Shepherd the Flock

Contrary to popular belief, the ‘altar call’ that is so popular in today’s churches has not been around for long. The practice of prolonging religious services, pleading for a public response, playing emotionally-laden music and using fervent exhortations for people to ‘make a decision for Christ’ got its start with the American ‘Revivalism’ in the 1800s. Charles Finney, whom I think was a heretic based upon his own writings, most notably made the altar call (or prayer bench, anxious seat) common-place in the church.

Opposition to the altar call was not real popular then just as it isn’t now. Other than the fact that the altar call finds no root in scripture or church history, opponents of the practice rightly identify the method as manipulative and a practice that greatly increase/encourages false conversions. There is a reason why the church in our day is filled with people who believe themselves to be saved but who’s lives bear little or no fruit of holiness, and altar calls and the decision-ism theology that goes along with it is a large reason why.

Nevertheless, because there have been many true believers who (naively) point to altar calls as their means of conversion, and because the greatest visible results of successful evangelism are always experienced using the practice, those who oppose the practice are usually seen as stingy and a hindrance to ‘what God is doing’.

But Iain Murray, in his excellent book ‘Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism‘, sets forth a few arguments against the altar call that were voiced by men when the practice was just beginning. I thought it would be profitable to repeat a few of his objections here –in spite of the fact that many (most?) of my readers here have rightly seen the immense dangers of altar calls long ago.

“They alleged (those opposing altar calls) that the call for a public ‘response’ confused an external act with an inward spiritual change…The hearer was given the impression that answering the public appeal was crucial because salvation depended on that decision…

“The whole matter is so managed as practically to encourage the idea that a veritable step towards Christ at least, if not actually into His arms, is accomplished in the act of coming to the anxious seat…”

“They argued further that this procedure had inevitable serious consequences. Those who come forward and who experience no saving change are liable either to go back to the world, hardened in the idea that ‘there is nothing in it’, or they may go to join the church, assured that they have done all that was required. Thus the anxious seat, in the words of Samuel Miller, favoured ‘the rapid multiplication of superficial, ignorant, untrained professors of religion.’” – Revival and Revivalism, P366

I’ll post more of Murray’s thoughts on this subject later in the week.