The
Sinner's Prayer
"Modern
apostasy and false teaching that prevents men from being saved."
The earliest notion of sinner’s prayer is less than 500 years old.
It wasn't formalized as a theology until around the time of Billy Graham.
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No
one in the Bible ever prayed for their initial salvation. They did however
believe, repent, confess Jesus and be immersed in water for the forgiveness
of their sins. The sinner’s prayer is an innovation that thwarts God's plan
of salvation. First they replaced believer’s baptism by immersion with
infant baptism by sprinkling. Second they later replaced baptism
altogether with the "sinners prayer" so that baptism is no longer
even part of the plan of salvation. If you prayed the "sinner’s
prayer" for your salvation, you are still lost in your sins, because it
is not what God said to do. |
The Sinner's Prayer
C.S.
Lewis used the term "a great cataract of nonsense" to describe how
people use a modern idea to construe Bible theology. One such example, perhaps
the best example, is a conversion method called the Sinner's Prayer. It is more
popularly known as the Four Spiritual Laws.
Lewis
used this term to describe what happens when someone looks backward at the
Bible based only on what he or she has known. Instead, an evangelical should
first discern conversion practices from Scriptures and then consider the topic
in light of two thousand years of other thinkers. As it is, a novel technique
popularized through recent revivals has replaced the biblically sound practice.
Today,
hundreds of millions hold to a belief system and salvation practice that no one
had ever held until relatively recently. The notions that one can pray Jesus
into his or her heart and that baptism is merely an outward sign are actually
late developments. The prayer itself dates to the Billy Sunday era; however,
the basis for talking in prayer for salvation goes back a few hundred years.
Consider
the following appeal:
"Just
accept Christ into your heart through prayer and he'll receive you. It doesn't
matter what church you belong to or if you ever do good works. You'll be born
again at the moment you receive Christ. He's at the door knocking. You don't
even have to change bad habits, just trust Christ as Savior. God loves you and
forgives you unconditionally. Anyone out there can be saved if they ... Accept
Christ, now! Let us pray for Christ to now come into your heart."
Sound
familiar? This method of conversion has had far-reaching effects worldwide as
many have claimed this as the basis for their salvation. Yet, what is the
historical significance of this conversion? How did the process of rebirth,
which Jesus spoke of in John 3, evolve into praying him into one's heart? I
believe it was an error germinating shortly after the Reformation, which eventually
caused great ruin and dismay in Christendom. By supplying a brief documentation
of its short, historical development, I hope to show how this error has served
as "a great cataract of nonsense".
The Reformation
Although things weren't ideal after the Reformation, for the first time
in over a thousand years the general populace was reading the Scriptures. By
the early 1600s, one hundred years after the Reformation was initiated, there
were various branches of European Christendom that followed national lines. For
instance, Germans followed Martin Luther. There were also Calvinists
(Presbyterian), the Church of England (Episcopalian), and various branches of
Anabaptists and, of course, the Roman church (Catholics). Most of these groups
were trying to revive the waning faith of their already traditionalized
denominations. However, a consensus had not been reached on issues like
rebirth, baptism or salvation--even between Protestants.
The
majority still held to the validity of infant baptism even though they
disagreed on its significance. Preachers tended to minimize baptism because
people hid their lack of commitment behind sayings like "I am a baptized
Lutheran and that's that." The influence of the preachers eventually led
to the popular notion that one was forgiven at infant baptism but not yet
reborn. Most Protestants were confused or ambivalent about the connection
between rebirth and forgiveness.
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was the result of fantastic preaching occurring in
Eventually,
the following biblical passage written to and inspired for lukewarm Christians
became a popular tool for the conversion of non-Christians:
"To
the angel of the church in
This
passage was written explicitly for lukewarm Christians. Now consider how a
lecturer named John Webb misused this passage in the mid 1700s as a basis of
evangelizing non-Christians:
"Here
is a promise of
Preachers
heavily relied on Revelation 3:20. By using the first-person tense while
looking into the sinner's eyes, preachers began to speak for Jesus as they
exhorted, "If you would just let me come in and dine with you, I would
accept you." Even heathens who had never been baptized responded with the
same or even greater sorrow than churchgoers. As a result, more and more
preachers of Christendom concluded that baptism was merely an external
matter--only an outward sign of an inward grace. In fact, Huldreich Zwingli put
this idea forth for the very first time. Nowhere in church history was such a
belief recorded. It only appears in Scripture when one begins with a great
cataract of nonsense. In other words, it only appears in the New Testament
through the imagination of readers influenced by this phenomenon.
Mourner's Seat
A method originated during the 1730s or '40s, which was practically
forgotten for about a hundred years. It is documented that in 1741 a minister
named Eleazar Wheelock had utilized a technique called the Mourner's Seat. As
far as one can tell, he would target sinners by having them sit in the front
bench (pew). During the course of his sermon "salvation was looming over
their heads." Afterwards, the sinners were typically quite open to counsel
and exhortation. In fact, as it turns out they were susceptible to whatever
prescription the preaching doctor gave to them. According to eyewitnesses,
false conversions were multiplied. Charles Wesley had some experience with this
practice, but it took nearly a hundred years for this tactic to take hold.
Cane Ridge
In 1801 there was a sensational revival in
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The
excesses in Cane Ridge produced expectations for preachers and those seeking
religious experience. A Second Great Awakening, inferior to the first, was
beginning in |
"The
appeals, songs, prayers and the suggestion from the preacher drive many into
the trance state. I can remember in my boyhood days seeing ten or twenty people
lying unconscious upon the floor in the old country church. People called that
conversion. Science knows it is mesmeric influence, self-hypnotism … It is sad
that Christianity is compelled to bear the folly of such movements." (J.V.
Coombs, Religious Delusions, 92ff).
The
Cane Ridge Meeting became the paradigm for revivalists for decades. A lawyer
named Charles Finney came along a generation later to systemize the Cane Ridge
experience through the use of Wheelock's Mourner's Seat and Scripture.
Charles Finney
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It
wasn't until about 1835 that Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) emerged to
champion the system utilized by Eleazar Wheelock. Shortly after his own
conversion he left his law practice and would become a minister, a lecturer,
a professor, and a traveling revivalist. He took the Mourner's Seat practice,
which he called the Anxious Seat, and developed a theological system around
it. Finney was straightforward about his purpose for this technique and wrote
the following comment near the end of his life: |
"The
church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer
this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose.
The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to
be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place
that the anxious seat does now as a public manifestation of their determination
to be Christians"
Finney
made many enemies because of this innovation. The Anxious Seat practice was
considered to be a psychological technique that manipulated people to make a
premature profession of faith. It was considered to be an emotional conversion
influenced by some of the preachers' animal magnetism. Certainly it was a
precursor to the techniques used by many twentieth century televangelists.
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In
opposition to Finney's movement, John Nevin, a Protestant minister,
wrote a book called The Anxious Bench. He intended to protect the denominations
from this novel deviation. He called Finney's New Measures
"heresy", a " |
Dwight Moody and R. A. Torrey
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However,
it wasn't until the end of Finney's life that it became evident to everyone
and himself that the Anxious Bench approach led to a high fallout rate. By
the 1860s Dwight Moody (1837-1899) was the new apostle in American
evangelicalism. He took Finney's system and modified it. Instead of calling
for a public decision, which tended to be a response under pressure, he asked
people to join him and his trained counselors in a room called the Inquiry
Room. Though Moody's approach avoided some of the errors encountered in
Finneyism, it was still a derivative or stepchild of the Anxious Bench
system. |
In
the Inquiry Room the counselors asked the possible convert some questions, taught
him from Scripture and then prayed with him. The idea that prayer was at the
end of the process had been loosely associated with conversion in the 1700s. By
the late 1800s it was standard technique for 'receiving Christ' as Moody's
influence spread across both the
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R.
A. Torrey succeeded Moody's Chicago-based ministry after his death in 1899.
He modified Moody's approach to include "on the spot" street
conversions. Torrey popularized the idea of instant salvation with no strings
attached, even though he never intended as much. Nonetheless, "Receive
Christ, now, right here" became part of the norm. From that time on it
became more common to think of salvation outside of church or a life of
Lordship. |
Billy Sunday and the
Meanwhile in Chicago, Billy Sunday, a well-known baseball player from
Billy
Sunday died in 1935 leaving behind hundreds of his imitators. More than
anything else, Billy Sunday helped crusades become acceptable to all
denominations, which eventually led to a change in their theology. Large
religious bodies sold out on their reservations toward these new conversion
practices to reap the benefits of potential converts from the crusades because
of the allure of success.
Both
Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday admitted they were somewhat ignorant of church
history by the time they had already latched on to their perspectives. This is
highly significant because the Anxious Seat phenomenon and offshoot practices
were not rooted in Scripture or in the early church.
Billy Graham, Bill Bright
Billy Graham and his crusades were the next step in the evolution of
things. Billy Graham was converted in 1936 at a Sunday-styled crusade. By the
late 1940s it was evident to many that Graham would be the champion of
evangelicalism. His crusades summed up everything that had been done from the
times of Charles Finney through Billy Sunday except that he added
respectability that some of the others lacked. In the 1950s Graham's crusade
counselors were using a prayer that had been sporadically used for some time.
It began with a prayer from his Four Steps to Peace with God. The original
four-step formula came during Billy Sunday's era called in a tract called Four
Things God Wants you to Know. The altar call system of Graham had been refined
by a precise protocol of music, trained counselors and a speaking technique all
geared to help people 'accept Christ as Savior.'
In
the late 1950s Bill Bright came up with the exact form of the currently popular
Four Spiritual Laws so that the average believer could take the crusade
experience into the living room of their neighbor. Of course, this method ended
with the Sinner's Prayer. Those who responded to crusades and sermons could
have the crusade experience at home when they prayed,
"Lord
Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the
door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving
my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make
me the kind of person You want me to be."
Later,
in 1977 Billy Graham published a now famous work entitled, How to Be Born
Again. For all the Scripture he used, he never once uses the hallmark rebirth
event in the second chapter of the book of Acts. The cataract (blind spot) kept
him away from the most powerful conversion event in all Scripture. It is my
guess that its emphasis on baptism and repentance for the forgiveness of sins
was incompatible with his approach.
The Living Bible and Beyond
By the late 1960s it seemed that nearly every evangelical was printing
some form of the Four Spiritual Laws in the last chapter of their books. Even a
Bible was printed with this theology inserted into God's Word. Thus, in the
1960s, the Living Bible's translation became the translation of choice for the
crusades as follows:
"Even
in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a
few welcome and received him. But to all who received him, he gave the right to
become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them.
All those who believe this are reborn! --not a physical rebirth resulting
from human passion or plan--but from the will of God." (John 1:11-13,
Living Bible, bolds mine)
The
bolded words have no support at all in the original Greek. They are a blatant
insertion placed by presuppositions of the translator, Kenneth Taylor. I'm not
sure that even the Jehovah's Witnesses have authored such a barefaced insertion
in their corrupt Scriptures. In defense of
A
whole international enterprise of publishers, universities and evangelistic
associations were captivated by this method. The phrases, "Receive
Christ," and "Trust Jesus as your personal savior," filled
airwaves, sermons, and books. James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion
counselor-training program helped make this concept of conversion an
international success. Missionaries everywhere were trained with Sinner's
Prayer theology. Evangelicalism had the numbers, the money, the television
personas of Graham and Kennedy and any attempt to purport a different plan of
salvation would be decried as cultic and "heresy."
Most
evangelicals are ignorant of where their practice came from or how Christians
from other periods viewed biblical conversion. C.S. Lewis regarded it as
chronological snobbery when we don't review our beliefs against the conclusions
of others:
"Most
of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has
any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need
something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions
have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems
certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in
many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village;
the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from
the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of
his own age." (Learning in Wartime, 1939)
While
most do this unknowingly, evangelicals are skewing church auditoriums all over
the world from a clear picture of conversion with a nonsensical practice.
Written and copyright by Steven Francis Staten. This article
is an overview of a book being written on the origins of the Sinner's Prayer.
since 4-1-2002