Never heard this term before but just looked it up when Not Ready implied that he had some sympathy for my disdain for the type of Christian that he says falls under this category.

Meanwhile the first place I looked said that Easy Believism was basically what was preached by Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and Rick Warren! And I thought that Not Ready types agreed with them. So what's the scoop?

Do you care to explain what it means?

Okay, google. This? http://www.gotquestions.org/easy-believism.html

Give me a link. I doubt those people held that position but no doubt they have said things that can be taken out of context.

My own definition of EB is that you can become a Christian by saying a prayer in which you ask Jesus into you heart and then no matter what you do you never have anything to worry about concerning your soul - you can just keep living the same life with no consequences and no need to change. That is far from the Biblical picture of salvation by grace. Though it is true that salvation is the free gift of God in one sense, in another it costs you everything - yes, I know that sounds like a contradiction, but the contrast is between a mechanical attempt to apply a formula and a genuine conversion involving the heart. When someone becomes a Christian God begins a work in that person and over time everything about him will change. Becoming a new person is compared to dying - the old man dies, the new one is constantly remade into the image of Christ. A book by Bonhoeffer called The Cost of Discipleship explains it much better. Or read the Book of James in the New Testament. Or what Christ said - "Take up your cross daily and follow me". Or my own favorite "He who would save his life shall lose it, he who loses his life for My sake, the same shall find it".

I've never read the works of the three you mention in depth so they may not have had a thoroughly worked out doctrine. I know that Graham's concern was to get people to make a commitment to Christ through his preaching - but he always provided for follow-up after a crusade, and that is where the discipleship was focused. At any rate, I meant EB as stated above, there are many different views of salvation and eternal security. Most who believe in eternal security will say that if someone doesn't have a changed life they never really repented and accepted Christ. All traditional Christians agree in one form or another that if there is no evidence of a changed life then that person is probably not saved - EB says your lifestyle after conversion doesn't matter, and that's clearly heresy.

www.easybelievism.com

This:

is practically verbatim of some things I've said here, including in response to some of your posts where you criticize Christians.

Since he doesn't go into detail about the 3 preachers, I can't say I agree with him. When someone like Graham preaches on a crusade to thousands of people, you can't really expect him to give a long, detailed explanation of all the nuances of Christianity. What he tries to do is give the Gospel in the simplest form and that can easily be misinterpreted. Today people have short attention spans and competition for those spans is intense. But so long as the content of the Gospel is included, which Graham has done every time I've listened to a crusade, then that's sufficient for an evangelist.

As for the other two, I really can't say. But the guy who wrote your cite makes some valid criticisms in general - there is too much attention paid to sheer numbers, too many gimmicks to get people into the pew.

lol great job, you should also post that in the athiests picture thread if you havent already

I'm glad pocket focket followed your advice. Lets not waste good atheist pics in lesser threads. Also, the atheist pics thread needs some photoshop specialists.

Let me know if you have ideas in mind, I like messing around with that stuff.

Oh I doubt I could think of anything. I'm just a middleman, not a creator.

I am the same way. I can never think of anything clever to do, I can just steal others ideas make stuff that way.

I don't really see why "easy believism" should somehow be worse than "hard believism".

Is this the religious counterpart of being accused of not being a proper fan if your favorite sports team does well that season? Or not knowing music if you happen to like some music that sells well?

You're allowed to like music that sells well as long as you wait like ten years after it comes out.

LOL

True dat. Couple of hundred years after a new schism in religion they tend to stop chopping the heads of its adherents too. Same effect?

hello

Since Jib and I both like Boyd and Craig, I thought their take on this might be interesting.

Here's a bit from Boyd answering a question:

This:

http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_vide...tionPart11.mp3

is Craig's latest Defender's Podcast, Part 11 of his Salvation series - this one talks about the possibility of a true Christian losing his salvation.

Even serious theologians who think it's impossible to lose one's salvation (Calvinists often think this, they call it perseverance of the saints), will say that if someone falls away from the faith, engages in continuous sin, or denies Christ, etc., then they never had a true conversion - they completely reject the ideas contained in EB.