7 Reasons We Do Not Have Altar Calls in Our Church
© Nollie Malabuyo • Originally posted June 22, 2012, revised April 25, 2025
With the choir singing “Just As I am” softly in the background, the evangelist instructs the crowd,
I want every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. If you’ve never asked Jesus to come into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior, you’re on your way to hell. So slip up that hand. Or make your way to the front. Nobody will see you walk up here or slip up that hand… I see that hand. Yes, I see that hand… I see someone walking up. Yes, and another one…
This continues repeatedly for half an hour, or even an hour, featuring various pleas, urgings, and even threats of damnation from the evangelist.
However, evangelicals visiting our churches immediately notice our lack of this ritual. (Obviously, evangelicals who dislike liturgy will have a blank look when you tell them that they, too, have a liturgy, a ritual: sing-a-lot, pray-a-little, here comes the sermonette, then, at last, the altar call.) Why don’t we have this popular evangelical ritual? Here are seven reasons:
1. Our “altar call” calls believers to partake of the Lord’s Table. It’s the Lord’s Supper after the Word is preached, an invitation for believers to feast on Christ’s body and blood to nourish their souls. It is also an invitation for unbelievers to hear and see for themselves the forgiveness of sins that Christ has given to those who repent of their sins and believe in the gospel of Christ.
2. The altar call is an unbiblical innovation not known in the first 1,800 years of church history. Where did this typical “altar call” originate? Most evangelicals would be surprised to learn that this practice did not exist from the time of the apostles until the 1820s.
Beginning in the 1820s, the “Second Great Awakening” swept through New York and other New England states. One of its charismatic figures was a former Presbyterian lay pastor named Charles G. Finney, who led revival meetings in New York and Pennsylvania. His innovations in the “anxious bench” and “new measures” set the standard for other evangelists to follow. The “anxious bench” was a specially designated area near the front of the meeting place where Finney called people to pray or seek counsel about their helpless state. To those who call Finney a “hero” of evangelicals, he is also a heretical false teacher. See Point No. 6 for a list of some of his heresies.
3. The altar call embodies emotionalism. The “new measures” included protracted prayers and meetings, the inquirer’s meeting, dramatic sermons, the “anxious bench,” coarse and irreverent language, and women’s participation. All practices involved in an altar call were designed to elicit an emotional state of hopelessness in the sinner, leading to conviction and conversion. These tactics also resulted in fainting, weeping, and other “excitements” among the people.
4. Jesus and the apostles never utilized this modern system of invitation. Did Jesus ever employ an “altar call”? Did the apostles? No, never. So, how did the apostles exhort unbelievers to believe in Christ? Did they invite them to walk down to the anxious bench or to the front? Were they asked to sign a card or pray the sinner’s prayer? No, the apostles—and faithful ministers after them for 1,800 years—inspired all people everywhere to come to Christ. Peter concluded his first sermon on Pentecost Sunday by telling 3,000 people who were “cut to the heart”: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2 37-41).
5. Altar calls often lead to false conversions and false assurance. In the book of Acts, the apostles never employed manipulation through endless pressure, sentimental songs, or cajoling from “counselors.” As a result, churches must deal with numerous issues of false assurance, false conversion, disillusionment, and a horde of unregenerate “carnal Christians.”
6. Altar calls are based on false revivalistic doctrines. Before Finney, ministers did not use any of these dramatic measures in their meetings and worship services, which is why he is now known as “the father of modern revivalism.” What prompted Finney to invent such “new measures”? It was his heretical doctrines.
Finney denied almost every basic Christian doctrine that has existed since the New Testament period. These include original sin (“anti-scriptural and nonsensical dogma”), Christ’s substitutionary atonement (“does not secure the salvation of any one,” “a demonstration of selflessness”), and the grace of God in man’s salvation (“repentance is something which no other being can do for them, neither God nor man”). He taught that Adam did not represent anyone except himself in his sin; thus, there is no transfer of Adam’s sinful nature to his descendants. All human beings are born in the same state of neutrality in which Adam was created, meaning that man is able and has the will to live a life of obedience by his own “free” will. This reflects his rejection of the doctrine of original sin.
As a result, Christ’s life and death serve as mere moral examples for humans to emulate (similar to our WWJD). Furthermore, a life of moral perfection is achievable solely through human will, without assistance from God’s grace. To Finney, all these Christian doctrines are “alike subversive of the gospel, and repulsive to the human intelligence.”
7. Altar calls are rooted in Pelagianism. Throughout the history of the church, there have been no new heresies. In Finney’s case, the early church already addressed any false teachings he presented in the 19th century. Finney was undoubtedly influenced by Pelagius, a 5th-century British monk condemned by three church councils in the 5th and 6th centuries for his heretical teachings, teachings closely resembling those of Finney. The great early church theologian Augustine argued against Pelagius’ heresies.
| Ultimately, the modern “altar call,” venerated and almost universally practiced by evangelicals since the time of Finney, has roots tracing back to the 5th-century Pelagian heresy. Yet, if there were an Evangelical Hall of Fame, Charles G. Finney would be prominently honored. |
