“Going forward” became a fundamentalist sacrament.
by OriginalSoapbox
Indeed, conversions were fundamentalists’ most powerful experiences of the holy. Even though they had other channels of divine encounter and fellowship, nothing could match the wonder that fundamentalists expressed at the experience of being born again, or in seeing another person come to Christ for salvation. Unlike sacramental Christians, for whom the holy presence of God comes most commonly in the Eucharist, or pentecostals, whose encounters with the Holy Spirit involve a variety of signs and wonders, especially speaking in tongues, fundamentalists have looked to the New Birth to satisfy their yearning for miracles, for signs of God’s visitation with them. Fundamentalist preachers regularly gave the invitation for people to step forward and publicly profess Christ as their savior, and many pastors insisted on giving this “altar call” at every service. Their reason for doing this was that it was their evangelistic duty, but this ritual, performed with the musicians softly playing, the congregation singing or praying, and the leader speaking in an almost liturgical cadence, had become the high and holy moment of the fundamentalist church service, the time when miracles happened. For many fundamentalists, the experience of walking the aisle was so inspiring that doing it once was not enough. Surely people might feel encouraged in their faith and be charged with holy joy when others responded to the gospel, but there was nothing like experiencing it personally. Since conversion happened only once, fundamentalists developed ways for born-again Christians to “come forward” more often. By broadening their altar call into an invitation for believers to receive further assurance of their salvation, to dedicate or rededicate their lives to God, to surrender themselves to God’s service, or to testify to a “definite call” to a particular field of service, fundamentalists found a way to meet their thirst for holy moments. “Going forward” became a fundamentalist sacrament.
From Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism, Oxford UP 1999, p.77.
[...] The quote from Joel Carpenter in my previous post describes what I know from first-hand experience to be true: the most significant spiritual experience in fundamentalist Christianity is the altar call, an emotionally-charged experience in which persons are brought into the visible Kingdom of God to their joy and the delight of those around them. [...]