Part 3: Examining Each Step in Focus
We last looked at the history of how the “5-step plan of salvation” developed, shaped Church of Christ teaching, and was challenged over the last hundred years.
Now let’s look at each step and examine it for its own merit as a “step to” salvation as an event:
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Part 2: A History of the “5-Step Plan of Salvation” [read the intro here]
While the Gospel has been around for about 2,000 years, the “5 Steps of Salvation” list is much younger. We can trace it back to Walter Scott, a Restoration preacher associated with the growth of the American Churches of Christ/Disciples of Christ of the 1800’s.
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Growing up in the Churches of Christ, it was advertised to me as long as I can remember—in sermons, in Bible classes, at camp, in outlines and tracts, on bulletin boards, on websites, and in personal Bible study with someone about to become a Christian. God had a plan for us to be saved, avoid Hell, go to Heaven. It was obtainable in five simple steps: Hear, Believe, Repent, Confess, be Baptized. It was easy to memorize, easy to count. It was a bullet point plan to perfection. It was a reachable solution that I myself could perform to be a good Christian. And for a number of years in my youth, I assumed it was the best way to view the operation of being saved by God.
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America never seems to pay attention to the Supreme Court Justices as individuals unless they are being appointed or dying.
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Did Donna Tart write a masterpiece or is she a thief piggybacking off of the artful motifs of others? Is The Goldfinch a Dickensian neo-classic or a childish attempt at a Pulitzer prize-winning yarn? Tartt’s novel has caused a lot of polarization, to say the least. Why did it split critics so?
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Truth Bible Institute: Contending for McCarthyism
Room 53: Aggravation, Christ, and Congress [see previous post on the West]
—I saved you for last because you were the only one Thomas saw as a mentor and I think you complete the religious imagery that is there abut would have been more there if Eggers was religious and had a more religious agenda.
—I understand, son.
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Room48: Cannons, The West, and Dream Girls [see previous post on radicalization]
—I can see why you looked like his dream girl.
—Thanks?
—Not hitting on you. Just saying you’re an important character, an embodiment of an ideal.
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Room 55: Radicalization, Apocalypse, and Mothers [see previous post on Conspiracies]
—I’m sorry to visit you like this, but as Thomas’s Mom you have some things to teach us about his background, why he did what he did.
—You’re here to lecture me on how his actions are my fault?
—No. But they do play a part. It’s not so much about you as what you saw in him. How he turned out.
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Room 60: Conspiracies, Bureucracies, and Hospital Mgt.
[see previous post on illiterate law enforcement]
—I brought you in for a topic that frustrates me as much as it does the protagonist.
—Fair enough.
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CALEB COY 