I remember being 5 years old at the first church I remember attending. I remember being at what I believe was a VBS... maybe. I remember a lot of puppets, and when you're 5 puppets are pretty cool. They also made a parody of the ghostbusters song and called it sinbusters. At 5 I thought this was amazing... My standards were much lower then. And during this event I remember being led through "the sinner's prayer"
I remember my first youth events when I was 14. Greg Johnson was speaking, and he led everyone through the same prayer. Sure I had a spiritual high for a couple weeks and though everything had changed, but honestly nothing really changed.
I remember going to one of the gatherings and Pastor Nar was talking about salvation, and the discussion progressed. Some said, "once saved always saved", others said if there needs to be a question about someone who "walked away", were they ever saved to begin with?
This began one of my first realizations of this matter, which is, the Bible doesn't say we'll be saved by saying a little prayer. The natural question surely followed, "then why do we have the sinner's prayer?" From what I've learned the sinner's prayer didn't really gain popularity until about the 20th century with evangelists such as Billy graham, and televangelists. Which means that followers of Jesus were going for almost 2,000 years before the sinners prayer hit the scene.
It seems today if you look at those who identify themselves as Christians as a whole you begin to see an obvious problem. This is because the term Christian wasn't meant to be claimed as a title by ones self, but a label given by someone else. The sinners prayer, I believe, has only worsened the problem. Now people say a prayer and think that makes them a follower of Jesus. The sinners prayer takes everything that scriptures describes as fruits of someone following the way of Jesus, and neatly packages them in a Christianity happy meal, that comes with a free toy of salvation. I'm not trying to belittle the concept of salvation, I'm simply stating that that's how many people end up treating salvation. They treat it like a license to sin rather than the wonderful gift given through Grace.
Now, I'm also not saying that someone who has decided to follow Jesus shouldn't pray as they begin that journey, but the prayer that is said should be genuine from that person, and not something offering a false sense of, "say this prayer and then you're a christian" So many people being told that all they have to do is say a prayer and everything's rainbows and butterflies, I think, is a large factor of why the church is so messed up. Mohandas Gandhi said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." The church (generally speaking) has made following Jesus something that Jesus never meant it to be. Jesus didn't come to bring Christianity, he came to bring life.
Modern Christianity bugs me. Organized religion as a whole, is extremely hypocritical and elitist (especially Catholicism). That said, I still believe in God, and Christ. I just don't believe in people. Ghandi had it right.
ReplyDeleteDuring my time with UTurn, we had alot of those 'Sunday/Wednesday' Christians, that were encouraged to hang out, act Holy, and during the rest of the week, live their immoral lives with no remorse (so it had seemed). Now, I by NO MEANS, am perfect- as a matter of fact, I live a sinful life knowingly. But at the end of the day, when I am truly repentent, I know God will forgive me.
Good post, buddy. Thanks for making me think! :)
Thanks for the feedback. Modern Christianity bugs me as well, as you may have noticed. There's been a lot of poor examples (not that I'm the best either). A lot of people are doing a lot of damage. Some have ridiculous motives and intentions, others have good motives and intentions, but are following a distorted version of Jesus. Thankfully God has Grace with all of us.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying reading your blog. Just a few thoughts to add on this one: I also remember being about 6 years old and someone telling me to pray the sinners prayer, and then telling me that was how you go to heaven. I then went home and prayed that prayer on a pretty regular basis out of sheer fear that I might not have prayed it right and might be going to hell. I completely agree with you that many people use the sinners prayer as an excuse to go out and sin as much as you want, and in my opinion, that is not salvation. I DO think there was a definite moment in my life when I realized several things: first, that I was a sinner, second, that Jesus loved me so much that he was willing to pay the ultimate price for my sins, and third, I was sorry for my sin and wanted to be forgiven and follow Christ. So I definitely think there is a moment when you accept the gift of salvation that is offered through Christ, but I don't believe that it can be taken so lightly as to say that you say a prayer and then you are automatically heaven bound. I think it is more complicated than just that. Don't get me wrong..I in NO WAY endorse a "work your way to heaven" kind of Christianity. I am just saying that I think that when you decide to heed Jesus's call to follow him, the prayer that one says should not be a generic "ths is how you make everything ok" type of prayer. I think it takes the sincerity out of it if someone else is telling you what to say. Everyones journey to God is different and therefore, the feelings and prayers that go along with that should be different too. I think the most important thing isnt that you say some sort of sinners prayer, but that you realize what Jesus did, why he had to do it, and that you sincerely want to follow him. These are, respectfully of course just my thoughts and opinions, and I have been known to be wrong =). - Ash (ashes2ashes13@twitter)
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