A Culture of Confirmation

On a recent trip to a bookstore, a book entitled "The Essential Tozer Collection" showed up at eye level and a voice from within said, "This is the one."  A. W. Tozer was a prominent self educated theologian and preacher who died in 1963.  One of the first things which caught my attention was something he wrote in his discussion about justification.  "The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless.  Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego.  Christ may be received without creating any special love for Him..." 

It was a word which set me to thinking and I ended up writing in the margins, "We live in a culture of confirmation instead of salvation."  One of the benefits of retirement is that it has enabled me to listen to a lot of preachers.  One of the things glaringly obvious over these fifteen years is something I had noted for a much longer time.  The church offers a lot of talk about Jesus, but seldom invites people to know Jesus.  Our young are becoming part of the church culture by learning about Jesus in Confirmation groups without really choosing Jesus out of a spiritual hunger in their hearts.  It is as if salvation is of the mind and not the heart.  Too many of us preachers preach not to the heart but to the mind out of the false assumption that everyone who hears the sermon is in a heartfelt relationship with Jesus.   

If this thinking of mine has any merit, it would help us understand why the cherished mainline churches of our childhood are sliding toward extinction.  We like to say the decline is about the graying of our society, or the lack of interest younger generations have in organized religion and maybe there is a measure of truth to such observations, but could it not be that the church has become too content in teaching about Jesus?  Could it be that no one is being asked to give their heart to Jesus?  Could it be that confirmation is a poor substitute for a heart strangely warmed in conversion?