Were you forced down the aisle?

[Historian]

So, I'm curious what ratio of people here were forced, in one way or another, to go down the aisle or respond to an invitation at some point. By "force" I mean either being told you had to, told "you'd better," glared at till you gave in, overwhelmed by embarrassment at being left out, or any other reason other than your own free choice. Now, I don't mean you felt forced by the music or the words of the speaker generally, but personally forced by someone else's expectations of you, individually.

Why ask? Well, obviously most fundy "statistics" about how many got saved or rededicated or whatever are wildly inaccurate, but knowing how many people just on this site went down the aisle because of pressure would give us some real insight into just how inflated those numbers might be.

[Darrell]

I don't respond well to coercion.

[pastor's wife]

Most of the coercion I've observed has been since I've been older not as a child.

[Darren]

Forced? No. Manipulated? Yes.

[Beowulf]

(02-09-2011 09:03 AM)Darren Wrote:  Forced? No. Manipulated? Yes.

What Darren said...

[Historian]

This is interesting. With some of the posts I'd read, I would have thought more people would consider themselves forced. Learning...

[pblawman]

Coerced, manipulated, shamed. I've seen all of those. I don't think I've ever seen anyone forced. This is timely as I was just talking to a friend who is now a former fundy (he left the camp about three years after I broke free). I told him that it's been five years since I've been in a service with an "altar call" (I distinguish that from an "invitation", as I would think much of the sermon includes an invitation to respond to God's word as it has been preached, just not in a formal public display of traipsing down an aisle to some lilting melody as the preacher beckons you to respond).

Back in the day my fundy pastor would occasionally have what I referred to as "The Price is Right" altar calls (remember how they would call your name and say "Come on down...") Usually it would be precipitated by what he probably considered a less than appropriate response to the first couple of verses of the "invitation". After seeing the lukewarm response, and believing that this reflected poorly on him or his sermon, he would add something like "If you are here today and you just want to say "I want to stand up for Jesus", then come down here on the next verse", or sometimes "I'm trying to build a church here, but I can't do it alone. If you want to help me why don't you say so by coming down at the next verse." Maybe it's because my spirit was cold, but I never moved in response to those "invitations". There were times where I was one of only handful standing back in the pew, but I couldn't respond to those types of appeals. In fact, it was seeing that type of manipulation that started me down the aisle, but in the other direction.

[Jenni]

I was amazed when, as a teacher at a Fundy school, I watched some of my students give in to peer pressure or teacher pressure or whatever else and walk the aisle multiple times. With all the salvation and Christian service decisions, you'd think the entire senior class of our school would have been signed up to be preacher boys (or preacher boys' wives) at BJU.

But after the dust settled, most of the kids went on with their lives as though nothing had happened at all. This is part of the reason that I despise altar calls.

[ginty2]

i remember at PCC ,during the special meetings, they would have the altar calls that wouldn't stop until everyone was up front. personally i never bought into that malarkey but i would see plenty of those around me buy it. i always wondered how many of those were sincere or were either giving into peer pressure or emotional manipulation.

[RJW]

I never LITERALLY walked down an aisle, but figuratively speaking, thousands of times.