“Ask Jesus into Your Heart”: A History of the Sinner’s Prayer

Many an evangelical pastor has concluded a sermon by asking non-Christians to “ask [or receive, or invite] Jesus into their heart,” or to pray a version of what some call the “sinner’s prayer.” But some evangelicals, including Baptist pastor David Platt of Birmingham, Alabama, have in recent years criticized the sinner’s prayer as unbiblical and superstitious. Surely, Platt argued in a controversial March 2012 sermon, there must be more to salvation than saying a formulaic prayer.

Platt’s comments helped precipitate a debate at the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in New Orleans. In a voice vote, a majority of delegates, including Platt, affirmed the sinner’s prayer as “a biblical expression of repentance and faith.”

The phrase “ask Jesus into your heart” is not in the Bible, although there are similar phrases there (“ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” Col. 2.6 KJV). So where did this prayer come from?   Continue at Thomas Kidd

Calvinism and the Roots of the Missionary Movement

Over at Kevin DeYoung’s blog, Jason Helopoulos asks “Does Calvinism Kill Missions?” and answers with a resounding historical ‘no.’  I agree, and want to put a little finer point on it: from the perspective of Baptist history, Calvinists birthed the missions movement. (For background on Calvinism/Arminianism in the Baptist context, see links below.)

I’ve recently been reading Jason Duesing’s fascinating volume Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary, which has a great deal of fresh information on the celebrated Baptist missionary Judson and his context. I was particularly intrigued by Robert Caldwell’s essay on the “New Divinity” theology and Judson’s preparation as a missionary. The New Divinity theologians, heirs of Jonathan Edwards such as Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, argued that a right understanding of Calvinism would prompt activism for the gospel. The New Divinity helped to birth important reform movements such as antislavery advocacy and the American missions movement. (English Calvinist Baptists such as William Carey also spearheaded the British missionary initiative.)   Continue at Thomas Kidd