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So you don't make decision to have faith but you can decide to not have faith??? Doesn't that mean we have to, in some form or fashion, accept the faith that is offered/given?

So I take it that Lutherans, like Calvinist, believe in irresistible grace??

I never said and alter call was all that is needed. I said that faith is all that is needed. My contention is that responding to an alter call can be, and often is, a result of and expression of someone coming to faith. You seem to be denying that someone can have a legitimate conversion...

I'm saying that all that is needed to be a born again believer is a basic understanding of who Christ is, what He has done, that they are sinners and are in need of forgiveness and that they have come to faith/trust in Christ. We are saved by faith, not depth of doctrinal understanding. Having...

But they have a basic understanding of who Christ is, what He has done, that they are sinners, and they believe/have faith/trust in Him. That may not be all their is, but isn't that enough?

I didn't mean to imply that surrender is a prerequisite for faith. But that surrender, obedience, faithfulness, repentance... are the result of a true living/saving faith. You don't surrender to Christ in order to have faith you surrender to Christ because you have faith.

No, they were pragmatic. It allows for the fact that God sometimes brings people to Himself in a dramatic and instantaneous way. The assumption is that the move of God is real unless there is a reason to believe otherwise. It also understands that a conversion is a Spiritual Experience/Move...

Everywhere the Bible tells us to deny ourselves, offer ourselves as living sacrifices, to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and live by faith is a call to surrender our devotion to ourselves and our own personal kingdom to the Lordship of Christ and His Kingdom. Faith is trusting...

Isn't that a pessimistic approach. Isn't it better to preach the gospel and assume that those that respond are doing so because God has moved them to faith and repentance? How is it misleading to preach "Believe and you will be saved"?

In the last Southern Baptist church I attended if someone responded to an alter call they were taken to another room by a trained (For lack of a better word) counselor. The job of the counselor was to make sure the person understood the basic facts of the gospel message. When I was in my 20's...

The reason for the jump ball is that I'm struggling with this in my mind. On the one hand, we always want to be preaching the gospel and giving opportunity for people to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit. One good reason for an alter call is that we never know who may be in attendance...

Even in the few cases when someone "walks in off the street" and responds to the alter call the most common story we heard was that the person had started feeling convicted of their sin and was looking for relief, started reading the Bible on their own and wanted more understanding, or watched a...

I'm not, I'm just saying having an alter call or not having one doesn't seem to matter. Both groups have people making professions of faith in some form or fashion and then later on leave the Church and Christianity all together.

From someone who came from this environment, I can tell you that the vast majority of people who "are converted" aren't people who just walk off the street. Most are children who were raised in Sunday School, VBS, Children's Choir, and who's parents have a well formed faith of their own...

I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing. I'm asking questions to get another perspective. I guess what I'm getting at is that someone can believe synergism and still, by God's grace, have a saving and transformative faith. They may think that they are responsible for the "decision" to "accept...

If you have a genuine faith in the true Christ aren't you saved by that faith? And not what you believe about previenent grace, irresistible grace, infant baptism, sacraments, preservation of the saints, monergism/synergism and all the other things we like to have "passionate discussions" about...

So are Lutherans 100% in on the Calvinist view of Predestination and Election? It seems to me if Monergism is 100% true then God chooses 100% of the people who will be regenerated.

What makes a serious thought out conversion more reliable than an "emotional, crying because I'm forgiven, jumping for joy" experience? It seems to me Lutherans, Anglicans, Catholics and Orthodox are having just as hard of a time with people leaving the church as American Evangelicals. I...

If we have had a "change in heart wrought by the Holy Spirit" shouldn't there be a response from us of repentance and faith? Isn't "repentance and faith" the necessary reaction to being regenerated?

Even in decision theology it is recognized that the decision comes by an act of the Holy Spirit that brings a person to belief. Nobody just chooses Christ without God moving on them first through the power of the Holy Spirit. I was taught all my life that we preach the gospel and show people...