Abandoning the “Invisible Lifeline”

Good morning, all. I pray you had a great Sunday. Mine was very good.

Here is the latest (opening paragraphs) from my favorite Baptist writer, Michael Spencer, who blogs as the InternetMonk. Although I don't agree with his remedy, he does a great job identifying a problem.


Abandoning the “Invisible Lifeline”
September 23rd, 2007 by Michael Spencer

“If you’re not 100% sure that you are saved…if you are 99% sure, but have even 1% of doubt, then I want you to come forward this morning and repent. You need to rededicate your life to Christ.” -Closing words of a recent sermon by a well-known Southern Baptist preacher.

I’m on record as an opponent of the use of the public invitation, and the longer I’m around evangelicals who use it, the more convinced I am that it’s usually- not always, but usually- a detriment and obstacle to healthy Christianity. Of its many flaws, the effect it has on preachers has to be near the top. In short, invitationalism has caused thousands of preachers to become “sacramental con men,” promising a “local appearance” of Jesus or the Spirit, and then giving those who come mostly nothing, while telling them that everything is now just fine.

Preachers using the public invitation are tempted to shape the entire sermon around the response of walking forward at the close of the sermon, so finding theological and practical justifications for that walk forward is a major concern. (The better public invitations are, in my opinion, less directly connected to the specifics of the sermon and more directly connected to either baptism, church membership or specific time of prayer.)

If you are like me- and too many of you are. It’s scary- then you’ve heard, over and over and over, what amounts to what I call the promise of the “invisible lifeline” in much evangelical preaching: Do this thing- and that “thing” can vary greatly- and you’ll be taking hold of God and his power. This amounts to a kind of evangelical sacramentalism, and that needs to be acknowledged.