In my lifetime, I’ve seen a change in how altar calls and sinner’s prayers are conducted. From what I’ve read, the practice was either created by Billy Graham’s ministry or popularized by it. I am thinking back to the 1980’s, a time when some of the preachers were around when the practice was knew, and it seemed like there was an understanding that this prayer was a means to get people to confess Biblical faith.The preacher would preach about Jesus, the need for forgiveness of sin, Christ’s death on the cross, and the resurrection of Christ. There might be some other theme for the message, too. At the end, those who wanted to ‘get saved’ or whatever the wording was for that altar call, were called forward to repeat a prayer. Most prayers I heard (being around one particular evangelist) were tied very closely to Romans 10:9-10and had people confess that Jesus is Lord and that he rose from the dead. I think this was always preceded by a prayer-confession along the lines of ‘I am a sinner’ and that Christ died for ‘my sins’. The emphasis seemed to be on the Gospel.
I would think that the real issue is that too many ministers think that people already have a general understanding of the gospel. I know that when I preach, I have to watch out to keep from saying things like And you know what happened to Samson, etc., since there may be people who don’t know.As for the definition of religion, I do believe that it is a reaching out for God. Now, the part about God reaching back…maybe. You will recall how Paul told the Athenians that the Unknown God they were reaching for…he was there to declare that God to them.So they were reaching.I have concluded that the many Muslims are sincerely reaching out to God, but their understanding of God is so twisted that he is, for all intents and purposes, an Unknown God.Same with Jews. They are reaching out to an utterly outdated understanding of God. It would be like a current religion reaching out to some fertility symbol-god…that is, it is dated and no longer the fullest understanding of Who and What God is.
That statement needs to be embedded into every SS teacher and minister. In my later life I am seeing people who have no idea who Paul and Silas were nor what they did. Same with Joseph and his brothers. WE were around so many people who grew up in Fundamental SS classes we forget that millions have never sat in a BIBLE CLASS of ANY KIND.This is a good thought to go along with this post. THANKS for a reminder….And YES to the post, evangelism has changed very much. BUT the main force should be for the message to be REAL REPENT & BELIEVE , that is still the basic….. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
I think that’s part of it. But what doesn’t make sense is that these kinds of altar calls/prayer scenarios are directed toward unbelievers, and it is likely that an unbeliever does not go to Sunday school.
The word religion has conflated with the meanings of legalism or being Pharisaical. It gets an amen from the audience, who probably like to feel that they are smugly above all the lesser people who practice a religion.Of course, the Bible speaks of TRUE religion (and undefiled). There are a number of throw-away lines used to build rapport or the such–most of it foolish, I think.The better way to say it might be to direct one’s ire against the mindless following of rules, the thinking that being in a particular religion is the same as salvation, etc.
In older writings, for example Puritan writings, ‘religion’ is often used almost as the equivalent of ‘Christianity.’ I thought redefining the word ‘religion’ didn’t make much sense when I was 10 or 11. It was an okay word. Christians used it. When suddenly it seemed like masses of Charismatics had redefined the word ‘religion’ to mean legalism or vain religion, I did not participate in the redefinition. I thought it was foolish to redefine a word for no good reason. It cuts us off from the historical meaning in Bible translations and Christian literature. It is irksome for me to hear this anti-religion speech because:- It does not match our Bibles.- It is confusing and communicates false ideas– like no need for church, prayer, Bible study.- The way it is presented is it often makes an unimportant non-issue to be important. – It deals with some sort of problem some niche of unbelievers have with the Gospel that probably does not apply to the rest of the population.- It relies on a made-up definition few people outside of our subculture do not share.- It is used as a substitute topic to preach on instead of the Gospel in what is supposed to be an evangelistic setting.- It often detracts from the Gospel message presented, IMO, rather than supporting it.- It’s cheesy.Maybe I’ll have to write a book on it some day.
The first time I recall any derogatory use of the word religion was listening to Rodney Howard Browne of WCIE at the Lakeland Revival many years ago.WCIE was owned by Carpenter’s Home Church. The station remains, in my estimation, the best Christian radio station that has existed (it no longer is like it was). Each night of the revival, the radio station would tune into the live services. While we felt the folks were sincere, we could not go with all the laughing stuff. While some of it may have been a truly spiritual thing, I would estimate that the vast majority was not–it felt forced in some way.It was the beginning of the end for Carpenter’s Home Church. I don’t know if it was the revival itself or what, but not too long after that long revival, certain key personalities on WCIE left. Eventually Browne started a church on the outskirts of Tampa/Brandon/Riverview, which likely brought in many people that had heard of the revival in Lakeland. (NOTE: This is NOT the Todd Bentley revival.)In any case, during the revival, there were often comments about religious people and the such. We actually had a really good family in our church decide to move to Carpenter’s Home Church. We wished them well. Thankfully, a few months later, they returned, realizing that they had left something really good for something not nearly as good as they thought. They were so humble about their return. And they stayed until they moved to another state–and even today remain very good friends of the family.
Umm, this is the first proble________________
For me it was probably around 1982 or 1983 when I was about 11. Our church helped out with the choir for an evangelist named Bill Glass, who had been a football player. Sandie Patty’s father directed the choir which I was a part of. I was young and do not remember all the details of the sermon. I remember something about audience members who knew the truth and did not want to repent being cowards. One of my Sunday school classmates father, Baxter, gave a testimony about how that made him self-aware and he decided to give his life to Christ. The evangelist said something about religion being man reaching out to God and God reaching out to man. Still, as a child, I did not see a problem with the word ‘religion’ and thought his definition of it was odd.Then, I remember a Charismatic church I visited occasionally around 1990 when I was in college would use ‘religion’ negatively. The preacher said, I’m not telling you to be religions. Being religious is a bad thing. I remember thinking if an unbeliever or someone from a different kind of church was there, he’d wonder why the people came to church, why they prayed, and why the pastor was preaching if religion was so bad.I recently asked an atheist themed debate forum online about this, and someone summed it up really well. Christians that say religion is bad are using a bull ….. definition of religion. I was just double-checking to see if it sounded as convoluted and confusing to unbelievers as it still does to me…when I can guess at one of the definitions the speaker means by it because I’ve heard it for years. Maybe the evangelist had read Karl Barth. I think the religion versus relationship speech was in Hal Lindsay’s book and some preachers should it should be a part of the Gospel.