Are Altar Calls in Line with the Bible?

An important related question is whether altar calls accomplish anything good that could not have been accomplished if the altar call were not given.

It is also important to note what is actually being analyzed. In speaking of altar calls here, this is dealing with calling people to come to the front of a meeting to respond to the message which was preached. Often, this is related to an evangelistic message aimed at persuading people to believe in Jesus in a meeting specifically designated for evangelizing the public. People are also often exhorted to respond to an altar call during a church service to receive guidance, make commitments to give money, and for other reasons.

There is no doubt that people who heard the Apostle Paul preach sought him out afterwards for many different reasons. Yet a preacher doesn’t need to give an altar call to let people know they are available to talk further or to connect them with others. When people are just given opportunities to be prayed for or given further counsel or be introduced to the leadership of a church, that is really not what is being dealt with here. However, some might group things like that with the ritual and the spectacle typically associated with the altar call which practically treats responding to the altar call as equivalent to responding in faith to God’s Word. That is really what is being analyzed here.

It is extremely common for music to be played to persuade people to respond to an altar call. This in itself should raise a serious question about the legitimacy of the practice.

Is it right to use music with the goal of extracting decisions out of people? There is no doubt that godly music can truly be helpful to people. However, using music in a calculated way to attempt to extract decisions and/or money out of people is manipulative and overall very ungodly.

Some might bring up Elisha calling for a minstrel to play for him in 2 Kings 3:15 to defend music in the context of the altar call or money collection. Yet Elisha called the minstrel for his own inspiration. He didn’t use the minstrel to try to extract decisions out of others.

There actually is an example in the Bible of using music to extract decisions from people. Yet it is a negative one. That example is a blatant idolater persuading people to worship an idol. Nebuchadnezzar employed music to persuade people to worship the golden image which he had set up in Daniel chapter 3. He even required that people fall down and worship his image immediately upon hearing the sound of the different instruments in the band which he had put together.

High pressure altar call invitations also tend to induce people to respond to the altar call so they don’t look bad before the preacher at the front and the people in the audience. It is quite a contradiction when people are being called to an altar to supposedly deal with the living God in heaven as they are practically being pressured to conform to their environment and thereby make themselves look better before other people. No one should be confronted to make a spiritual decision in a way that they feel ganged up on or intimidated by a strong personality. If such a practice seems counterproductive (and it is), then that is basically an admission that altar calls are not right in the manner that they are often done.

Some might cite the Apostle Paul challenging King Agrippa publicly as he testified before him in Acts chapter 26 to try to justify altar calls. Yet this was not an altar call. This was an appeal to an individual which was made with the intent of getting that individual, along with the rest of the crowd, to think logically in order to demonstrate the validity of what he was saying so they would really believe Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who should be worshiped and obeyed accordingly. Paul testified, he persuaded, he challenged opposition, he warned. However, he didn’t try to intimidate people by the strength of his personality nor try to impress them by his intellect nor oratory eloquence. We see in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 that he actually feared people coming to believe in Jesus on the basis of such things. He knew that such a faith would not be adequate. Moreover, there is no Biblical precedent of Paul or any faithful servant of the true God giving an altar call in the Bible. Why should anyone do so now then?

If the pure Word of God being testified to a person’s heart and mind does not persuade them, then it’s useless and even potentially destructive to try to bring people to faith through human innovation. How many millions of people have been deluded and think their soul is safe from condemnation because they responded to an altar call? Billy Graham and other famous preachers have deluded millions in this manner.

Altar call responses do successfully stroke the egos of preachers who give them. If someone turns to the Lord while simultaneously running to the front of a church to respond to an altar call, they would have done so if no altar call had been given.

Some might justify the altar call with the claim that there has to be a way for people to publicly side with Christ and profess faith in Him openly. The Bible actually has a prescribed way to do that. It is baptism. There is no need to invent and justify a ritual the Bible didn’t prescribe to accomplish what baptism is supposed to accomplish (when really done to proclaim and express submission to the authority of Christ).

In the case of one who is already a faithful Christian walking in the narrow way to life, rightly responding to a Biblical exhortation simply means doing whatever the exhortation demands of them. There is no need for an altar call in that case either.

No one is going to improve upon Joshua when he exhorted Israel after they entered Canaan in Joshua chapter 24. Can you imagine a preacher or Bible teacher actually telling people that they cannot serve the Lord due to His holy and jealous character? That is what Joshua did. Yet Joshua was not saying serving the Lord is impossible. He was rather communicating that no one can faithfully serve the Lord without great care to separate oneself from idolatry and all sin in fear and trembling before Him.