1. The very term altar call should give any Christian pause. We don’t have an altar here. We shouldn’t be calling men to an “altar,” we should be calling them to Christ.  The only “thing” we should care about calling men to isn’t a thing, it’s a Person: it is Jesus Christ. Observation: but if we were to stop calling it an “altar call,” and dubbed it instead a “Christ call,” then it might cease immediately. Because what Biblically-instructed pastor could ever with a straight face try to connect walking somewhere on earth with meeting the Lord Jesus? But if that isn’t what we’re calling them to, then why are we doing it? And if they don’t need to walk an aisle to do it, why make it sound as if they do?
  2. can-of-worms1Though it is not determinative, it certainly is significant that (A) no evangelist in most Christian history felt the need to do it, and (B) the first to popularize it was the heretic Charles Finney.
  3. I’ve also seen horrid, endless, manipulative altar calls (almost but not quite “anyone who loves his mother, come forward”).
  4. To bid people to “come forward and receive Christ” necessarily creates the impression that Jesus is waiting for them at the front of the church (which He isn’t), that there’s a tractor-beam of salvation located at the front of the auditorium (which there isn’t), and that to meet Him they have to relocate their bodies (which they don’t).
  5. “Altar calls” with big responses may or may not puff up a preacher, but altar calls with no response make Christ and the Gospel look pathetic and powerless, though neither is either.
  6. Further, the primary purpose of assembly is not evangelism but edification.
  7. Having said all that, the fact that many Calvinists are content to leave it there isn’t a happy thing, and isn’t adequate. Nor is saying (literally, or in effect) “Oh just let God save them” and “Let the Word do its work” and so forth. To be more specific:
  8. Simply to say (in effect) “Altar calls are unbiblical and Finneyite, church isn’t for evangelism, let people find their own way to God” simply reinforces the (God help us, it had better be) false impression that Calvinists are (A) uninterested in evangelism, (B) indifferent to seekers, (C) cerebral, and (D) arrogantly self-involved.
  9. It is always better to point out a better way than it is just to fault the way it’s done.
  10. Plus, aren’t we Calvinists always big about always preaching the Gospel? If there’s no Gospel in our preaching of Ephesians 5, Nehemiah 1, Genesis 12, or what-have-you, don’t we all say we’re doing it wrong?
  11. And, that being the case, unless we bar unbelievers or check their baptisms at the door, mightn’t the Spirit of God awaken an unbeliever in the assembly?
  12. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t we be the first to scramble to provide the answer to the question “What must I do to be saved?”, if it’s being asked?
  13. And, though we have wonderful arguments against telling people to come forward to be saved, should we not constantly be issuing invitations — that is, urging our hearers to repent, turn, believe, be saved?
  14. And so should we not be eager to help anyone on whom the Spirit of God so moves?
  15. So I think providing elders and others after a service to talk with anyone moved in any way by the sermon is a great idea, and we should do it — make them available, tell folks they’re available, urge folks to avail themselves of them.

Thanks to Dan Phillips