Prayer of Salvation (or the Sinner's Prayer)

Billy Graham crusade at the LA Coliseum in 1963

I wrote recently about how we sometimes see more clearly something we've known all along.

When I was little, I prayed what we called a "Prayer of Salvation." Other denominations call it the "Sinner's Prayer." I prayed mine at six years old, and it went something like this:

Dear Jesus, 

Please forgive me for my sins and come into my heart.

Amen.

That's it. 

An older child or adult would likely add a few flourishes, but this is the core of the prayer. Of course, you have to mean it, and if you do, you will go to heaven when you die and nothing you or anyone else does can stop that.

The efficacy and finality of the prayer is why many fundamentalist Christians will tell you they said that prayer many times as children, just to be sure they got it right.

Here's the rub:

The Prayer of Salvation isn't in the bible.

Here's my eureka moment:

Fundamentalists are very good at criticizing others for insisting on baptism as necessary for salvation, as well as the assortment of subsequent compulsory activities, yet the *one* thing you must do to be saved, the *one and only* thing that ensures heaven, isn't in the bible.

Now, the Prayer of Salvation is a wonderful thing, a "remember where I was" moment in which some of us change course forever; I encourage it and remember mine well, but I consider it now the first step of many, not the only step, not a necessary step, and not a guarantee.

Will some fundamentalists say that the formula is only to confirm a genuine conversion? That it's basically John 3:16 in prayer form? Perhaps, but no one is ever given the option not to pray this prayer. It might be softened by some theological acrobatics, but the reality is that everyone in a church that uses it believes it and insists on it (or rather, insists there is no alternative).

The Altar Call's Greatest Hits (Satire)

[2014-06-23]

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I have an ongoing conversation with someone on this topic right now.

My greatest concern is that in our exuberance to be right, we turn others away from perfectly harmless expressions of the faith just because we don't understand them.

I don't believe a prayer of salvation saves me, I believe the sacrifice of Jesus saves me and there are myriad activities that enrich that relationship.

So what if we think some of those things save us? What if they don't? What's the harm?

I welcome an opinion why talking to a saint, or infant baptism, or confession, or the Rosary etc are so harmful they imperil a person's faith in the Person they all point to.

[2014-06-26]

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