politics

This a pointless distinction. You have no knowledge of the true nature of the relationship between a person and their Savior. [...] anyone who claims to be Christian is a Christian, as far as any mortal being knows.

You know based upon how they act. If a person says they're an avid hiker, but after observing them for a decade you never see them hiking, you know their statement was false. If you ask them after that decade and they still profess that they're an avid hiker, you know they're lying. This is what Jesus meant by "they'll know you're my disciples if you love one another."

How do you know the priests aren't repentant? Even if they've committed hundreds rapes, they may still ask and receive the forgiveness of Jesus.

Because true repentance brings with it a change in behavior. "Slipping up" once or twice with something ~~minor~~ (edit: oh geez, that's...a very poor choice of words. How about "something inconsequential") is one thing. But big abuses, and patterns of abuse over decades, and efforts to hide or dismiss it once it comes to light shows a lack of repentance. This is what Jesus meant by "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." He's speaking there specifically about false teachers seeking to harm others.

Certainly, they could ask for and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. But by continuing in a pattern of sinful behavior, they prove that they have not, even if they claim to have done so.

The Bible does not define how many times you can commit the same sin and ask for forgiveness before Jesus doesn't believe you anymore.

No, but Jesus does know the human heart, and will not be fooled by people trying to exploit apparent loopholes to look holy without actually pursuing sanctification. "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence," Jesus said. Or John the Baptist, who told the same corrupt religious leaders to "bear fruit in keeping with repentance." So the Bible doesn't give a limit because there's a judge on the matter with perfect understanding.

Death-bed conversions were and are absolutely acceptable in Christianity and always have been. [...] The sinner's soul can always be saved right up to their last breath.

Sure, but if they believe God is that easily fooled by someone who knowingly waits until the last possible instant to "convert" so that they can sin during their lives, why would they believe even then? We're not talking about some impersonal magic rules or an easily-befuddled genie, we're talking about an intimate and infinite God who created the universe and knows your heart better than you do; and if you're just checking the box at the end of your life in hopes of avoiding the flames, there's no way it's true repentance.

Indeed, torturing someone until they confess was common practice back in the day, partly because they believed in truth through duress, but also because it was a chance for a Christian to rescue his soul before death.

Yeah, inquisition is a terrible, dark, vile, truly despicable chapter in the church's history. And while I think there may have been a few who were hoodwinked into believing that, the people who were teaching it had to have known that it was bunk.

I think your grasp of what Christianity actually is may be contaminated by what you want it to be.

I mean, I'm just reading the founding document, through the lens of the majority of Christians over the course of history and around the world. What it's become in America in the past century or so flies in the face of what it has always been, and what it was intended to be.

But even what you want it to be contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is not logically consistent to say that Christianity is based on a personal relationship with God,

I don't say that. The "personal relationship" thing is just not in the Bible. That's a recent addition to satisfy the independent American, (edit: reintroduced from an ancient heresy called gnosticism) and nobody would've recognized that faith before American evangelicals ~~invented~~ (edit: rediscovered) it. Christianity was always intended to be--and has historically been--practiced in community, with people in one another's lives so that they can see sin in one another and exhort one another toward sanctification.

while at the same time taking it upon yourself to judge who is a "real" Christian.

Once again, I am not making that judgment. The unrepentant person does not bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and thus it becomes obvious over time that they have not repented.

And to be clear here: I am not talking about a teenage girl who gets pregnant before she's married. I'm talking about Fortune 500 CEOs who gleefully fleece their customers and their employees from Monday through Saturday, then show up at church on Sunday in some pretense of piety. I'm talking about police officers who worship next to Black men on Sunday morning and then have them in a chokehold on the curb on Friday night. I'm talking about politicians who claim that they've never needed to repent in their lives and that their favorite book of the Bible is "Two Corinthians," and who tear-gas people protesting the murder of Image-Bearers so that they can have a photo op with a Bible that's never been opened.

They're all bearing unrepentant fruit, and I think it's important to recognize them as such.

Luther tried that when the Catholic Church abused its authority and here we are again.

Indeed. I don't remember if you're the one I mentioned this to, but I think there's another Reformation coming. I hope so, at least.

Except this time we can't point to a single authoritarian Catholic Church, but have to deal with a massive de-centralized super-community of corrupt churches. Luther wounded the big Dragon, but replaced it with a Hydra that keeps growing new heads, each one claiming to be the "real" Christians!

Yes, agreed. The Second Reformation is going to be a long road to travel indeed. If there is any comfort, it is that there are many more Luthers this time. (And hopefully they're less antisemitic.)