Billy Graham, Altar Calls and the Bible

[reen12]

Hello, speedy5,

I’m glad that you’re on the forum, and thanks for
giving us your experience of altar calls,

Best regards,
reen12

 

[speedy5]

you’re very welcome.

 

[Zooey]

thessalonian:

Thanks Zooey. And would you say I have misrepresented him or taken him out of context?

Nope, I think you were quite fair to him. I was annoyed with the whole program, because the whole lot of them seem to have nothing better to do with their time, than to make sarcastic remarks about the Virgin Mother. (Am I the only person on earth who sometimes sits around trying to figure out how on earth people think they are going to get some kind of blessing from the Lord Jesus by insulting His mother??? I mean, you say something bad about my mom, you better be prepared for flying objects aimed at your head…)

 

[reen12]

Dear Zooey,

quote: Zooey

I mean, you say something bad about my mom, you better be prepared for flying objects aimed at your head…)

Amen !!

reen12

 

[gusano]

Zooey:

Great post…I think we are very close to agreeing here; I know we are understanding each other….
I do think that we sometimes get hung up, because we either use the same words to say different things, or we use different things. But this is getting closer…I see what you are saying (unless, of course, I am hung up on language…but I don’t think so.
The one thing I would add: I think that Billy Graham is getting people to recognize their need for (A) catechesis, &(B) all that flows from that. It is, perhaps, “remedial Christianity” that he offers.

Could you clarify what we are close to agreeing to ?
is it…
The need for Catechesis ?,
The Need for Altars ?,
What to name what they do, since they do not have Altars to call them to ?.
Other ?

Would they even be convinced that any of the above is needed ?

I watched CNN interview Franklin Graham during Pope John Paul II " funeral…and He hammared out his standard message.
Every question the interviewer asked him, he always came back to his standard message,

Which I felt was well summed up in Heb.5:13

 

[Zooey]

Well, catechesis, for sure…You said what was needed was “Intro to Christianity 101”, & “Pre-Evangelization”. That was what I was pointing to. (You had several subheads under this that I also thought were bang on.)

As far as altars, there is a real language barrier that I have (finally)realized. What I would call an altar is (I believe) what you would call an “altar rail”. In the evangelical tradition, the altar rail is not only where you take communion; it is also the place to go to pray for serious spiritual needs & problems. (If you think about it, this makes sense–you are going to the altar to be near to Jesus).
Altar calls are invitations to(ordinarily) kneel to pray at the altar rail. The idea is that you are not ready to be taking communion; you need to pray first, usually with a pastor or other spiritual advisor.

I did not see the interview that you mention w/ Pastor Graham. In fairness to his “usual message”, it is aimed at those mentioned in Hebrews 5.13. Which may be why it sounds like that. (It is sometimes easy for those of us --Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) who do have an active livingChristian faith, to forget how totally un-Christian (and un-religious in general) that the average person in today’s world is…As I said earlier, what is needed is not catechetics 101 even, but remedial catechetics.
God bless.

 

[gusano]

Zooey:

Well, catechesis, for sure…You said what was needed was “Intro to Christianity 101”, & “Pre-Evangelization”. That was what I was pointing to. (You had several subheads under this that I also thought were bang on.)

Sorry about the mix-up…
What I intended was …
a suggestion to ** rename B.Graham"s “altar calls”** ; “intro to Christianity 101”, or “Pre-evangelization”,
since they do not have altars.

As far as altars, there is a real language barrier that I have (finally)realized. What I would call an altar is (I believe) what you would call an “altar rail”.
In the evangelical tradition, the altar rail is not only where you take communion; it is also the place to go to pray for serious spiritual needs & problems. (If you think about it, this makes sense–you are going to the altar to be near to Jesus).

In the Catholic tradition every church has an Altar, but few "communion rails’ left.
The Altar is (God’s work bench on earth) where He makes Holy what we offer Him there.(Matt.23:19 / Rom.12:1)
and where, from heaven, He makes available His body and blood … given for the forgiveness of our sins.
We now walk up to the base of the Altar and receive Communion there.

Altar calls are invitations to(ordinarily) kneel to pray at the altar rail. The idea is that you are not ready to be taking communion; you need to pray first, usually with a pastor or other spiritual advisor.

Our “Altar Call” comes before Communion is ready.
We are invited to “Lift up our hearts to the Lord”…and accordingly…“We lift lift them up to the Lord.”…thus fulfilling Romans 12:1…“Through Him, With Him, and In Him…”
After that we come forward and Receive Jesus Christ intimately, into our heart and belly…Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.
This is where we “sign the contract”…so to speak, or more accurately; Ratify The New Covenant".

I did not see the interview that you mention w/ Pastor Graham. In fairness to his “usual message”, it is aimed at those mentioned in Hebrews 5.13. Which may be why it sounds like that. (It is sometimes easy for those of us --Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) who do have an active livingChristian faith, to forget how totally un-Christian (and un-religious in general) :EEK!: that the average person in today’s world is…As I said earlier, what is needed is not catechetics 101 even, but remedial catechetics.
God bless.

:EEK!: all I have to do is look at my life before my own conversion…and I know !

What is the difference between “Catechics”, and “Remedial Catechetics?”

God Bless

gusano

 

[gusano]

depends on what baptism they were referring to…
there’s the baptism into the kingdom of god by confessing and excepting christ as your lord and saviour…that is the new birth…then there’s baptism in the holy ghost…then there’s traditional baptism in water…which is an outward expression of an inward faith…in my opinion when they refer to baptism i believe they are talking about the initial work of salvation upon accepting christ…then there is the work of baptism in the holy ghost that follows after…no where in scriptures does it say that you have to be baptized in water to be saved…please you want to discuss the baptism in water in greater detail…i’ll be happy to ablige you…but, there is nothing we can do in the natural…in this physical world…that has a spiritual impact on our salvation…it is all a matter of the heart (the spirit)…we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths…we shall be saved…simple as that…anything outside of believing is trying to establishing your salvation by works…then there’s…the age old arguement…what happens to the people that believe but don’t have time to get baptized in water???..there is no physical aspects of water that affects anything in the spirit realm…what i’m trying to say is…people seem like they feel a need to have a tradition or have some kind of ritual in order to be saved…but its easier than that..you just have to believe…thats it…simple…christ said it himself…all you have to do is believe….

Ceasar

Dear Ceasar…

"There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism;…" Eph.4:5

and

Wher is that in ith bible ?..where Christ said;
**“all you have to do is believe.” **

gusano

 

[Zooey]

gusano:

What is the difference between “Catechics”, and “Remedial Catechetics?” God Bless
gusano

Ouch! I just saw this!! (I really have got to remember to subscribe to threads!)

For me, at least, I often find it hard to believe how incredibly unaware the unchurched are about the basics. The bottom line, absolute basics.(Like the time someone said, ''Like it says in the Bible ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’…" “Ummm…that was John Wesley, not the Bible”.[Blank stare].) Or,“Why is Easter always on Sunday?” (I am not kidding…I have really heard these things.)
So, I know that there people out there, who have no clue. They come from all kinds of church backgrounds (& none at all). But if they were filling out a form, they would check Christian; or possibly Catholic, Methodist, Baptist. (One acquaintance considers herself a Methodist, because both her cousin & her husband’s sister-in-law were both married in Methodist churches…Ignore the creaking–just the Wesley family,:yup: turning in their graves…)
So, even the very basic things that most children (from believing/practicing families) are taught, if not in a religion class, then by example, or even osmosis–are totally lacking.You put them in a class with 7 & 8 year olds, & they won’t last 10 minutes. (Such is the state of our world).
At some point, they realize that there is something out there, beyond the ends of their noses. (They might even call it God). Their lives are falling apart. They go to a Billy Graham crusade, & see what they are missing.
Now they may end up Baptist, Methodist, Catholic. But they finally get a handle on real reality. On the fact that you & I are not nuts to believe in a God Who came & died for us.But they start,not just from square 1, but square 1 minus 32, as it were. Remedial catechetics.
God bless.

 

[Les_Richardson]

Della:

Of course, in all the cases you cited from the Bible, Thessalonian, the people had not been baptized because they were hearing the Gospel for the first time.

Billy Graham really is preaching to the choir because he is generally preaching to baptized Christians who have let their faith slip. He may not understand that that is what he is doing, but it is. So, he is not making Christian converts but merely giving Christians an opportunity to renew their baptismal vows to follow Christ.

Of course, you are right that altar calls are not in the Bible, and I agree that “Bible Christians” holding themselves to a different standard than they hold Catholics in the matter of biblical proofs is hypocritcal, if unconsciously so. But, “BCs” think they are preaching to non-Christians when they are “reaching out” to Catholics and other mainline Christian groups. That is their real mistake.

They don’t know that most of the time all they are doing by “converting” people is getting them to take a hard look at their commitment to Christ. Probably something they have never seriously done before. We Catholics could take a page out of their book on that issue and do more to challenge our fellow Catholics to take their faith, their confirmation vows to follow Christ seriously.

Coming from a Baptist background I do know that many do not baptize until there is a profession of faith (ie. believer’s baptism), and I remember when I was young reading the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, I thought that to be consistent with the early Christians there should be a readily available Baptismal for any one who came forward at an altar call. Clearly there are those that have made some step towards faith yet have not been baptized. Maybe they were raised in a Protestant Church but never “made a decision” for Christ, as Billy Graham would put it. There could well be baptized Catholics who have not personally had the conversion of heart that the CCC speaks of.
BG and most Protestants would view anyone who has not been “saved” (in a one-time event type of experience) as a target for evangelization, in or out of the Church.

My father (Baptist minister) explained the Billy Graham phenomenon such that BG was working across many denominations with varying views on Baptism and therefore left it to the local churches to take the new believer, baptize them and teach them doctrine.

But I do agree with the premise of this thread. There is nothing in scripture specifically referencing altar calls but they do it anyway.

 

[Les_Richardson]

Robert in SD:

Interesting observation ScottH. I would tend to agree with some of it. As a Catholic, I think that the laity tend to shy away from evangelization for two main reasons - these are both my humble opinion…

First, Catholics in America seem to perceive evangelization as an act of improperly intruding into someone else’s private life. So the culture in the church welcomes people who show up to inquire about Catholicism, but there’s not much street-corner or door-to-door “witnessing” going on. That’s not to say that it does not happen here and there, but overall, I agree that there’s not much Catholic community outreach that is focused on conversion. My opinion is that this should change, and it must begin at the grass roots, with the common Catholic beginning to talk and dialogue with others about the things we believe as Catholics.

Second, Catholics seem to see evangelization as the role of the ordained religious and not the laity. It’s a sad kind of presumption for us to make, as Catholics, especially with the number of vocations to the priesthood still so low. I think that as the ratio of priests to laity decreases more and more “pew-sitting” Catholics will take up the subordinate roles of the priesthood - like evangelization - to free up the limited number of priests to focus on the administration of the sacraments.

Having seen evangelism from the evangelical side, as a Catholic I have been studying and thinking about this for some time. Personally, I think that we could shamelessly borrow from our evangelical friends, in terms of methodology at least. As you point out their are cultural barriers for many Catholics, but there are so many converted Protestants like myself that would be more comfortable with the idea and help lead the way, so to speak.

The one thing that requires some consideration is that for the evangelical Protestant, the message of the “one-time, once-for-all-time” decision for Christ is tailor made for the crusade type approach, ala Billy Graham. From our perspective, the “decision” is really the “initial conversion of heart”. We cannot do anything that resembles hit and run evangelism because we know that a new Christian is like a baby. They require close nurturing for some time, first taught the basics of Christian living and sacramental sustenance of that life and then formed with more catechesis.
Each convert is a responsibility that cannot just be passed on to the priest, because as you mention, there is still a shortage of priests.
A proper evangelization, IMHO, is a wholistic program, a long-term commitment, like raising a child. To do it properly requires the help of many in a parish. To paraphrase Hillary, it takes a parish to raise a Christian.
Praise God, there are parishes prepared to do this, and are doing it. But there are some, perhaps many who are not. It requires evangelists and catechists and Bible teachers besides the overworked priests.

 

[Irish_Melkite]

To understand Billy Graham and his style of evangelization, I suggest you read my series of posts related to him (think there are four in all, beginning with post #5) on the thread

Your Opinion on Billy Graham

Many years,

Neil

 

[Emmaus]

I am always fascinated by other faiths who have “tables” but not altars in thier churches that get on Catholics about altars and the sacrifice of the Mass, yet have “Altar Calls.”

Here is a link to a non-Catholic forum thread on alar calls that give some interesting hstory of the development of this rite in American Protestantism.

netbibleinstitute.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=642&highlight=altar+calls

Emmaus