backslide

But what about the formerly middle-class African Americans who find themselves on the backslide?

They will no longer be tolerated, nor will converted Israel backslide again.

If thou turn us not, we shall never turn; it is in our nature to backslide for ever.

It is a thing of very common occurrence, inside the different denominations, for their members to backslide, as they call it.

But one must go forward before one can backslide, and Kedzie was on the way up the slippery hill.

Many of Balzac's women repent, and many of those that repent either backslide or come very near to it.