Repent And Believe

Recently, I attended an evangelistic outreach type meeting. Y'know, the kind where they hold an invitation, at the end of the service, and ask people to come forward to "accept Jesus as their lord and personal savior".  It's the first such event I have attended, since becoming an atheist nearly 3 years ago now.

As you might well imagine, such experiences strike me a lot differently than they used to.  For example, I couldn't help but notice how strongly the evening, as a whole, played to people's emotions.  Was church always like this, I wondered?  Perhaps it was, and I have just forgotten all too quickly.  Somehow that world feels so foreign to me already.  Quite frankly, a few of the personal stories, shared that night, were downright gut wrenching.  Anybody with half a heart would have been profoundly moved, by certain aspects, and I was.  It served to remind me, rather poignantly, of something I already knew (but sometimes forget); namely, that a lot of people come initially to belief in Jesus because of how it makes them feel.  I've written about this dynamic before, right here, but it was a good reminder nonetheless.

It was the invitation itself though, that really grabbed my attention.  There was nothing unusual about it, per se, in fact you might even say it was pretty ordinary (as far as invitations to accept Christ go).  The preacher focused heavily on the guilt that we all should feel, for having done bad things in our lives, and then moved straight into the "Jesus can forgive you" clincher. The line that I remember most, went roughly something like this, "by coming forward tonight you are saying to God 'I repent of my sins, and I believe that Jesus was your son'".  As the preacher continued on with his plea, it occurred to me that this simple line of his encapsulates one of my single biggest objections to the Christian faith.  

Let's look at the line again, and see if you can guess what I will take issue with.  (Keep in mind these probably weren't his exact words, but it matters not to my general point.)  Here it is again, "by coming forward tonight you are saying to God, 'I repent of my sins, AND I BELIEVE THAT JESUS WAS YOUR SON'".  Let me state my objection plainly...

The preacher was pitching repentance but, in so doing, he was smuggling intellectual assent through the back door.  

Now, you might be tempted to ask, so what?  What exactly is the difference anyway, between repentance and "intellectual assent"?  I might have asked the same question, only a few short years ago.  Let's think about it for a moment.  When Christians speak of the need for "repentance", what they basically mean is that the given person needs to feel badly for falling short of God's perfection.  So, to "repent" is to turn around, admit your wrongdoing, and head in the other direction.  That's essentially it.  But what on earth does this have to do with the purely historical proposition that Jesus was God's son?  I'll tell you what...nothing whatsoever.

On the rare occasion I bring this objection up to Christians, they tend to say something along the lines of "well, it's impossible to repent to someone that you don't believe in".  True enough.  But this is precisely my point.  Intellectual assent (belief) is a non-negotiable, according to basic Christian theology.  It may not be the only thing needed for salvation since, after all, "even the demons believe" (that there is one god), but it's certainly one of the required elements.  

Allow me to further illustrate my point...let's suppose that someone is generally o.k. with the idea that we're all imperfect, but they have serious doubts about whether or not Jesus was God, rose from the dead, or performed miracles etc.  Can such a person make it to heaven, without changing their mind on the factual claims?  I have yet to meet a single Christian who answers "yes" to this question (in fact, most give it a resounding "no").  In other words, a lack of intellectual assent (aka belief) precludes you from being a Christian.  Right?  But the preacher said nary a word, during the course of the sermon, about why we should believe the proposition that Jesus was God's son.  Not one word.  After all, Jesus could well have been something else, like just a man, yes?  So, what gives him (the preacher) the right to insist that people intellectually assent to something they haven't properly investigated; especially something so incredibly important, and controversial?  Isn't this bordering on the irresponsible?  Was he meaning to implicitly suggest that unbelievers go home, read up on the relevant research, and then come to an informed conclusion, on their own, when they feel ready to do so?  Quite the contrary!  In fact, he implored the audience members to make an immediate decision, to "accept or reject" Jesus, before it was too late for their very souls.  What's worst of all, to me, is that he did it under the pretext that they were merely admitting to having done some bad things in life.  (Who hasn't?)

To be perfectly clear, I don't mean to imply there was deceitful intent, in the way the gospel was presented that evening.  On the contrary, I think the preacher's message was actually quite representative of how the Christian message is very typically packaged.  I've heard hundreds of salvation sermons throughout the years and, as best as I can recall, only a tiny handful of them have so much as *mentioned* issues relevant to the historical claims of Christianity. Even in those rare instances, often the "facts" are given a shallow, Lee Strobel-ish sort of treatment.  It may sound impressive enough, to the totally uninitiated, but (unsurprisingly) the counter arguments are rarely broached in any serious way, if broached at all. (I led many people to Christ myself, while I was a believer, and usually via "The Romans Road".)

I couldn't help but wonder, as people stepped out to get "saved", how many of them were versant in the historical research pertaining to Jesus.  Had they sufficiently considered, for example, the evidence pointing to him as a failed apocalyptic prophet?  (For a taste, see here, here, and here.) I strongly doubt it.  In fact, I doubt that most of them would even have known what an apocalyptic prophet was.  Regardless, they were tacitly assenting to the belief that Jesus was God's son by going forward.  Given that the sermon focused almost exclusively on repentance, the brute reality is these sorts of intellectual questions were, rather ironically, likely the furthest thing from their minds in that moment.

In Christianity, the belief often just comes as part of the package deal.