Introduction to the Second Edition

Ten years ago my attention was drawn to the subject of conversion. For 29 years of ministry I assumed, without really thinking about it, that a person could choose to become a Christian, that he or she could, by an act of the will, decide to repent and trust in Jesus as Saviour and Lord. I learned this standard evangelical model early on and I never questioned it.

If pressed to answer if I really believed a person had the power to become a Christian by means of a choice or a decision, I would probably have said no. 

Not many evangelicals believe a person can literally decide to become a Christian, because that idea is generally understood to be inconsistent with biblical theology. Without depreciating the role of free will, is deciding to believe in Jesus Christ the same as conversion? Certainly, we understand that we are to repent and believe (see Acts 20:21), but we rightly understand that God makes both possible by convicting us of our sin and revealing Jesus as Saviour to us. Indeed, most of us evangelicals (and I am one) speak of ‘saving grace’ and know that the new birth comes only through the work of the Holy Spirit. This was also true of me, but my practical evangelistic methods were not consistent with my theology. 

Conversion is something God does to or for us; He births us. From our perspective, it may seem as though we made a choice, but it is actually, and completely, the work of God. For salvation then to be seen to be no more than a human act or choice is to misunderstand, and misrepresent, saving grace. 

A startling discovery
In 1994, I began reading the histories of the great awakenings in America. What captured my attention and stopped me dead in my tracks was the controversy between Asahel Nettleton and Charles Finney over ‘means’. Finney had introduced means or procedures, techniques or devices, by which a person could become a Christian, such as the altar call or invitation, including the ‘sinner’s prayer’ that many of us evangelicals depend on to ‘lead a person to Christ’. Nettleton thought these devices were contrary to biblical practice, which was to present the gospel of Christ and depend upon the Holy Spirit to bring about conversion. Nettleton contended that the ‘means’ Finney employed would result in false conversions. 

I found myself agreeing with Nettleton--unbiblical evangelistic methodology could result in people thinking they had become Christians when in fact they had not. Certainly, during the many years of my ministry, some people who claimed to be Christians later proved not to be. I was aware of this but did not seriously question what it might mean. People in the pews—not really Christians but thinking they were Christians—was it really possible some of us were merely fooled into thinking we were on our way to heaven? 

That there could be false conversion was a revolutionary idea to me and I wondered why I had never come across it before. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow either, because it called into question three decades of my own ministry. Armed with new information, I was compelled into rethinking the nature of Christian conversion, and the result was the book Are You Really Born Again? published in 1998 by Evangelical Press. 

A major shift in direction

Converted in 1963 through the ministry of Robert D. Lewis at the First Baptist Church of Fairfield, California, I became, de facto, an evangelical in the Arminian tradition. By Arminian I mean non-Calvinistic but I didn’t know anything about Calvinism or Reformed Theology at the time. (The term Reformed Theology is broadly used to denote Calvinistic Theology, and I want to make it clear that I am not trying to turn people into ‘Calvinists’. My focus is the nature of conversion, a major concern for all Christians, Arminian or Reformed.) My church in Fairfield practiced the kind of evangelism that Nettleton had argued against in his controversy with Finney, and I naturally embraced it. Later on, 1968 through 1980, I was what might be called a charismatic evangelical in the Arminian tradition. After 1980 I was not active in charismatic ministry, but did continue to hold to, not being aware of anything else, a general evangelical and Arminian theology. It was not until 1997 that I began moving to a Reformed viewpoint. By this brief history of my Christian life, I only mean to point out that I was thoroughly steeped in the mainstream of evangelical, Arminian theology. 

False conversions were more abundant in my charismatic period, from 1968 to 1980, than before or since. I think this is because, during those years, I focused more on charismatic expression, especially speaking in tongues, assuming that was proof of a genuine conversion. I have come to believe this is error though I am not a complete cessationist, that is, believing that the expression of charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased with the publication of the New Testament. 

There will likely always be some who are falsely converted despite our best efforts, but I see fewer people experiencing this in non-charismatic settings, as far as I am able to discern. Providing a means to become a Christian or accepting some show of spirituality as a sign of conversion (what can be observed can be mimicked) is no longer acceptable to me and is inconsistent with how I now view biblical conversion. 

Suspecting then that using the usual evangelical methods to bring people to Christ could lead to false conversion, I changed the way in which I conducted my work. It was a genuine struggle for me to come to the end of a strong evangelistic sermon and not invite people to come forward, to raise their hands, or do something to indicate they wanted to accept Jesus as their own personal Saviour. I gradually stopped using the standard invitation, but I never stopped urging people to repent of their sin and trust is Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. What I stopped doing was manipulating people at the end of my sermons to do what I wanted them to do—come forward and pray a prayer. As a result, I did receive some criticism from church members, which I respected and considered, but I had to start depending on the Holy Spirit to bring both the conviction of sin and the revelation of Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

One suggestion I did examine with considerable attention was that I should ‘cast a wide net’, meaning I should use any and all evangelistic strategies to bring as many people into the church as possible, and let God sort it out. Employ the latest styles of worship, entice people to make decisions, make Christianity as attractive as possible, conduct ministries that will enhance peoples lives—and so on. ‘So what,’ the argument went, ‘if people weren’t genuinely converted. As long as they were in the pews, they would hear the gospel and might eventually be converted. Better that than no exposure to any form of Christianity.’

And I am almost persuaded by this reasoning, after all, I am not the judge and jury; God is sovereign and He will use whatever means He wants. I had, in fact, cast a wide net over the years of my pastoral ministry. I used whatever technique that seemed to be successful to urge people to make a Christian commitment--the results of which I am unsure about. But now I saw the great danger of false conversion and I wanted to trust God to do the work and not use unbiblical methods to get people converted.

Removing the offense of the gospel
The temptation is to avoid the offense of the cross. To proclaim that there is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness is offensive. We want to be in control and we are revolted by the idea that God alone calls, elects and saves.

If Paul had not preached salvation alone in Christ but had taught that salvation could be achieved by obeying the Law of Moses, he would not have run into trouble with those who said otherwise. He wrote to the churches of Galatia, ‘Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished’ (Galatians 5:11). To present Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the only means of salvation is modified, sharply, by demanding circumcision. Given something to do in order to have eternal life blunts, really it dramatically changes, salvation by grace alone. Given something to do many will do whatever it is that is asked, whether circumcision, or baptism, or saying a prayer, or joining a church, or changing behaviour, or giving intellectual ascent to points of doctrine—these we can do. But it is not the same as looking alone to Jesus as Saviour. And this is precisely what I did for many long years, unwittingly I gave people something ‘holy’ and ‘Christian’ to do. They would generally ‘do it’ and conclude they had met the requirements for salvation.

Right or wrong? Could I be sure? 
For a few years, there was little evidence I was on the right track. However, my preaching became more focused on the gospel, lifting up Jesus and the cross as strongly and clearly as I could, and trusting that the Holy Spirit would bring conversion. I preached sovereign grace and the need to seek and turn to Christ as Saviour and Lord. But without being able to count numbers in terms of actual persons raising their hands or somehow responding to an invitation to believe in Jesus, I had a difficult time evaluating the effectiveness of my work. From time to time I would question myself, revert to my old pattern, and close out a sermon with an invitation. When I did that there were some responses, usually from the very same people who had done so in the past. There were also responses from people who never developed into anything like what I would expect a disciple of Jesus to be. I persisted then, preaching clear gospel messages, ending sermons with a prayer or a hymn, and trusting that God would empower His Word.

You may have noticed in a previous paragraph something that might look like a contradiction. I said I preached sovereign grace (or election), but also preached that a person must repent of sin and trust Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Yes, there appears to be a contradiction, but I hold to both at once, just as C. H. Spurgeon did. Spurgeon was attacked by ‘hyper-Calvinists’ for preaching the necessity for repentance and faith, yet he was also attacked by Arminians for preaching sovereign election. Spurgeon said he preached both because the Bible taught both. I do the same, but I do not offer mechanisms by which a person can become a Christian. In other words, I do not offer ‘works’ to achieve salvation; rather the Holy Spirit must do the whole work, from repentance to faith. (I recommend Iain H. Murray’s Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism, The Banner of Truth Trust, ISBN 0-85151-692-0 for more on this crucial point.) 

Slowly, good results began to be evident. One here, another there--people were converted while they were in the pew, at home, in the car, at work—almost discovering their new birth and then, in varying ways, confessing faith in Jesus by direct personal statement, or by baptism, or by simply living out what it is to love Jesus and His Word. 

Always a mystery
Conversion is still a mystery to me, and I am sure it always will be. Nevertheless, the possibility that false conversions were common in Evangelical Christianity seemed probable to me. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 1998, and based on responses I have received as a result (letters, phone calls, emails—from all over the world, and mostly from Christian leaders in the Arminian tradition), I now consider the issue of false conversion to be more serious than I first imagined. (see Appendix III) 

Here are some typical emails: ‘Now I understand why so many drifted away and never became disciples’, or ‘It never occurred to me that [name of person] was not actually a believer. I expected a real Christian to have a minimal interest in things Christian, but there was nothing.’ ‘I knew something was amiss but I never guessed it was something so serious as a false conversion.’ ‘A few times people suggested I was not really a Christian but I didn’t believe them.’ Most often, I would read something like: ‘I wondered what was wrong, but everyone continually assured me I was a Christian.’ Occasionally a correspondent would report his or her own conversion, which came, to that individual, as quite a surprise.

This book has caused some trouble. It is unsettling to bring up the subject of false conversion. Several pastors who came to agree with my position ran into problems with their congregations as a result. One Lutheran minister was forced to leave his church when a largely unconverted membership grew tired of him preaching ‘law and gospel’. A few were converted however, and my friend felt he had done the right thing in spite of the rejection. An independent Bible church pastor in Singapore saw his congregation dwindle to the point that he got discouraged and resigned. I received other similar reports. To a pastor whose church I knew well, I said that if I preached a few sermons in his church, he might find that a significant number in his congregation would discover they were unconverted. He quickly responded, ‘You are not preaching in my church.’ 

And this is what it comes down to—What are we really doing? Are we simply filling the pews or do we actually care whether our family, our friends, and members of our congregations hear Jesus say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master’ (Matthew 25:21). Or, hear Him say, ‘I never knew you; depart from me’ (Matthew 7:23). How difficult it is to have eternity in our minds; we mostly dwell on the here and now. 
The stakes are high. A passage that grips me and gives me courage to act upon my convictions is:

Corinthians 2:15-16.
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those
who are being saved and those who are perishing.
To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the
fragrance of life. Who is equal to such a task?

In preaching for conversion, I would rather risk rejection and ridicule than provide an easy, quick fix by using a human means to acquire questionable conversion. In my mind, it is a ‘win-win’ circumstance that we question our conversion and that of others. On the one hand, we may see we are converted and thus will have greater assurance, and on the other, we may see we are not converted and may then seek Jesus for salvation. The great danger is not knowing that a false conversion is in place—then there is no hope at all. As the apostle contended, it is a matter or eternal life and death.

Preaching the gospel of Christ and his cross will cause trouble and many pastors and preachers won’t do anything that might drive people away. It’s a wrong priority for sure, but I understand it. Many feel pressured by their denomination, association, church council, or board of elders to keep in place the standard evangelistic practices and so record conversions. More than that, it is an excruciating emotional experience to see people leave the church. It is enough to drive preachers to discouragement and depression—I can personally attest to this. And then, I was accused of becoming non-evangelistic when I started to trust the Holy Spirit of God to bring conversion rather than relying, as I had for 29 years, on various techniques. Such pressure may be enough to keep in place potentially faulty methods. Sadly, this is true, as I have learned over the past seven years. 

Christians may find it unpleasant to question the eternal destiny of those close to us. We tend to avoid that which might create conflict. I am the same way in family gatherings, and I regret it. Slowly however, I have found the courage to speak the gospel message and help a person examine whether there is anything approximating a genuine conversion. Better this than being silent about the truly central reality of life because I lacked the wherewithal to address such a highly emotionally charged and personal issue. 

I am hopeful that the tide is turning however, as many Christians see what their real work is and are going about it. My prayer is that this second edition is sharper, clearer and stronger, and will be useful to those who seek to share the grace and mercy of God our Saviour with others.