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Do you believe a person becomes a Christian as the result of saying a “sinner’s prayer”? If so, I have five questions.
Question 1: Then what?
After I say the “sinners prayer” to be saved, then what? When I went to Navy boot camp in 1987 one month after my eighteenth birthday, and just one day after I was baptized at a Vineyard Church in Utah, I was given a small Gideon Bible by a Navy chaplain to keep with me during my training. In the back of the small green New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs was a brief collection of bible texts with a four-step formula for becoming a Christian ending with an example of a “sinner’s prayer” that simply read:
“Confessing to God that I am a sinner, and believing that the Lord Jesus Christ died for my sins on the cross and was raised for my justification, I do now receive and confess him as my personal savior.”
Just under the prayer, there was a place to write my name and the date. The Gideons are easily the largest Protestant Bible distributors in the entire world. Their website includes a page titled Become a Christian which has the same salvation formula emphasizing individual salvation and an updated sinner’s prayer that reads:
“God, I confess that I am a sinner and I am in need of salvation. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose again to bring me new life. I ask to receive your forgiveness and grace and choose to follow you as my Lord and Savior. Amen.”
Then what?
There are only two answers to the “then what?” question in the back of the Gideon Bible, and on the website of the world’s leading Protestant Bible distributor:
- Find a church that teaches “Biblical doctrine” and helps members grow in evangelism
- Be assured from the Bible that if you prayed to accept Jesus, you really are a Christian assured of eternal life
That’s it.
About one year after I joined the Navy, and at my first duty station in Central California, I joined a small-group study with the Navigators working through their Design for Discipleship (DFD) series with a few other Navy guys. We were all exhorted by the facilitator that as those who had “accepted Jesus,” each of us needed to continue to do five things:
- Focus on reading and studying the Bible
- Develop a consistent prayer life
- Share our faith with others
- Join and financially support a good Bible-believing church
- Cultivate a life of good works
When I was a new Christian I heard many similar answers to the “then what?” question, and soon learned to share them myself when witnessing to people one-on-one, and later, during my years as a pastor, at “altar calls” after sermons.
As an aside here, I have mined through early as well as updated editions of the Navigators DFD materials, and baptism is never presented as a foundational answer to the “then what?” question for those wanting to know what to do after they pray the sinner’s prayer. [1] But that’s not all. When water baptism is given a single mention in the 2008 version of the Navigators study “Your New Life In Christ,” it is actually presented as one of several inferred wrong answers to the question, “Why does God send His Spirit to indwell the believer?” (see p. 26, Q:10). The question in the study guide is connected to a reading of Galatians 4:6. This verse is dislocated from its intermediate context and relationship to Galatians 3:27 and the larger and more holistic picture of what it means to belong to Christ in Galatians (which includes “putting on Christ” through Baptism, but importantly and ironically, without any mention anywhere in the letter of praying a sinner’s prayer as the way to become a Christian).
During my entire 33 years as a Protestant, I attended and volunteered at evangelistic events (crusades, conferences, dramas, etc.) and watched my share of Christian TV preachers who often ended their televised sermons with encouragement to people in the audience to “accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior.” At these events and on these broadcasts, attendees and viewers are often encouraged to repeat a simple “sinners prayer” such as this one taken from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website:
“Dear God, I know I’m a sinner, and I ask for your forgiveness. I believe Jesus Christ is Your Son. I believe that He died for my sin and that you raised Him to life. I want to trust Him as my Savior and follow Him as Lord, from this day forward. Guide my life and help me to do your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”
In innumerable examples of this approach, the preacher or evangelist will usually end the “pray-after-me” prayer with answers to the “then what?” question with something like this:
“If you prayed that prayer you can be assured on the authority of God’s Word that you are saved, forgiven, and on your way to heaven. Now, find a good Bible-believing church, share your decision to follow Christ with others, begin to read and study your Bible, and spend time every day with God in prayer. Welcome to the family!”
Have I already mentioned that often, conspicuously missing from the litany of answers to the “then what?” question, is the command of Jesus to be baptized (cf. Mat. 28:19) which is inseparably linked to the (wait for it…) “Great Commission!”?
These examples are not outliers. They are the norm in evangelical protestant evangelism. This get-saved-by-praying-a-prayer evangelism formula is embraced by the most prolific Protestant Bible distributor in the world, by a global Protestant discipleship organization, and by what is arguably the most expansive interdenominational/Protestant evangelistic organization in the world. In every case, the formula can be reduced to the goal of getting people to sincerely say a sinner’s prayer, and then assuring them that, having prayed, they are now children of God, completely forgiven, and on their way to heaven. The “then what?” question is answered by all of them with encouragement to go to a “bible believing/teaching” church (without any sense of what that even means), and to be assured of their salvation on the basis of the authority of God’s Word. Of the three global organizations, the Navigators include more answers than the other two, but interestingly not a single one of them ever includes, mentions, or even alludes to water baptism as an integral part of the initiation into the Christian faith.
From my perspective, these groups have reduced what it means to become and to be a Christian to three things:
- Say a prayer to “accept Jesus” and really mean it and you will be saved and go to heaven when you die
- Find a church that “teaches the Bible”
- If you doubt you’re saved, remember that the Bible says you are because you prayed
This leads to my second question for those who embrace “sinner’s prayer” evangelism:
Question 2: What if?
What if I decide not to do any of the things on your “then what?” list after I am irrevocably and assuredly a saved child of God, totally forgiven, and on my way to heaven? What if I walk away from the conversation thinking to myself, “box checked, ticket punched, mission accomplished — I’m now saved”? What if I don’t read my Bible? What if I don’t join a good Bible-teaching church or give money to it? What if I don’t share my faith with anyone? What if I don’t cultivate a life of good works? What if?!
I think this is a fair question to those who embrace this approach to becoming a Christian precisely because the approach is so chronologically segmented. What do I mean by chronologically segmented? I mean that people engaged in this approach to becoming Christians are given a basic message about the reality of sin, the good news about Jesus dying for our sins, our need for forgiveness, and then encouraged to pray a simple prayer. In this segment of the presentation, they are, on the basis of repeating a prayer, assured (and encouraged not to doubt) that they are now children of God, totally forgiven, and on their way to heaven. There may be other things later, but this segment in the salvation chronology is presented as an event that is now complete and the person is told that they are now a Christian, saved, forgiven, and part of God’s family because they prayed a prayer to accept Jesus. Are the people who tell them this correct? Is there any basis at all for telling someone this after they repeat a prayer? If so, then back to my “what if? question. Remember, at the conclusion of the segment there is an unequivocal conclusion that is said to be true no matter how I feel. It is presented as an objective fact. I am saved. I can be 100% sure of it. I am forgiven. I will go to heaven when I die and all my sins are washed away on the basis of saying a prayer. The segment is complete, the assurance has been given, the deal is done. So — what if I don’t do anything after this? I mean it. What if I don’t? At the end of the salvation segment, I was told all was eternally and completely settled. Was the preacher, evangelist, or witnessing friend justified in making pronouncements about my eternal destiny at the end of this segment? I only ask because this coming Sunday it will be done in more churches than we can count when people come forward and say the “sinner’s prayer.” They will all be told that they are forgiven, cleansed, born again, children of God, on their way to heaven, and welcomed to the family.
Sticking with the most prominent voice in “sinner’s prayer” evangelism, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website offers materials to those who “accept Jesus” through a sinner’s prayer, and gives two very different answers to the “what if?” question. These were answers that I myself heard (and shared) during the years that I embraced this formula for becoming a Christian. For readers who embrace “sinner’s prayer” evangelism and hear the “what if?” question, which of the BGEA answers below would you most likely choose? I typically went with this first one…
(1) Well, then maybe you’re not really saved! This approach is offered here on the BGEA website in a document titled “How do I know I’m saved?” in the final paragraph which reads:
Finally, someone might say, “I believe the historic facts of the Gospel, but nothing has changed for me. I don’t think I’m saved.” Perhaps you are not, for the faith that saves has one distinguishing quality: Saving faith is a faith that produces obedience. It is a faith that brings about a way of life. Some have successfully imitated this way of life for a time, but for those who trust Christ for salvation, that faith brings about a desire to live out that inward experience of faith. It is a power that results in godly living. [2]
A person taking this approach might add, “After all, “not everyone who says… ‘Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.'”
“But wait,” the newly-saved (having prayed a prayer) person might interject, “remember that at the end of my prayer, you said I should not doubt that heaven is exactly where I am headed on the authority of God’s word and I had not done any good works yet in order to prove what kind of faith I had. You said it was a fact that I was saved, and not a feeling. You said that if I had doubts I should trust God’s word and not my own feelings or even my own actions, but that I should trust what God says.”
The likely response might be to have this person look at 1 John 2:19 which says…
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
“But again,” the sinner’s pray-er may reply, “what about this section in the Billy Graham materials that says all of my past, present, and future sins — see that — even future sins — are forgiven when I accept Jesus by praying a sinner’s prayer? On the website, all of the follow-up materials were found by clicking a button that says ‘Yes I Prayed the Prayer’ (which I did) and the heading at the top of the landing page says, in bold letters, Welcome to the Family! So this is all about praying a prayer. Listen to what it says on the website…”
“One of the Bible’s greatest truths is that Christ died to take away all our sins—not just part of them, but all of them: past, present and future. You shouldn’t fear losing your salvation every time you sin. If that were the case, we would lose our salvation every day.” [3]
In some Protestant groups, verses like 1 Jn. 2:19 (and others such as James 4:17 and Heb. 6:4-6) are often used to exhort people that if they don’t grow or persevere in their faith after they “accept Jesus,” or if their faith doesn’t “produce good works,” then perhaps they were never actually Christians at all. This is also often the conclusion of groups (such as Presbyterians, Reformed Baptist, United Church of Christ, etc.), with a more Calvinistic approach to salvation (i.e. “once saved, always saved”). “If you were really saved,” they say, “your faith would result in good works. The fact that it doesn’t mean that you may not be a Christian after all.”
Other groups (such as those who are more aligned with Arminian soteriology like many Pentecostal groups, Methodists, Nazarenes, and Wesleyans, etc.) may come to the same conclusion, but may also allow for the possibility that perhaps the person who said the prayer really did become an actual Christian and then later apostatized and fell away from the faith believing that salvation can be lost. In any case, many (though not all) protestant groups who would respond to the “what if?” question with “then you’re not really saved” still embrace, in their evangelistic praxis, a front-end “sinners prayer gets you saved” approach.
Consider an important challenge from Marcus Grodi on taking the “you’re not really saved if your life doesn’t change” approach to “sinner’s prayer salvation” —
When I was asked to explain…how someone, who from all outward appearances had accepted Jesus Christ and was saved, could commit apostasy — my knee-jerk response was that they must not have been truly saved: they may have “confessed with their lips that Jesus is Lord,” but they must not have truly believed this in their “heart.” On the surface, this may sound like a valid explanation, but this side step merely emasculates the whole theology of eternal security. If there is always an out-clause, then no one can ever be certain that anyone’s prayer of conversion is secure. [4]
Those who accept this answer to “so what?” also tend to embrace a Protestant practice commonly known as “rededicating your life to Jesus.” Groups that embrace this practice tend to speak of “salvations and re-dedications” referencing what they call “first-time commitments” in contrast with people who once said a sinner’s prayer but later wandered from their faith. Ironically, many people in these groups find it strange that Catholics go to confession after committing serious sin.
Here is the second, and very different approach to the “what if?” question in a different section of the BGEA website.
(2) Well, then you’re not going to grow in your Christian faith, your fellowship with God and your Christian witness can be hindered, and the devil will rejoice! Here is the quote from the document titled Basics of Christianity in the BGEA materials when taking this alternative approach to the “what if?” question:
Think about what happens in a family when someone wrongs his or her relative. That person is still a member of the family; nothing can change that. But a barrier has come between that person and the rest of the family; their fellowship has been broken. The only way to restore it is by confessing the sin and asking for forgiveness. The same is true with us. Don’t let sin come between you and God. God loves you, and Christ died to take away our sins. When we do sin, however, we need to confess it and seek God’s forgiveness at once. The longer it goes on, the more the devil rejoices. [5]
This approach appeals to the person’s relative concerns about growing spiritually, being close to God, and being a good witness while they are waiting to die and go to heaven. Here the person is assured that they are indeed still a member of God’s family even if they persist in sin after “accepting Jesus,” but that their failure to confess and repent keeps them not from heaven (that has been settled after they prayed), but from intimacy with God on this side of heaven and makes the devil rejoice.
And it seems strange that the sinner’s pray-er is ever exhorted to do anything at all to restore broken fellowship with God by confessing sin and asking for forgiveness for any sins committed even one minute after the sinner’s prayer is complete. Were they not told in another place by the same group that their future sins were already forgiven at the moment of their sinner’s prayer? Which answer is the right one? Are their future sins forgiven or not?
What can we say about the strength of these two different answers to the “what if?” question? First, if you prefer the section of the Billy Graham website where you are exhorted to question the reality of your salvation because your life doesn’t change, then the whole idea and practice of telling people they are saved, forgiven, and assured of eternal life when they die immediately after saying a sinner’s prayer needs to be seriously questioned and scrapped. You simply can’t have it both ways. Telling people that they are saved after saying a sinner’s prayer, and then telling them they may not be saved if their faith doesn’t result in later good works is a conundrum. How dare anyone who believes this ever assure anyone that they are saved after saying a prayer?
But what if you like the second Billy Graham answer better; that you’re still family but your fellowship with God on this side of heaven might be hindered, your witness will suffer, and the devil will rejoice about that? If that is your preferred answer then I have a third question.
Question 3: So what?
I mean, really, it’s a serious question! So what if I go through this whole life not growing in my Christian faith, experiencing distance from fellowship with God, and make the devil rejoice about that temporary reality? I want to remind you that at the end of my sinner’s prayer, the minister said that I can take it on the authority of God’s Word that I am saved. I should never doubt it. I am forgiven and going to heaven! It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact! What if I can show you where I wrote the date of my sinner’s prayer down in my Gideon’s bible? What if I can tell you the date, time, and place that I came forward at the end of the crusade or the altar call at church and they congratulated me, told me I was a Christian, a child of God, totally forgiven, and that I would go straight to heaven when I die? What if I reminded you that the Bible assures me of this because it says so right there in the free Bible study that told me my salvation is a fact that cannot be disputed now that I have prayed a prayer to accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior (or just “savior” as it is with the Gideons)? I didn’t even have to get Baptized! So — so what?! — if during my earthly life I don’t grow in my faith? So what if I’m not close with God now? I’ll be close to him when I die and go to heaven because then all of my issues will be automatically fixed! So what if the devil is happy about any of this? So what? I’m still going to heaven — right?
But I have a feeling most people reading this have a hard time with this second approach. In that case, I have a fourth question.
Question 4: Then why?
If you’re really concerned that a person may not take the call to live a fully Christian life seriously after praying their sinner’s prayer, then why continue the practice of leading people in sinner’s prayers and then congratulating them on becoming Christians for doing it? Why assure them that they are truly saved on the front end, and then when their lives don’t really change, turn around and question their salvation? Why keep this broken practice going?
For many evangelical Protestants, sinner’s-prayer-evangelism is all you know. It’s all you’ve ever seen in Church. But have you ever seen it in the book of Acts? Did anyone in the book of Acts (the only book in the New Testament that has conversion narratives) ever lead anyone in a sinner’s prayer and then assure them on the authority of God’s word that they were forgiven children of God who could be assured of heaven when they died? Answer: NO! Not one time.
That brings me to the fifth and final question.
Question 5: What, then?
Is there a better and more biblical way to fulfill the Great Commission than through the practice of “sinner’s prayer” evangelism? What, then, is the way to become a Christian in the Bible if it is not leading a person in a sinner’s prayer and assuring them that they are saved?
In Matthew’s Gospel (Mat. 28:18-20), Jesus gave the Great Commission using one Greek verb (an action word) accompanied by three Greek participles (ing-words). The verb is “disciple” and the participles are going, baptizing, and teaching.
Leading people to become Christian disciples according to Jesus in Matthew is carried out when we actively disciple all kinds of people as we are going through life. The point of entry into this life of discipleship is not through a sinner’s prayer. Ever. There is no example of anything like this in the Bible. The first time a large group of people become Christians in the book of Acts, they ask Peter what they should do in response to his public preaching about Jesus. His answer never mentions a sinner’s prayer, and he never leads them in one or offers them “materials” to help them on their journey. No. Here is what happens in Acts 2:38-41 in Peter’s response to the “What should we do?” question:
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized,every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. – Acts 2:38-41
One becomes a Christian the “Bible way” through a process that begins for every person, from babies to adults, by receiving the first sacrament of initiation — water baptism. Water baptism is the sacrament through which a person is either brought into the covenant family by the Church at the request of their parent(s) if they are an infant or when they — as a person entering the Christian faith themselves at some later time — receive baptism from the Church. Water Baptism is the Christian “loyalty pledge” or “fealty oath” (which is the meaning of the word “sacramentum”) to King Jesus.
What comes after water Baptism in Matthew? “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” In Catholic parlance, this ongoing instruction after baptism is called mystagogical catechesis. For small children, this is a years-long process that happens all through childhood as they are learning about the implications of their baptism which was given to them by the Church, at the request of their parents, as an anticipatory gift. The gift of life itself (which the child did not choose for themself before being born, but received as a gift from his/her parents) is also an anticipatory gift. Both the gift of life (given at birth), and the gift of faith and new life (given at baptism) must ultimately be embraced and accepted in order to be fully realized as the child grows older. These gifts anticipate and nurture personal maturity and growing faith. They anticipate that the child will, under instruction in obedience to Jesus, come to a point when they confirm their own decision to embrace their full potential as a person and the Christian faith into which they have been initiated even when they were infants.
For older people who receive Baptism after a season of pre-sacramental instruction (catechesis), confirmation happens just moments after water baptism and just moments before communion. These three sacraments are, together, called the Sacraments of Initiation (baptism, confirmation, communion).
What does all of this imply? In simple terms, becoming a Christian is not best understood as a single event or “segment” that ends with unquestionable assurance. Becoming a Christian is a life-long process that begins with initiation that must be embraced and realized through faithfulness or fidelity or fealty (which are all ways to translate the Greek word pistis – often translated as “faith” in English Bibles).
The Great Commission as it is presented in Matthew’s Gospel insists that instruction and the call to a life of faithfulness to Jesus is ongoing after water baptism. This is true for those baptized as infants and those baptized as adults.
The 5 Questions In Summary
If you are supposedly assured of salvation after saying a sinner’s prayer, then what?
If the answer is “find a good Bible-teaching church and be assured you’re really saved on the authority of the Bible,” what if I decide not to find a church, or what if I doubt my salvation?
If the answer is “maybe you’re not really a Christian,” then why do people persist in telling people they are heaven-bound Christians, eternally secure as children of God before they exhibit any proof of such a claim?
But if the answer is “You won’t be close to God and you won’t be a good witness and the devil will rejoice,” well – honestly, so what?! If I’m assured of heaven anyway then these temporal irritations and deficiencies in fellowship or witness really don’t matter. Why should I care if I’m secure and saved anyway?
But if this entire process seems broken, dysfunctional, or (as I believe it is) an anti-biblical understanding of what it means to become and be a Christian, what then is the way forward? In short, and as a composite of the Matthew and Acts texts —
- Repent
- Be Baptized
- Receive the Holy Spirit
- Be added to the visible Church under apostolic authority
- Engage in learning that leads to a life of obedience to Jesus
- Be faithful to him until the end.
No doubt this post will provoke questions or encouragement to engage in more dialogue. But hopefully, it will also accomplish the task of helping the reader to seriously doubt and ultimately reject “sinner’s prayer” evangelism as a practice that is essentially foreign to fulfilling the Great Commission.
Here’s a video interview that I did with Catholic Apologist, Gary Michuta on his radio program, “Hands-On Apologetics” in which we discuss this in some detail. Watch and enjoy…
Notes and references:
[1] When I went through this study in 1988, it was with the 1980 version of the DFD workbooks. If you are aware of anything in the Navigators DFD materials, old or new editions, that emphasizes the need for new Christians to get baptized, please leave me a comment here and a link or reference.
[2] See the final paragraph here.
[3] From the document on the BGEA website titled Basics of Christianity (Section: Does God forgive future sins?) here.
[4] Grodi, Marcus: What Must I Do to be Saved? CHResources (2012), Kindle Edition Loc. 220.
[5] See the section with the heading, “If I’m a Christian and Keep Sinning, Will God Turn Away from Me?”