So what’s the problem? A Baptist preacher once said, “We’ve spent too many years telling people they can never lose what they never had.”

Americans like formulas. We turn everything into formulas. So we have turned conversion into a formula. We can tell you how to avoid hell, guaranteed, if you follow these four easy steps. Or assent to four easy statements.

But the “steps to salvation” or the “Romans road” are not easy steps to take. We’ve fooled ourselves because we wish they were.

For example, Romans 10:9 says “…If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved.” But can you make yourself do that, whenever an evangelist tells you that you should? You may have better reasons for believing that Jesus was raised from the dead than for believing that Osiris was raised from the dead. But I don’t think you normally believe that dead people can come back to life. Wouldn’t it take a miracle to change your mind?

Should you believe the gospel because your church tells you to? You can’t. You literally can’t. That isn’t faith, it’s assent — deciding to accept doctrines and not argue about them. Should you believe in the resurrection of Jesus because the brilliant apologetics of someone like Josh McDowell? No, in his final debate with Ahmed Deedat, even Josh McDowell responded to Deedat’s Muslim arguments by telling the story of what God had done for his alcoholic father.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And faith is a gift.

Has there ever been any empirical evidence that “redemption and lift” is a reality? There are many examples of poor sectors of countries that have had genuine revivals but no lift. The redemption and lift philosophy has been used to reject the idea of getting involved in holistic ministry.

Then what a bad use of the redemption and lift philosophy: to say that salvation has economic implications so we shouldn’t encourage them. That is, to paraphrase William Carey‘s critics, “If God wants to improve crop yields or reduce child abuse, he will do it without your help or ours.” If the Gospel affects the whole person, what kind of ministry is there besides holistic?

It turns out that in Donald McGavran’s Understanding Church Growth, one of the main points which he made in his chapter “Halting Due to Redemption and Lift” was negative, not positive: when poor people respond to the witness of the Gospel, they often want to leave the neighborhood, which leaves the neighborhood without their witness to the Gospel.

So I’m applying the term differently than McGavran did. However, you’re applying the term differently than I did. Notice that the examples I gave were on a personal/family level. When one man has more disposable income because he stops drinking, that doesn’t mean his whole community has more disposable income. However, if enough people stop drinking, some bars will go out of business, which affects the whole community. That happened in the 1905 Welsh Revival, documented by J. Edwin Orr.

Just a thought: you referred to “sectors of countries” but do the words “sector” or “country” (in our sense of those words) even appear in the New Testament mandates? The Gospel can transform sectors and countries, but it does that by transforming individuals, households, and people groups: all words which do appear in the New Testament mandates.

However, in the same way that lift can be promoted by redemption, lift can be thwarted by lack of redemption. If a “holistic ministry” focuses on fighting alcoholism among people who enjoy being drunk, that ministry is going to have some problems.

The advertisements ask the question, written simply over an image of a blue sky with wispy white clouds: “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?”

The ads are actually misleading. That 2008 survey cited by the sponsors, American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, didn’t ask people if they were good. The word “good” doesn’t even appear in the report. It just asked about religious affiliation. True, the 15% who said they had no religious affiliation weren’t saying they were Christians between churches, but they weren’t saying they were atheists either. Only 7% said they were atheists.

The most startling claim, of course, is that New York City has a million good people, period. I mean, I think the Chasidic Jews only estimate a dozen or two really good people worldwide. Maybe good people are naturally attracted to New York City. But you still need to keep alert on the subway, and lock your car.

Still, the ads ask a good question, even if they begin with an inaccurate statement. That is, they ask, “Are you good?” I suspect that, if they think about it, that question will make a lot of New Yorkers a little uncomfortable. I know it did that for me. And if the answer is No, there are organizations in New York City that can help. But I don’t think they’re atheist organizations.

The adjective extreme has become popular in recent years. People are proud of being extreme. They engage in extreme sports, listen to extreme music, and watch “Extreme Makeover.” Church youth groups even called themselves “Generation X-Treme,” which gives you an idea of how long the word has been popular in popular culture, since the oldest examples of Generation X are now over 40.

One of the appeals of extreme sports is the adrenalin rush that they give – something that’s lacking in most church activity. Sure, there are extreme short term missions and extreme street ministry, but most church people don’t engage in those. You have to leave home to try them.

Could there be such a thing as extreme repentance? What would it look like? Zaccheus might be a good biblical example. If he gave half his possessions to the poor and repaid his wrongs four times over, how much could he have left?

A nation could practice extreme repentance by dealing with sins that are too costly to seriously consider. Descendants of slaves and aboriginals have asked for it, but no governments has yet to give its land back to the previous inhabitants, or to pay back wages for forced servitude. Many people prefer to believe that the millions of people systematically killed under their nation’s wartime occupation were unavoidable, casual casualties.

What would extreme repentance look like on a personal level? It would be costly. Soldiers and tobacco farmers rarely question what they do for a living. If they do ask questions, the answer always seems to be “Fine.”

The depth of your repentance depends on what questions you’re willing to ask yourself — and how many you’re willing to answer.

Does my life line up with the Bible in every area? If not, how much do I care?
Before I came to faith, did I have any righteousness of my own?
Do other people need a savior more than I do?
Would I be willing to be called a heretic or cultist for obeying the Bible?
Are my unbelieving ancestors in hell?
Do I have any beliefs or practices that I would refuse to question if God showed me they were wrong?
Would I give up my trade or occupation if I came to believe it didn’t please God?
How far would I be willing to travel from my family’s faith if I were convinced it was false?
Could I pinpoint an area of sin, and call it sin, without knowing yet how I could be freed from it?
Does it matter if I continue to do things that displease God?

Extreme repentance requires extreme grace. For most churches, grace usually turns out to just mean that God overlooks sin. But for those who actually want to leave sin, grace needs to mean more. Grace needs to mean that God changes sinners. Otherwise, it means that God can’t or won’t or can do it only part way or only under certain circumstances. Extreme repentance requires a belief in definitive grace. We couldn’t stand to face our corruption honestly, without self-deception, if we thought we would always be corrupt.

It reminds me of the common arguments for why society should allow anything that was banned until now, such as homosexuals or women in combat. The common argument is not that our society would be better and happier if we didn’t ban it. The common argument is that it’s been going on for a long time. For example, historians will tell you that some women and some homosexuals have served in early American battles. Pornography has been around for thousands of years, holding an important place in many dead civilizations.

By that reasoning, everything will creep. Everything will become acceptable, given enough time.

I don’t accept that reasoning. Time can’t turn wrong into right.

One of my goals is to be a defenseless Christian. All of society and most of the church spends much of its time defending itself. When we’re attacked, that’s our natural response. But I want God to be my only defense.

Unfortunately, I spend much of my time defending myself as well. But, I mean, I probably have to. What if God doesn’t come through for me? When I really need him. he might turn out to be sick or busy. Or maybe not.