The idea that a person’s eternal destiny is left entirely up to whether or not they choose to walk down an aisle before the last stanza of the song is over does not strike me as biblical in the least. The image is one of God looking down from above, wringing His hands and fretting that a particular soul will be lost forever if the pianist somehow strikes the wrong key or somebody nearby sneezes loudly, breaking the emotion-bending “spell” that has been crafted in the last ten minutes of the service. So much of it is about manipulating the individual into walking the aisle because Arminianism asserts that salvation ultimately hinges on the free-willed response of the individual, not on God’s sovereignty over our rebellious will.

A Calvinist understanding of salvation as given in the Bible confirms that no lost “sheep” or “coin” that God seeks to find will EVER go unfound. Nobody ever “slips through” God’s fingers at the last moment to His dismay. Put simply, God does not and cannot fail at anything He attempts; that is what omnipotence is all about. If the Holy Spirit is working a transformation in the life an individual, that individual is going to seek counsel from Christians even if they are never given the chance to walk down an aisle at the end of a service.

This is why John MacArthur once stated that we should make becoming a Christian MORE difficult for people rather than LESS difficult. That insures that only those who are truly willing to “sell everything” for the “pearl” or the “treasure in the field” will see the process through to the end. It also makes it less likely for people to wrongfully believe they are saved just because they went through some motion on one particular day.

If the Holy Spirit is drawing a soul to Christ, then no lack of an altar call, no waiting period, no required course, or any other “obstacle” is going to get in the way of that person accepting Christ.

Now, for these folks without access to Confession (even a general confession), the cell phone provides an opportunity for instant non-confession. Feeling bad? Just send a text. Spiritually blah? Send a text. Disconnected from your faith? Send a text. All from the comfort of your own [fill in the blank]. No community required. No face-to-face accountability. Yay!

I’m not saying this out of any desire to be sarcastic or snarky, but…I just never could figure that out. Why would you need to do that 56 times? Or 50 times? Wouldn’t…well, wouldn’t just once be enough? — Rampancy

Problem is, there’s usually a lot of heavy-duty manipulation in altar-call preaching, sometimes to the point of emotional abuse, literally browbeating the audience into doubting themselves and their previous 55 trips down the aisle.

Under the browbeating pressure, the marks in the audience come to doubt whether those previous 55 times really took (”Are You SURE? Are You CERTAIN? Are You SURE You’re CERTAIN?”) and try again, this time For Real, For Sure, For Certain, For Sure It’s Certain.

Until the next time.
And the time after that.
And the time after that…

Here, here mate.

Not just exploit the emotions, but take the focus off of Christ himself and put it on what we do. I’m 26 years old and a virgin. I’ve been wearing a True Love Waits ring for eleven years that my parents had gotten me. I took it off last week. Why? Not because my commitment to waiting had wavered. But I was reminded through current life circumstances that my actions cannot give me any purity. I’m not any more pure than anybody else just because I don’t have sex before marriage. After all, Jesus said if you look at someone with lust you’ve already committed aldultery with them in your heart. So we’re all impure in our hearts. The only purity I have comes not from any actions of mine, but from Christ himself. He is our purity. We ARE pure, but not because of anything we’ve done or not done, but simply because we are clothed in Jesus’ righteousness through faith in Him and His work of atonement.
And think about the message the True Love Waits ring sends to those who don’t know Jesus… “Christianity is about doing the right things, or not doing the wrong things.” When we’re displaying that message outwardly, how can we explain to somebody that Christianity is about falling in love with the God that created you… and trusting Him for EVERYTHING – life, breath, food, salvation, purity, sanctification?
Sadly, I agree that much of evangelical Christianity has become focused on doing right, instead of knowing and loving Him. When we truly know and love Him, the natural reaction is to do right. But what do we emphasize to each other and the lost? We need to emphasize knowing Him, and the God-honoring decisions will naturally follow. (Yet they should still never be the focus of our faith.)

After awhile, the altar call became a stomach wrenching event for me. I could not bear to hear these young men and women given assurance of salvation, when I was certain that most of them had not been born again.

There are many problems that I have come to see in using the Altar Call to secure “decisions” for Christ (and many of them have been brought up here) but I think that one of the main issues (especially when the altar call is being issued to young people) is that it is presented primarily as a call to settle your eternal destiny. Young people are told that life is but a vapor and that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. “If you died today, where would you spend eternity?” is the pressing question.

I’d don’t know any honest person who really wants to spend eternity in Hell. So when they are asked to make a decision to ensure that they will go to Heaven instead of Hell, many are ready to make that commitment. But in the end, they are deciding for themselves and not for Christ. They are ready to come forward if it means that they will go to Heaven, after all that’s what they are being asked to decide. They are only too willing to decide to save themselves, because it is not made clear to them that to accept Christ is to decide not for yourself but for Him.

Altar calls have driven me to Calvinism.

How people get saved is a very important issue. Paul was very non-ecumenical and very protective of proper doctrine within the church. “If anyone come unto you and preach any other gospel than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” He would not condone the religious free-for-all going on today. I just attended a “prayer” meeting a couple of days ago in which the topic of discussion was a “rockin’ the river” evangelistic event that is going to be held. No doubt the youngsters will see it as a good place to hunt for the attention of the opposite sex. Jesus is ashamed and angry about what we call the church today.

What is needed is not a reformation, Jesus never reformed an existing church. He started from scratch with calling of ministries and calling of disciples. We need to repent as a people to be able to hear Him calling us.

When my third daughter was fourteen, she was asked by an older lady, “If your church doesn’t give altar calls, how can anyone get saved?” To which she replied, “Now Mary, you just think really hard about what you just said.” Touche!