Recently, I glanced through eight or nine copies of a popular, fun­damentalist religious magazine. It ob­viously aimed to fan the flames of revival in the United States and to urge Christians to try to obtain more conversions of the unsaved. While I am grateful for the concern, urgency, and zeal of its revivalistic/evangelis­tic way of thinking, over the past several years I have been profoundly disturbed by principle elements of this reasoning and strategy; and the editorials, articles, and news reports recently read in this magazine only confirm my deepest suspicions and, I believe, validate my objections to what I consider a travesty of Biblical evangelism. I decided, therefore, to express briefly but clearly my dis­agreement.

First, contemporary revivalistic evangelism seems to have per­mitted — or even encouraged — genuine evangelism to degenerate into a chiefly horizontal activity. Christians are, for example, taught specific methods to secure a "salva­tion decision."¹

Indeed, evangelistic how-to-do-it manuals are available by which one, if he follows the prescribed plan, is assured he will be able to obtain many "decisions" of salvation on the part of the unconverted. One noted revivalist readily admits that his "personal evan­gelism" plan largely resembles that of a salesman trying to entice a prospective buyer.

As such, revivalistic evangelism of today has re-directed the concept of conversion from its proper, Biblical location (between God and man) to an expedient one (between man and man). Does not such utter carnality and worldliness incense you as it does me? No longer is the salvation experience perceived as the sinner's "doing business with God," as the old-timers used to say; rather, it is an enlistment effort, much as one would endeavor to secure the promise of a friend to attend Sunday church.

Wrestling with God over conver­sion is now passé. Why affirm the Puritan idea of salvation as a direct confrontation with God (an ex­perience that may take considerable time) when by merely accepting a quick plan one can be immediately ushered into the kingdom? Why need the evangelist rely on the power of God when he can coerce the unsaved into "accepting Christ" immediately by describing to the un­converted the horrible torments of Hell (a practice, incidentally, no Christian in the Scriptures ever employed)? Why, in fact, is it neces­sary to invoke the Almighty as we declare the gospel to the unsaved since, practically if not theoretically, it is really a human transaction? Cer­tainly sinners will be graciously con­verted any time they are willing to repent; but as the late A. W. Tozer used to say, to our own peril do we talk sinners into the kingdom before they are ready.

I suspect a great deal of the error of contemporary evangelism stems from theological imprecision. Revivalists, as beneficial as they have been to the Christian church, have not been known for their emphasis on thoroughly expounding doctrine or precisely formulating Biblical theology. Modern evangelism in its tactics appears to be unaware, for ex­ample, that regeneration is a work of God, not man. Although it is our responsibility to witness ("plant" and "water," 1 Corinthians 3), God alone can regenerate a spirit. If regenera­tion is perceived as human work, a production of a "soul-winner," the element of the miraculous has sadly disappeared. Regeneration is a miracle, and only God executes miracles.

Interestingly enough, in this aspect modern revivalistic evangelism acts much like Roman Catholicism, as the late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has wisely pointed out.²The new evan­gelism has virtually limited the sinner's response to the gospel to ac­cepting a set of propositions. One becomes a Roman Catholic by affirming a creed, a set of doctrines; and one becomes a "Christian" ac­cording to the neo-evangelistic method by accepting a set of beliefs: I know I am a sinner, I know my sin will send me to hell, I know Christ died for me, I will accept Him to be saved. As Lloyd-Jones reminds us, however, no one is converted merely by accepting a set of doctrines or propositions; one is converted as he has a confrontation by the living God and is regenerated by the Spirit of God.

In the execution of the new evan­gelism, the activity and power of God are minimized and the ability and expertise of man are magnified. Souls are "converted" when they give mental assent to a prepackaged program: a sinner gets a ticket to heaven (who wants to go to hell?) and the "soul- winner" gets another charm for his bracelet (who wants to be regarded as unconcerned for souls?).

Second, modern evangelism in the revivalist tradition often provides false assurance of eternal salvation. For a long time I considered the neo­-revivalistic deviation as simply an issue of disagreement among brethren. I no longer look at it so su­perficially. For any teaching that af­fords assurance of salvation when there is none must be heretical. A "convert" who has affirmed the "creed" but knows nothing of the regenerating power of the Spirit of God will nonetheless be firmly con­vinced of his own salvation for the simple reason that the one who "led him to the Lord" told him that by ac­cepting various Biblical doctrines he is thus converted. And no matter what sort of life the apparent con­vert lives or no matter how great is the spiritual void in his life he is con­vinced — and usually cannot be con­vinced otherwise — he is truly the child of God because of his decision. Perhaps it is at this point that the decision-oriented view of assurance is most damaging, because such an idea leads to a decision-oriented view of salvation. In other words, the "convert" is warned to remember the date and the time of his decision since he can thereby "remind the devil," when he begins to doubt his conversion, that one day he was in­deed truly converted. One will look in vain in Scripture to find any teach­ing, however, that assurance is grounded in a decision we make. On the contrary, the first Epistle of John teaches we are assured of our salva­tion if we demonstrate the marks of a converted person (1 John 5:13 and passim). God's children have within them His spiritual seed, and they cannot but manifest spirituality; it is part of their nature; and since conversion is an alteration of an individual's nature, a Christian will naturally manifest the characteristics of a Christian. An unconverted per­son may strive to manifest these marks but eventually will fail; con­versely, a truly converted person may appear at times to manifest the marks of an unsaved person, but eventually he will fail because he has the seed of God in him. Many individuals "converted" under the teaching of contemporary evan­gelism feel their salvation is valid and secure because of a decision they once made, not realizing (tragi­cally) that it is their own life that will evidence their conversion, and point­ing to a supposed experience for as­surance is quite unnecessary.

Third, a lot of revivalistic evan­gelism says little — and can afford to say little — about the Lordship of Christ in conversion. In fact, most modern evangelists stoutly oppose what they term "Lordship Salvation" charging that its adherents teach the heretical doctrine of salvation by works and demand too much of a sin­ner.³Rarely are the Scriptures ap­pealed to. Neo-evangelists do not recognize, for example, that in Mat­thew 16 Jesus warned that those who refused to deny themselves, take up His cross, and follow Him would "lose their own soul." Modern revivalists attempt often to isolate salvation from discipleship but will be hard-pressed in light of this pas­sage and many others to validly do so. Our Lord informed the rich young man that he could not inherit eternal life unless he sold all his pos­sessions and followed Him. In John 8 Jesus Christ informed many of the Jews who believed on Him that they must continue in His word if they would be His disciples; unfortunate­ly, these very Jews who believed on Christ were still unconverted.⁴Along these lines contemporary revivalists err on two points. First, they do seem to comprehend God's overall, eternal plan for mankind but see merely a part of it. It appears they recognize that God "wants to keep souls out of hell," but they do not seem to understand that deliverance from reprobation is only a secondary dimension of God's design. His primary goal in salvation is to redeem to Himself a people that have fallen through sin and thus be­come His enemies, and restore them to a place of willful obedience and to a fellowship with their Maker begin­ning now and continuing throughout eternity (Ephesians 1). Preservation from hell is only a "by-product" of God's main plan. Neo-revivalists try to produce as many converts as pos­sible since they will thereby possess eternal salvation; and then later, the converts are exhorted to submit to the Lordship of Christ, "lay their all on the altar," and so forth. But the very purpose of conversion is to bring an enemy of God back into harmony with his maker and motivate a willful submission of the creature to the Creator. If submitting to the Lordship of Christ is not a main fea­ture of conversion, then conversion is meaningless. Second, revivalistic evangelists do not distinguish, it seems, the ground of salvation from its means. The ground of salvation is the death of Christ alone (Romans 5:8, 9). And our means of salvation include belief, repentance, faith and prayer. No one is saved by believing, since belief is a work (John 6:29) and salvation is not of works (Ephesians 2:8, 9). Men are saved by the grace of God on the basis of the sacrificial death of Christ. But although men are not saved by believing or by faith, yet they are not saved without believ­ing and faith. It would do some of the modern evangelists well to read how carefully this Scriptural truth is articulated by many of the Puritans.⁵Modern revivalists charge their op­ponents with teaching that an in­dividual is converted "by making Christ Lord of his life;" but this is an unfair and inaccurate charge. We simply assert that submission to the Lordship of Christ is inherent in or a natural result or evidence of conver­sion; consequently, any person un­willing to submit himself to the Lordship of Christ is merely demonstrating he knows nothing of the enlightening or regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

We must be reminded that many committed Christians embrace the modern evangelism and must not treat them as we would unconverted false teachers; we must love them and love them dearly as children of God, our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Notwithstanding, they are to a large degree perpetrating error which must be exposed Biblically and forcefully. If it is not exposed, it will continue to produce havoc not only within Christ's body but also among the unsaved, who have the most to lose by this modern evan­gelistic invention.