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Has Anyone Noticed the Cross and Resurrection Dropping Out of "Evangelism'

 
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Post Has Anyone Noticed the Cross and Resurrection Dropping Out of "Evangelism' Link
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 10:9-10 and 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.
Quote:

Luke 24
46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, [l]and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things. (NKJV)

I Corinthians 15
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by [a]Cephas, then by the twelve.
(NKJV)


I remember in the early 1980's, our church joining in to help an evangelist put on a crusade. He said something about religion being man reaching out to God, and God reaching out to man. I thought that was a weird definition of 'religion' even as a child. That didn't seem right. It wasn't the way people used the word.

By the late 1990's, instead of hearing about Christ's suffering preach, I'd hear this speech on how religion is bad, and how we need relationship. But it seemed like the norm was to keep the 'Gospel' type stuff in those verses above out of the preaching! A preacher preaches on a topic out of scripture, which may be a good appropriate topic for believers, but throws on a tagged-on altar call.

Typically, neither the sermon, the altar call part, or even the prayer mention the resurrection of Christ. There might be a reference to Christ's death in some of these sermons. The prayer usually mentions Jesus or is addressed to Him. Sometimes the prayer asks Jesus into one's life or says 'I receive you.'

The Bible does say, that 'to as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.' But the way the apostle's preached is they told Who Jesus is. In many sermons in Acts they would quote from the Old Testament (cf. 'Thus it is written' in Lk. 24 and 'according to the scriptures' in I Cor. 15.) about the Messiah.

The sinner's prayer thing churches do is about 70 years old. There are some people who seem to think 'receive Him' in John 1:12 means 'to pray that prayer to receive Christ.'

The strange thing to me is that a preacher will preach so little about salvation, leaving the cross and resurrection out of the sermon and sinner's prayer ritual, then tell those who said it, "If you believed that prayer, you are saved." Believed what exactly?

The approach to the Gospel is reductionist. I am wondering why the cross and the resurrection and the Lordship of Christ... and the Messiahship of Jesus get left out of so much of modern evangelism. These are what I think may be some reasons:

1. Some preachers, especially ones that came to faith in more recent decades, may think going through a ritual of repeating a prayer is what saved.

2. These preachers are on auto-pilot, following a monkey-see-monkey-do methodology-- imitating practices they have seen other preachers do-- even though if you ask them they believe one has to believe in Christ's death for our sins and resurrection to be saved, they would say yes.

3. They expect non-Christians in their meetings to already have a reasonably thorough knowledge of the Gospel. (Romans 10:14 "...and how shall they hear without a preacher?)

4. They think any expression of faith in Jesus, without mentioning the cross, resurrection, or Jesus being Lord and Christ, saves the individual.

I really think in most cases in the churches where I've seen this, the second option is most likely.

We human beings are prone to develop rote religious rituals, even if the substance behind the ritual has dropped out.
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3/9/22 7:23 am


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Post Two things... Aaron Scott
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.

Just my way of seeing it.
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3/9/22 11:18 am


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Post Re: Two things... Cojak
Aaron Scott wrote:
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.

............................

Just my way of seeing it.


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..... Smile
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3/9/22 6:41 pm


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Post Re: Two things... Link
Aaron Scott wrote:
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.


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.

Quote:

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.


If this is 'religion', the Bible does not make it seem as hopeless as a lot of preachers who give the religion speech.

Acts 17:27
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

The thing is, our translations do not use 'religion' there. They do use the term in James 1, which speaks of vain religion-- self-deception and not bridling one's tongue, and pure religion-- visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping himself unspotted from the world.

The anti-religion preachers could mean a half dozen things by 'religion'.

I think these might be some of them.
1. Empty religious ritual (might fall under the 'vain religion' category.
2. Any kind of religious ritual or practice (in which case they are preaching against prayer, baptism, going to church, etc. also)
3. Man reaching out to God.
4. They are not sure what they mean; and they are copying how someone else 'evangelized.'

This Relationship not a religion speech shows up in The Late Great Planet Earth. My guess is there were some carnal 'spiritual but not religious' Hippies who probably said to one of the Jesus people, "Religion is for squares man. I want nothing to do with organized religion."

So my theory is the guy from the Jesus' people movement heard someone say something about Karl Barth's ideas on religion, and came up with a response that he thought was clever for the Hippies.

So the next time a Hippie told him religion was for squares, my guess is the guy probably said, "Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship." My guess is Hal Lindsey picked up on this idea and put it in his book, a few evangelists started repeating it, and then by 1990 large numbers of evangelicals started redefining religion for their audiences.

In the meanwhile, unbelievers who go to church are probably trying to figure out why a preacher would say religion is bad? Huh? We are in church and you just preached and people prayed? They think 'religion' means what it means in the dictionary--and what it means to everyone outside of the carnal 'spiritual but not religious' movement and outside of the evangelical cultural bubble. Something like "activities or devotion shown to God or gods."

And then a lot of evangelicals started giving this religion speech instead of talking about Jesus dying on the cross and rising again.

I called and emailed Hal Lindsey's organization to see if I could get some details on how he came up with the quote. I'd really like that information. Until then, my theory is the 'Religion is for squares' conversation.
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3/9/22 8:10 pm


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Post Link... Aaron Scott
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 any case, that's how I see it.
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3/10/22 8:34 am


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Post Re: Link... Link
Aaron Scott wrote:
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).


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.

I don't mind some discussion of empty religious ritual, devoid of faith and sincerity. That's a legitimate topic. Just saying 'Religion is bad' or 'Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship." to normal speakers of the English language seems rather foolish to me.
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3/10/22 11:06 am


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Post Now that you mention it, Link... Aaron Scott
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.

I think the point of the "religion" thing is more carnal than we realize. I believe it is because fellow CHRISTIANS have criticized some of these things, and it was a useful term to try to make critics look to have nothing more than a facade--i.e., acting religious, but not really having the Spirit.
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3/10/22 12:26 pm


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Post Re: Now that you mention it, Link... Nature Boy Florida
Aaron Scott wrote:
I ...was listening to Rodney Howard Browne...


Umm, this is the first problem
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3/10/22 3:58 pm


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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.

It's not substitute for the gospel. The religion versus relationship scpiel doesn't save.
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3/10/22 8:53 pm


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