In response to Islam versus Christianity, where the fundamental difference is a matter of heart condition, why then do we, who are aware of the process of sanctification and the necessity of a genuine conversion to Christ, provide people with steps to Christianity? Tracks point out a variety of ways to receive Christ as your personal Savior, complete with commitment page and location to sign your name if you’re truly sincere. Although I’m aware this is off topic of Islam vs. Christianity, here is where I believe the fundamental flaw of Christianity lies. After returning from mission trips and completing outreach events, aren’t we proud to tally up the number of people who have accepted Jesus? Don’t we love to say “20 people came to the older and gave their lives to Christ”? But where are those people? Have we brought them into the sheepfold or just given them a few steps to accept that there indeed is a sheepfold, without even necessarily telling them how to get to it. I am certainly not attacking or judging you, but change starts with talk, so that’s what I’m doing.

To avoid any possible misunderstanding I want to quickly clear up what I meant by “flippant confession.” I just now looked up “flippant” to verify its definition. Flippancy is “frivolously disrespectful, shallow, or lacking in seriousness.” A flippant confession would then be one that does not have a proper understanding of the holiness of God and the severity of sin as an affront to him (“frivolously disrepectful”), lacks internal compunction over sins committed and being a slave to sin (“shallow”), and is brought to mind not by an awareness of personal sin and the coming judgment but by the lyrics of a popular song (“lacking in seriousness”). On the other hand, the “flippant confession” you seem to be pointing to is the ongoing confession of sin in the believer’s life, matter how comparatively small the sin may seem. If this type of confession is the helmet salvation, it’s repeated presence in the believer’s life demonstrates our salvation which is both secure in Christ and in progress, that is sanctification.

As I’m sure you would agree, we musn’t allow a demonic disconnect of which you and James speak to exist for the one who desires to saved: turning from sin must result in turning to Christ and vice versa.

What I desired to accomplish with this blog entry was to show what I perceive to be a fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity. Unlike Islam, Christianity possesses no magic formulae whereby irrespective of heart condition the one speaking is converted. Rather genuine conversion to Christ is a very personal, sentient, and spiritual work of God whereby one enters into communion with the triune God. The Scriptures put this experience in many different metaphors, but it consists of two main components like those mentioned by Chambers: (1) the historical accomplishment of salvation by Jesus’ substitutionary death those many years ago and (2) our response to this gospel in time in these days in which you and I live. While these two aspects are distinguishable they must always be held together and not put at odds.