Accepting Christ

[Red]

*Yes sometimes I still doubt that I was saved the right way hence the repeating of the prayer. But I figure if someone puts more emphasis on a prayer or an experience than on Jesus himself that is a problem.

I was also raised Baptist. I was so paranoid that I wasn't saved the right way, and it didn't help that my mother would tell me I was a fake Christian when she was mad at me.

[Coconut Flan]

if I am honest I have repeated the prayer multiple times when in doubt. I guess if you wanted me to define a moment I would say that but I feel like faith was something that developed in a way.

I've had a rather long and meandering religious path, but had a similar experience in my brief tour with evangelical churches. Then I went to the Catholic Church where "the call to continuing conversion" made a lot of sense to me. As we need to move deeper into our faith we feel called to something more so under the "accepting Jesus" umbrella we may feel like we didn't do it right. Under the call to continuing conversion, it all fell into place for me.

[FJismyheadship]

When I was seven or eight i was sent to bed without supper. I prayed to Jesus to please save me because i wanted to be a good girl.

i have wrestled with faith quite a bit since then. I am now 24 and based on my experiences i believe 1: there is a God 2: someone or something is watching out for me and 3: There is life after death. Other than that i dont know. I dont want to wrestle it so i will take what istruth for ME and hold onto it and as for the rest of it I will go with the flow.

[ksuheather]

I've had a rather long and meandering religious path, but had a similar experience in my brief tour with evangelical churches. Then I went to the Catholic Church where "the call to continuing conversion" made a lot of sense to me. As we need to move deeper into our faith we feel called to something more so under the "accepting Jesus" umbrella we may feel like we didn't do it right. Under the call to continuing conversion, it all fell into place for me.

I love how you explained this.

[apple1]

I had a similar experience. At the time, my family was at a southern baptist church, and there was lots of pressure to make a declaration of faith and get baptized. My parents would always bug me about when I was going to be ready to make it official. I remember feeling crappy about it every time someone else got baptized.

Finally at age 10 I said I was ready. I met with the pastor, he was very kind and asked me if I loved Jesus and believed he had died for my sins. I answered yes (which was true in the sense that I hadn't questioned anything I was taught up to that point - I did believe the bible stories I'd been told and that Jesus loved me). I repeated the sinners prayer after the pastor, and we sealed the deal on christmas day, with a big public baptism that my parents made a huge fuss over.

The only problem - I never FELT anything. No change in my heart, or the holy spirit, etc. I badly wanted to feel, and felt so much guilt over it. I privately asked Jesus into my heart several times in the future, but never got this mystical experience I'd been told about. I felt pressured into faking emotions I didn't feel, and that made the guilt even worse. It continued for years, throughout high school and into the first year or so of college, at which point I finally decided to listen to my own heart instead of someone else's notion of what my heart should be saying. So yeah, I think the whole approach can be pretty unhealthy.

But hey, at least I know I can't lose my salvation! Ha! :/

I am really not wanting to get into a big discussion in this venue, but as a Christian myself I have to say - (I believe) salvation is not based on emotion. (That is part of my theology on this topic).

And to others who have commented about a one-time event/decision/prayer/whatever words you call it - not being all there is - (I believe) that salvation itself is a one-time event, and (I believe) it would be expected to be followed by ongoing growth, by the production of the Galatians fruit of the Spirit, i.e. love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Oh, one more thing - If anyone believes, or doesn't believe, differently, I have in no way ridiculed or disrespected your beliefs. Please do me the same favor.

[Avalondaughter]

I find the perspective of the Lutherans here interesting.

I had a friend who went from Catholic to Pagan to evengelical with fundie leanings and she definitely considers herself saved/born again and she attends a Lutheran church.

Granted another frined of mine who was raised Quaker and is fairly liberal and was generally pretty non-religious for most of the time I knew her, has suddenly become more Christian in the psat couple of years, and was baptized as a Lutheran (her husband's church) and she's still pretty liberal and doesn't have any fundie leanings at all.

[DarkAnts]

I find the perspective of the Lutherans here interesting.

I had a friend who went from Catholic to Pagan to evengelical with fundie leanings and she definitely considers herself saved/born again and she attends a Lutheran church.

Granted another frined of mine who was raised Quaker and is fairly liberal and was generally pretty non-religious for most of the time I knew her, has suddenly become more Christian in the psat couple of years, and was baptized as a Lutheran (her husband's church) and she's still pretty liberal and doesn't have any fundie leanings at all.

There are three different branches of the Lutheran Church. In order from most fundi to most liberal you have: Wisconsin Synod, Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the red head step child to the other two fractions. They are quite liberal and accepting.

Now then, my own views on being "saved". I grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. We were told that Christ died for the sins of everyone in the world. There was no need to be "saved". All we had to do was: have faith in God, accept the Grace of god and the gift of salvation. It goes back to Martin Luthers three treatises. The last treatises was that the bible is the only word of God. I dont agree with making it a huge deal to be considered "saved". I have always been taught that its better to make a quiet display of faith then a big production. The only person you need to profess your faith to is God, if others dont believe you then screw them.

[breadprincess]

There are three different branches of the Lutheran Church. In order from most fundi to most liberal you have: Wisconsin Synod, Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the red head step child to the other two fractions. They are quite liberal and accepting.

Now then, my own views on being "saved". I grew up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. We were told that Christ died for the sins of everyone in the world. There was no need to be "saved". All we had to do was: have faith in God, accept the Grace of god and the gift of salvation. It goes back to Martin Luthers three treatises. The last treatises was that the bible is the only word of God. I dont agree with making it a huge deal to be considered "saved". I have always been taught that its better to make a quiet display of faith then a big production. The only person you need to profess your faith to is God, if others dont believe you then screw them.

I was raised ELCA, I should have mentioned that earlier, so in general my church was laidback about, well, everything.

[susanmr5]

I was raised ELCA Lutheran too.

I was taught that baptism as an infant is your family making the promise to raise you in the church and the church itself welcoming you as a new "member". In a sense you're saved, but at that age up until confirmation or so no one is expecting you to declare your faith or really understand being saved. Once you go through confirmation you are making a public acknowledgement of belief in God/Jesus and reconfirming your baptism. I've never heard of anyone being considered "not saved" because they didn't get confirmed. But we don't really discuss it in our church either. No one asks "have you been saved?" or "did you get confirmed?". It's pretty much assumed that if you are at church as a consenting adult it's because you're a Christian and at some point you made that decision.

In my case my confirmation classes were a *huge* joke. The pastor we had at the time didn't teach us anything we were supposed to be learning and in many ways I don't know what I'm "supposed" to believe. Confirmation happened around 8th or 9th grade if I remember right.

Although I went to a Lutheran summer camp for a few years and the one time they had a guest speaker who asked everyone to close their eyes and then had everyone who wanted to "ask Jesus into their hearts" to raise their hands. This was after a very persuasive and rousing presentation, so I raised my hand. We didn't have to come forward or anything and the guy said a quick prayer about accepting Jesus and all that jazz and it was over. I was probably in the 5th or 6th grade. The more I think about it the more I figure the camp was more conservative than our church was. We did scripture memorization and I remember asking someone why we did it when Bibles were easy to find and look things up in. She said, "Because someday there won't be any Bibles and we'll have to rely on what we memorized." Even then I thought that idea was nuts.

All through high school I didn't question much of anything, but there were things I didn't agree with 100%. In college I took a class that studied the New Testament taught by an Episcopal pastor. I really loved his perspective that the Bible shouldn't be taken literally and needs to be viewed in it's historical context and also as literature. We read a book by Karen Armstrong about how the Bible was written that I really liked. Also read one by her about the life of Jesus. Both of those gave some perspective on how people influenced the written Bible we have today. It's not any less valid as the basis of our faith, but can't be taken literally because of it.

After that class I did a lot of questioning but have so far decided to remain Christian. I don't get to church much, but with the new baby we're going to try to go more. She'll probably be baptized Catholic since that's what her daddy is, but he's not really a practicing Catholic at the moment.

Sorry, kind of went off on a tangent there...

[mockingbird]

I was raised Catholic. I heard a priest explain it once that Catholics were "born again" every Sunday because Catholics believe the bread/wine at Communion is really Jesus' body/blood so you are literally taking Jesus into your heart every Sunday (well into your stomach, but I'm sure He gets there). Being "born again" is something that honestly got laughed at at my church. As I understand it, once baptized you are always a Catholic. Being confirmed is similar to the Lutheran version that you mentioned, it's part of becoming an adult in the church, and it is kind-of like reaffirming your baptism. I don't think you NEED it if you were baptized Catholic, but most people do it, and it's part of the conversion process. (It was rare for a kid to decide not to be confirmed even though it's supposed to be your choice. In 8-10th grades, when it's done at most of the churches in my hometown, you're still heavily influenced by your parents and may not have had exposure outside that faith community.)

But once Catholic, always Catholic. If you leave the church all you have to do is go to Confession and you're reinstated but you were always a Catholic, just one that had committed a moral sin by rejecting God. Unless you're excommunicated of course, I don't know if you could get back in then.