Perhaps, or perhaps confused
Was he ever truly Christian? -- > we don't know, perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't.
I don't know, but if he was, then he will return to Christ before he dies. I don't know that he ever explicitly apostatized. -- again, God knows.
I believe in a loving God who gives us the forgiveness freely, we just have to accept it. Yet like recalcitrant criminals we head back to the life we know. God forgives and that is incredible as we don't deserve it and we are not worthy, but He forgives. So He extends the hand continually, we can accept and reject, accept and reject, His patience is infinite. We as humans can't do that and can't fathom why He would either, but He does.
Coming up with an explanation of "she was never Christian in the first place" when sometime earlier "she is assured of salvation because she accepted Jesus as her buddy" is sophistry.
We need to accept Christ on His terms -- repent+believe+be baptised+eat of His body+endure to the end. We may stumble and fall, but there is ALWAYS the helping hand ready to lift us up, we just need to accept it...
I really think that you misunderstand my position. Saying the words doesn't do anything for your soul. God does not indulge in magic.
You have to accept Christ as Savior, but then you have to follow Him. Not for salvation's sake, that you now already have, but for love of God, because He commanded.
Failure to do so will not cost you your salvation. You do need to repent, but confessing to a priest is not necessary. As Christians, we are our own priests, and Jesus is our High Priest, the ONLY mediator between God and man.
You may slip and stumble and commit grievous sins, but your salvation is not lost. Yet you still need to repent of them. If you, say, go from being a choirboy to a gangsta, sell drugs, rob, rape, and murder people, or from a choirgirl to, say, a super rock star, and do drugs, fornicate wildly, marry 4 husbands; then in these cases were you truly saved as a choirboy/girl.
If you had died then, instead of going on to live a life of sin, would you have gone to heaven? Only god can judge the heart and soul, but my guess would be NO. You were not truly saved.
If on your deathbed, you repented and turned to God, would you be saved? Yes, and that is not a guess. Even Hitler could have done it, although I doubt that he did.
But the question is, was this the first time You accepted God, or did God extend your life long enough for an already saved person to come back to Him?
I don't know, and neither do you. What we both know is what our church teaches about this. But I don't consider this a doctrine essential to salvation, just one that is about salvation, so I am prepared to be wrong about it.
Either way, I will make it to heaven, and while only God can judge the soul, I assume that you will, too. When we get there, we'll know.