this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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You and I are on the same page, and the Pope is basically trotting out the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. I get that he's trying to sway people away from war and I applaud his efforts, but to quote Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion."
No, as the head of the orthodox Christian faith, he gets to define it however he wants. You can disagree, and that's fine, but, according to Orthodox Christianity, in this moment, he is correct. For the Scotsman example, it's like the king of Scotland saying anyone outside out their borders is not a Scotsman, which would be correct. It's not a no true Scotsman fallacy, just as the king of the Scots can define what a Scotsman is, the Pope can define what a Christian is (according to the orthodoxy).
My friend, the Pope is not even a member of the Orthodox Christian faith
They should rename the fallacy "no true Christian" at this point as 99.9% of times I see that fallacy, it's in this context.
I think you're thinking of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, where I meant little o orthodox. He's also head of the big and little c catholic church, which, again, gives him authority to define it as he wishes. You don't have to agree with it, and that's fine.
It certainly would be more relatable to more people. Again, I disagree that it applies in this case. It isn't some random person saying these people aren't Christian. It's the person in charge of Christianity (at least, his flavor of it, by catholic implies all of them). The reason there are so many forms of Christianity is because people won't always agree. That still doesn't make this fallacious though.
Well its not quite the same. A no true Scotsman fallacy is an appeal to purity based solely on membership of a group. When the group is defined by adherence to a code of conduct then it's not a fallacy. For example "no true vegan eats animal meat".
Christian is literally defined as being a follower of the teachings of Christ. The specifics of those teachings vary by what parts of the New Testament you consider apocryphal. But broad strokes all agree that it's something along the lines of rejection of worldly things, forgive your enemies, love God and your neighbor, etc.
The Old Testament has a very different tone because its a mix of myth + law + history for a Bronze Age civilization. The Bible explicitly says that the fire and brimstone, wrathful old God has been superseded by Jesus's new covenant. Basically it's there for continuity and pedigree but if you follow the OT rules over the New Testament then you're not a Christian.
There's a good argument to be made that almost no modern denomination (including the Catholic Church) can claim to be Christian because their creeds integrate too many obviously counter-Christian values. But that doesn't make the Pope wrong here. Using selected passages from the Bible to justify bombing innocent people makes you a militant Biblicist, not a Christian.