Your question makes a lot of sense! I think our overemphasis of the altar call has eclipsed water baptism, which is how Christ commanded us to define our change of identity. We are called to declare ourselves for Christ, and conversion is not, as I may have implied, an endless morph.

Your note about Finney is absolutely right. I would date the merging of populism and evangelicalism from his ministry, actually. His emphasis on spectacular displays, which you bring out so well in your series, was the start of a deeply manipulative view of conversion. Evangelists went from delivering babies at the end of a process to performing Caesarians at will.

Thanks for the link to your series!

I do have one question for you though. I agree with so much of what you are saying, but even after a long journey the prodigal son did come home. So as a pastor I am also confronted with the idea that we use water baptism as a sign of our immersion/salvation through the Holy Spirit. So if we shift to only a process model, with no definable “moments”, do we lose the biblical essence of salvation and the purpose of water baptism?

I hope that makes sense…

Thanks for posting it.