves, Atheists, Idolaters. HELL AWAITS YOU. REPENT! ONLY JESUS SAVES”.  There were many who rose to defend the homosexuals but all seemed oblivious to the feelings of the others on his list, the chattering classes content to let drunks, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters rot in Hell.  Noted drinker and adulterer Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) must have felt put-upon. 

Some have been more expansive on the matter of reprobates than Mr Folau, Loren Rosson on his Busybody page detailing in three tiers, the worst of the sins committed by man, according to Pastor Steven Anderson (b 1981), preacher & founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona.  Anderson first came to national attention in August 2009 after preaching a sermon in which he prayed for the visitation of the Angel of Death to Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017).  In what he may suspect is a a conspiracy between the Freemasons and the Jews, Anderson has been denied entry to South Africa, Botswana, Jamaica, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Tier 1: The irrevocably damned. Those beyond redemption, God having rejected them eternally.

(1) Homosexuals/pedophiles.  Note the absent ampersand; in Anderson’s view the two are inseparable, it being impossible to be one without being the other; they are the worst of the worst.  Anderson believes sodomites are not only sinners, but actual reprobates, based on the Book of Romans, God having tired of them, he turned them into sodomising perverts:  “God gave them up to vile affections” (Romans 1:26); “God gave them over to a reprobate mind” (Romans 1:28); “God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts” (Romans1:24).  This, Anderson argues, is the explanation for homosexuality and surprisingly he’s in agreement with the gay view that “God made me like this” though not “born like this” faction, God making them that way only when they rejected the truth and the light; God “discarding them by turning them into homos.”  As reprobates, sodomites, unlike most sinners (those in tiers 2 and 3), cannot possibly be saved, nor should anyone want to try saving them: “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Revelation 22:11).  The internal logic is perfect, God turned them into sodomites because of their God-hating hearts and it’s all their fault.

(2) Bible translators and scholars.  Anderson condemns these folk as irredeemable reprobates because of the Revelation 22:19, which damns all who tamper with the Word of God, ie altering the original text of the King James Bible (KJV 1611).

Tier 2: Especially wicked sinners:  These offenders are at least capable of being saved, if they accept Christ the Lord as their savior.

(3) Physicians who perform abortions, pro-choice crusaders; women who obtain abortions.  Anderson’s view is that all those involved in the abortion industry, the medical staff, the proponents and the women who procure the operation are simply those who murder the most innocent and vulnerable; they are reprobates. 

(4) Zionists.  Israel is the most ungodly nation on the planet according to Anderson and he calls the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 a diabolical fraud.  The Jews are not God’s chosen people and have not been so for two millennia, replacement theology a basic premise of the New Testament: “If the kingdom of God is taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, you’ve been replaced! You were the people of God, you were that holy nation of the Old Testament, but now you have been replaced. And today, the physical nation of Israel has been replaced by believers, by a holy nation made up of all believers in Christ, whether they be Jew or Gentile, no matter what the nationality.” According to Anderson, Zionism is more anti-Christ than any other of the major world religions.

(5) Modalists.  Anderson hates and despises modalists more even that the atheists who deny the very holiness of Christ.  Modalism is a heresy that denies the trinity and maintains God is only one person or entity (there are factions) who has three modes (or faces, or masks) which do not exist simultaneously, and that He changes modes by assuming whatever mode circumstances demand.  Thus to modalists, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same person or entity, there not being the three in one but just one who shifts modalities as required.  This is of course heresy because Christianity teaches the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct. There is of course but one God but within God there are three entities which Christians call trinity.

(6) Atheists & evolutionists.  It’s not entirely clear if Anderson regards these two as interchangeable but it’s probably a tiresome technical point, both equally at risk of becoming reprobates who, if they persist in their rejection, God will turn into sodomites.

(7) Litterbugs.  Anderson might find some sympathy for this category.  Anderson hates those who drop litter whether on city streets or in the wilderness and can quote scripture to prove God too disapproves.

(8). Men who piss sitting down.  Anderson identifies this sin as one especially prevalent among Germans and other secular Europeans but any man who allows himself to be pussy-whipped into effeminate behavior in the loo is suspect.  Although among the less well-known passages in the Bible (KJV; 1611), “him that pisseth against the wall” (1 Samuel 25:22; 1 Samuel 25:34; 1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 16:11; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8), it's known to Anderson who cites as a symbol of proper manliness.  However, the original translators may have been a little more nuanced, scholarship suggesting it’s best understood as “able-bodied men”.  Anderson condemns preachers, presidents & potentates who “pee sitting down” and demands leadership of the country be restored to those “who want stand up and piss against the wall like a real man.”  Anderson assures his congregation he’s a "stand and piss man".  For men wishing to score points with God and obtain redemption, this is one of the sins most easily forever renounced.  However, don’t lie, for God knows how you pee.

(9) Physicians and technicians who perform in vitro fertilization; women who undergo the treatment.  Anderson explains those who conceive using IVF instead of waiting naturally to fall pregnant are stealing babies from God, a concept he expresses more graphically in sermons as “ripping babies from the hands of God”.

(10) Male gynecologists.  Anderson says men who do this are disgusting perverts; their medical qualifications are irrelevant

Tier 3:  Sinful Christians. Those who preach or espouse these views could either be false Christians, or simply misguided believers in Christ who need to be educated.

(11) Pre-tribbers.  Anderson is actually on sound historical and theological ground here.  The idea that Christians will, on the day of the rapture, be taken bodily up to heaven before the apocalyptic tribulation is a wholly un–biblical notion unknown before the mid-nineteenth century and barely known before being spread in pop-culture.  It seems to have begun as a way of marketing Christianity as something more attractive.  As the Book of Revelation makes clear, Christians not only expected to suffer the tribulation before they were raptured, that suffering lies at the core of their holy duty.  Pre-tribulation is an un-Christian cop-out.

(12) Dispensationalists. Anderson is also correct that dispensationalist is another nineteenth century heresy and a kind of cultural relativism and while he doesn’t dwell on it, thinks cultural relativists are among the worst reprobates).  Anderson asserts that God never changes, noting “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).  The Old Testament carries the same moral imperatives it always did, and the God of the New Testament aligns completely with it.

(13)  Calvinists, and others who deny free will.  It matters not to Anderson whether one cites a theological or biological basis for rejecting the doctrine of man’s free will; both are wrong.

(14) The lazy box-tickers. It’s not enough just occasionally to walk the neighborhood streets and leave in the mailboxes a flyer about Jesus, at least twice a week a Christian must go about their district, knocking on doors and spreading the word of the Lord.

US screenwriter & film director Paul Schrader (b 1946) really knows how to hurt someone's feelings.