Isn’t the purpose of the word “personal” in “Do you accept Him as your personal Savior?” to radically devalue “Church” as a middleman between mankind and salvation?
I could not agree more. Church is devalued quite a bit in churches that follow that line of faith, but I am not at all sure they see it that way.
In my younger days in a fundamentalist faith, I was often told that all I needed to do to be saved was to get on my knees, have a saving faith in Christ, say the sinner’s prayer, and I would be saved forever. That was all there was to it.
Oh sure, baptism, taking communion, going to church, and living morally were good things, but I was going to Heaven no matter what I did. If I never set foot in church from the point that I accepted Christ, I would go to Heaven. I would suffer only by getting fewer rewards in Heaven than those who were vigilant in the faith, but I would be there just the same.
There is an oddity in my home town, something that flows straight from this line of reasoning. On any given day, there is likely to be an obituary giving the usual facts about someone’s life, including the line that “He was of the Baptist faith.” It meant the deceased had no known “church home.”
Pastors in that type of faith are not seen as having special gifts that are held only by the ordained. They do not participate in the Eucharistic Miracle. Communion is seen as only being symbolic. For the most part, they typically do not bless objects, though some do. They most certainly do not give absolution, instead seeing confession of sin as something a person does in private prayer.
There is no Real Presence belief in those churches, so they are generally not open for prayer outside the normal service times. I cannot remember ever seeing anyone in the church praying when not in a service.
Everything that was necessary to get to Heaven could be done without going to church. It was expected, of course, but those who never darkened the doors were sinning in not following “Forsake not the gathering of yourselves together.” They were not thought to be in danger of Hell.
