How personal salvation is an affront to the Gospel of Jesus Christ
American Evangelicalism individualized our faith and our salvation. In doing so, it erased the heart of the Gospel: world transformation.
I grew up repeating the “sinner’s prayer” and asking Jesus into my heart every evening. I learned from an early age that to escape the eternal fires of hell and not be left behind should the rapture occur, I needed to be saved. Of course, I didn’t want to die and end up in eternal torment and I was so scared that it might happen to me. Dispensationalist tales filled me with terror; I remember the anxiety I felt when I considered what could happen to me. So I prayed that Jesus would enter my heart and forgive my sins.
One thing was sure, I wasn’t good enough, and I was worried God would think so, too. The consequences of my sin were my responsibility and the only way I could be saved was if God saw favor with me, evidenced by a transformed heart. I was scared and I suffered from imposter syndrome, and wondered if I could make it. Sometimes going through the motions felt artificial to me, and even if I fooled the people around me, I knew I couldn’t fool God.
As I grew, I found comfort in the words of the Apostle Paul to the Romans in chapter eight: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” I could finally be free of my guilt and fear because I read that Jesus had saved me once and for all. I found joy in the finality and totality of salvation, instead of always trying to measure up.
Later, I discovered that God’s plan was for world redemption, and those of us in Christ Jesus, could be a part of that project. We could do so by acting for justice now, alleviating suffering, and trying to make the world better. God’s will would be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” I familiarized myself with liberation theology and grew to understand that the power of the cross and of the Gospel was about saving and redeeming the whole world. My anxieties about my own faith were no longer paramount. God’s grace covered all of us and even all of the earth.
Karl Barth, the foremost theologian of the 20th Century, was once asked when he was saved. He is said to have replied that he was saved at 3 p.m. on a Friday on a hill outside of Jerusalem in 33 AD. The saving work of Jesus happened at the foot of the cross, two thousand years ago. And we’re all redeemed as a result. The work is done, and now we can act for liberation through that work.
This perspective on the Gospel, of course, was transformative for someone who grew up fundamentalist, thinking that I needed to gain my salvation through nothing more than my own faith. Through this new perspective, I was called into a life of faithful obedience. We can participate in salvation through our obedience today.
When we reduce salvation to an individual transaction, we lose the meaning of it, altogether. Nonetheless, this idea is alive and active. Josh Hawley, the Senator from Missouri, writing for First Things described Christianity this way:
Christianity introduced a new and disruptive doctrine: God’s call to the individual. Christianity taught that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had died for sinners as individuals. God calls each person individually, and those who repent and believe are empowered to achieve his purposes in the world (and in eternity). In short, through faith in Christ, individuals become agents of history. We cannot underestimate the importance of this change. Class, tribe, and even nation paled now in import compared to the call of God: The idea of the individual was born. The West would spend centuries working out its implications, and Americans would, in time, construct an entire social order around it.
Hawley, arguing that the U.S. is a “Christian nation” misses the heart of the Gospel. God’s call was not to individuals. God, in fact, became an individual to redeem the whole world. Hawley, of course, errantly sees Western society and its social order as the capstone of God’s work, which lends itself to White Christian Nationalism. Obviously, one can believe that God saved individuals without elevating Western Civilization as its crowning achievement. However, focusing on the individual itself allows the Gospel to be exploited and results in spirals of anxiety for individuals who are wondering if they made it in or out.
Some misguided beliefs follow. We might pray to be healed of what ails us, with no consciousness of the broken systems in our society that cause misery. Minorities, in particular, may believe that our oppression can be solved in a professional’s office. Locating a loving pastor, a skilled therapist, and health care may be critical for all of us—but so many of us do not have access to those things because of economic disparities. A deep spiritual life, the study of scripture, and chances to pray and retreat, to worship and commune with one another are very personally enriching. However, they are not accessible to the least among us. People are oppressed because of the sinful condition the world is in, not because of their individual sin.
Individual salvation, as the fundamental core of Christianity, then, misses the world redemption that is at the heart of Christ's message. It is no longer good news for the oppressed—just a way to burden them with the obligation to “get saved.”
But Jesus came to redeem and change the whole world. That is the Gospel.