What exactly is "getting saved"?

[DaisyDeadhead]

I read the thread titled "Getting saved again" and it was like reading Greek. I realized I didn't know what they were talking about, or not entirely.

Thread is here: http://www.stufffundieslike.com/forum/sh...p?tid=4949

I am putting this question here in the nonbeliever forum, because I would like a simple description without any proselytizing or condescension included. (Anybody is invited to respond, believer or nonbeliever.) I would never ask most of the "saved" people I know IRL, because it would turn into a session of trying to "save" me, and I have already had enough of that stuff.

But that's the point, I have had countless people try to get me saved, and I thought it just meant: believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins, etc. And you pray this particular prayer and you are on board. the end. Isn't that what it is? (That's the usual narrative on "700 Club" and so on, so I just assumed that was "it".)

That's what confused me about that thread... how can you "question" this event and feel the need to do it again? You either believe or you don't, and you had this event happen or you didn't. Right? Am I missing something?

It seems even if you "stop" believing, you DID get saved and you DID believe it at the time. So it really did happen. But the thread sounded like they were questioning that it ever really "happened"... (?) Was I reading it correctly?

Sorry for sounding stupid.

Isn't getting saved your own decision? If it is, how could one have doubts about what you decided for yourself? You either decided or you didn't.
I say I was once a faithful Catholic, and even if I am not NOW, I really did believe it at the time, and I don't doubt that any of that happened. I don't doubt my emotions at the time, I remember it all very clearly.

Likewise, I have been married twice before, and at the time, I really did love those people, even if I don't love them now. I would not say I didn't love them at the time.

Are these good analogies, or is some factor missing? Confused.

I am thinking I might not understand what "getting saved" means in the context of that thread. Several of the participants obviously had/have strong faith, so what exactly are they doubting "occurred"?

I don't want to quote specific individuals, since that seems rude, but when people in the thread speak of doubts, I don't think they mean doubts about the existence of God, but about the event "being saved" itself.

So, what are they doubting, exactly?

Comments welcome, but no calling me dumb for not knowing already.

(The thing is, I thought I did know before I read that thread!)

[dramaturge]

In my experience, doubts occur because of unreasonable expectations of how you will feel and behave after salvation.

In essence, the basic idea of "getting saved" across Christianity in general is:
Recognizing that God has a standard of holiness that was violated in a such a way by the Fall of Man that humanity is intrinsically (genetically, even) crippled. Our best effort to be holy (right, doing good only, preferring the good of others, avoiding harm) is doomed to fail by our own nature. Because of humanity's intrinsic flaw, someone lacking this flaw (someone perfect/divine) had to live and die as a human in the place of flawed humanity (a lá Carton dying in place of Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities. The penalty has been paid, the record cleared, Darnay is free to live without the burden of a death sentence.). The recognition and acceptance of this sacrifice is the essence of "getting saved."

The rub comes when certain ones (particularly fundamentalists) continuously proclaim that if you are saved you will feel X, you will serve via X, you will behave X, and if you do not--if you are an individual with failures and strengths that do not fit the list--then perhaps you didn't really believe what you thought you did. Perhaps you weren't sincere enough. You were just going through the motions. Thus, those who experience sadness, who don't feel boundless zeal for soulwinning, who don't automatically feel an aversion to the wrong kinds of music, who struggle with anger and an argumentative spirit, who are exhausted by church and service, who haven't received the "second blessing," these are consistently made to feel the weakness is theirs, not the system in which they are bound. It isn't the irrational standards or the list or the exhausting amounts of service--the problem must be that they weren't really saved to begin with, they merely thought they were.

In basic Orthodox thought, you are correct that doubts about salvation can seem silly. In a world where you are carrying the baggage of guilt, the burden of proof, the expectation that God's blessing or prosperity will reign down upon you if you are "really" saved, doubts about salvation are inevitable. You are trained to place your expectations of proof on the wrong things, and, being weak, your foundation is sure to waver. It isn't that they doubt that moment of belief, it's that they've been conditioned to doubt the motivation behind that and the forthcoming results. If either is not up to snuff, then maybe the decision wasn't sincere enough. And it becomes an endless cycle of guilt, doubt, fear, "decision making."

[pastor's wife]

Daisy, when you put it that way, it DOES sound pretty stupid that we would question it. There is a simplicity and truth to simply accepting and believing that seems to be reflected in the Bible: hear the Gospel, believe, get baptized.

So why the agonizing doubts?

Dramaturge explained it well above.

Another response, a cynical one, is that evangelists, and even sometimes pastors, NEED to have numbers getting saved. If unsaved aren't flocking to your services, the only way to record salvations is to get people who already claimed salvation to 'do it again.'

Also, my husband mentioned that part of it is rooted in that debate that leads us back to all those arguments about Calvinism! When you firmly believe in the sovereignty of God, you know that your salvation is in HIS hands. But if you think that it's up to YOU, then it's easy to wonder if you 1) had the right attitude, 2) repented correctly or fully, 3) understood the right things, etc. Focus on yourself, what you DID or said, and doubts will result. Focus on God's calling you, saving you, and keeping you, and you can rest in confidence.

[amyrose5]

Getting saved again happens frequently among some Charismatics as well. In my experience around them at the Christian school (they were the dominant group the last two years), a lot of their motivation for trying again is related to prosperity gospel beliefs that are becoming more and more popular.

If you are truly a Christian, then God will bless you. That means that you and yours will be happy, healthy, have no money worries, and no challenges in your life. In that mindset, even a lingering head cold can be an occasion for doubting the veracity of your salvation (I was often questioned by co-workers during allergy season). A friend of mine began to buy into that line of thought after college and had a crisis of faith when her great-grandmother died. If she were a true Christian, her loved ones would not die. I wanted to hit her over the head. The woman was well past 90 years old, at an age when people die because they do, not because a random member of their family is being punished by God for not really being saved. I also knew a couple enmeshed in a church with these beliefs who were told that the reason for their infertility was that they were not truly saved and "if they got right with God", she would get pregnant. It never worked and it made infertility devastate them even more.

With the teenagers in the high school there, the visiting pastors would use the idea that if they had sinned or had a sinful thought (and hormonal teenagers have many), then they might not be truly saved. A skillful pastor could plant a seed of doubt and have a teen walking the aisle to try again in a 45 minute chapel service using that method. Then they would brag about how many either "got saved" or "rededicated their lives" when they did chapel compared to Pastor X over at their rival church. Nothing like manipulating the emotions of a bunch of kids to make yourself look good, right? Never mind that a student couldn't be enrolled in the high school without a written testimony of how they got saved in the first place.

[That'sWhatItSays]

"Getting saved" is a reference to the point in time in which you changed from not being a believer in Christ to believing the gospel (Jesus died for your sins, was buried, rose on the third day, and is coming back to the earth). It is not a process, but a single moment in time in which you receive the Holy Spirit. For those raised as unbelievers, the moment of "getting saved" is very easy to identify. For those raised in some kind of Christian environment, the actual moment can be rather challenging to identify.

[pastor's wife]

(08-24-2012 12:19 PM)ThatsWhatItSays Wrote:  "Getting saved" is a reference to the point in time in which you changed from not being a believer in Christ to believing the gospel (Jesus died for your sins, was buried, rose on the third day, and is coming back to the earth). It is not a process, but a single moment in time in which you receive the Holy Spirit. For those raised as unbelievers, the moment of "getting saved" is very easy to identify. For those raised in some kind of Christian environment, the actual moment can be rather challenging to identify.

There are preachers who say that if you cannot identify a specific time, you are not saved. This can cause great agony of mind to those of us who were raised by believing parents and who asked Jesus to be our Savior at a very young age.

[DaisyDeadhead]

Dramaturge, your reply made the most sense to me, and thanks... I have enjoyed all of these comments.

Thatswhatitsays: St Teresa of Avila thought conversion was lifelong. Sometime late in her life (after she had already helped pick one of the popes!), she said "I think my conversion is complete." or something like that... she said it with the satisfaction of work well done, not worried. I have always liked that model best, since it allows for our bad tempers, our failures, our continuous trying-again.

[squiz]

The whole emphasis among modern evangelicals seems to be on feelings. "Getting saved" is usually described in terms what you feel when it has happened to you. The life after that moment is described in terms of a "relationship" with Christ. Given that he doesn't actually speak to us, what they are really describing is a subjective feeling. Given the trauma that ceasing to believe entails, I suspect that many people manufacture the sense that they share this feeling, rather than admit to themselves that they feel nothing out of the ordinary. This is probably why modern feel-good worship services are so important, in that they help people to cultivate the feelings that they associate with being saved.

The phenomenon of being re-saved goes against evangelical theology, but seems to be used by some preachers to prey on those who admit that they don't share the feelings that they have been taught to expect as part of being saved. This must be very traumatic for those who have to go through it many times.

It goes against evangelical theology to admit that it is possible for someone to be once saved, but saved no longer. So whenever they encounter an ex-christian, they must work out another explanation, which is usually that that person can't have been really saved in the first place. It doesn't matter how much you assure them that you truly believed, they have to refuse to admit that you were really saved, because it contradicts their theology.

Overall I consider it to be an especially bankrupt and harmful theology. It is a house of cards built on a foundation of sand, buttressed by the fear of the trauma that comes with admitting to doubt.

[Lady Julian]

(08-23-2012 09:41 PM)dramaturge Wrote:  In my experience, doubts occur because of unreasonable expectations of how you will feel and behave after salvation.

Great response (especially with the allusion to Tale of Two Cities; I just finished reading it! But that's beside the point.)

I just wanted to add that doubts also occur in circles where believers have the process of "getting saved" (however they define it) nailed down to a specific procedure.

Think of a recipe: With many recipes, a cook who doesn't follow the steps exactly right will turn out a poor product. For instance, someone who uses only half the sugar in a cookie recipe (perhaps in an attempt to be healthier) will turn out with odd cookies; someone who leaves out the baking soda will have very flat goodies.*

For many Christians, salvation can work the same way: There's an exact "recipe" for being saved. (I'm going to list the steps in the service of detail, not in the service of converting you.) First, the believer has to acknowledge their unworthiness and their (total) depravity; they have to admit that their sin separates them from God and that there is nothing they can do to make themselves better. Then, they have to recognize that God sent His Son Christ to die on the cross for them. They have to believe that Jesus died in their place and was resurrected. Finally, they have to actually ask Jesus to forgive them of their sins and place their life into His control. If each of these steps is not completed (in the proper order), the person may not be saved.

For me, the emphasis on procedure lead to tremendous doubts when I was a child: I prayed . . . something . . . when I was about seven, then wondered later whether I had completed all the steps correctly. In particular, I was concerned about whether I had meant my prayer and whether I had actually trusted in Jesus or was still trusting in myself. I've talked to other people with similar fears: When a "recipe" is laid out for the salvation of your eternal soul, it's very easy to fear that we've missed a step or performed a particular step wrong.

Incidentally, it was amazingly easy to recite the steps for salvation almost word-for-word how I have heard them in so many places before. That we recite and recite these words so exactly emphasizes, I think, how important these lists are to certain believers. You can't get a single step wrong. I think it's great to be careful and sure when it comes to doctrine and what people believe, but the fact that the salvation process is repeated over and over again in much the same words makes it less like doctrine and real thought than it does a recipe.

*I made brownies one time and accidentally left out the baking soda. They turned out fine. Maybe this is a metaphor for salvation: I learned long ago that how well I complete certain religious activities has no bearing on my salvation.

[myotch]

A small Catholic perspective:

"I was saved, I am being saved, I hope to be saved."

There is an initial moment of belief and intellectual acceptance, there continues to be a life of regular conversion, and there is the hope that God will say "Well done, My good and faithful servant".