PENnED

Reading Franklin Graham’s comments on the Barna survey, I found myself thinking about how easily we reduce salvation to slogans. “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord” has become the shorthand in many evangelical circles — and while there’s truth in it, it’s not the whole story. It risks turning salvation into a moment rather than a life.

I say this as someone shaped by both Catholic and evangelical traditions. I’ve lived inside two communities that often misunderstand each other: evangelicals accusing Catholics of “works‑righteousness,” and Catholics seeing evangelicals as promoting “easy believism.” But when you actually sit with the New Testament, especially Paul, the picture is far more integrated than either side’s caricature.

Evangelicals love Ephesians 2:8–9 — and rightly so.

“By grace you have been saved through faith… not by works.”

But the sentence isn’t complete until verse 10:

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

Paul isn’t contradicting himself. He’s describing the full arc of salvation:
We are not saved by good works, but we are absolutely saved for them.

Even Romans — the letter most associated with justification by faith — refuses to separate faith from the life it produces. Romans 6–8 is Paul’s long meditation on what happens after justification: a life reshaped by the Spirit, a new obedience, a new creation. Grace is not passive. It is not a loophole. It is not a theological transaction. It is transformation.

This is where Graham’s framing feels too narrow. When salvation is reduced to a single moment of “accepting Christ,” it becomes easy to treat faith as something we possess rather than something that possesses us. Catholics have always emphasized that faith must be embodied in works of love. Evangelicals emphasize that salvation is by grace alone. But the New Testament holds these together without tension.

Paul never imagines a faith that justifies but does not also sanctify. James never imagines works that save apart from faith. Jesus never imagines discipleship without obedience.

So when a survey shows pastors disagreeing on certain doctrinal questions, the answer isn’t to label them “false teachers.” It’s to recognize that Christians have always interpreted Scripture through different lenses — historical, cultural, theological, pastoral. Interpretation isn’t a failure of faith. It’s the work of faith.

If anything, the diversity in the Barna survey should remind us that the church is broader than any one tradition’s doctrinal checklist. The real question isn’t whether pastors align with a particular worldview inventory. It’s whether their teaching leads people toward Christlikeness — toward the kind of faith Paul describes, the kind that expresses itself in love, justice, mercy, and good works prepared by God.

The gospel is bigger than the categories we use to measure it. And the grace that saves us is the same grace that calls us into a life that looks like Jesus.