I certainly don’t regard it as a ‘delusion brought on by evangelical indoctrination’. I’m sure there are very good reasons why evangelicalism has put a strong evangelistic and pastoral emphasis on the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus as part of a broad reaction against rationalism and as a means of preserving an authentic personal commitment. But I have a number of concerns that I will attempt to list briefly.

I don’t think it’s helpful for this sort of language to be regarded as normative or definitive for Christian faith. It is a contributory factor in the homogenization of modern evangelicalism.

It seems to me that the ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ doctrine owes rather too much to modern romanticism, sentimentalism, subjectivism, individualism, etc. That doesn’t in itself make it wrong, but I think it’s worth tipping the idea upside down and seeing what falls out. The impact of the doctrine on contemporary worship has been dreadful.

I suspect that the doctrine is partly responsible for modern evangelicalism’s failure to engage with larger social and political issues. It reinforces the inner-outer, private-public, spiritual-political dichotomy, and I find that we are continually have to resist this in the interests of a more comprehensive sense of vocation as the people of God.

It weakens the intellectual integrity of the Christian worldview; it tends to remove the incentive to engage in serious theological reflection.

I wonder, frankly, what the New Testament basis for the doctrine is. I see in Paul a very intense desire to know Christ in his sufferings, which makes a lot of sense given the eschatological context for that sort of commitment; but where do we get this general idea from that we should invite Jesus into our hearts, have a personal relationship with him, etc.?

Jesus talks a lot, especially in John’s Gospel, about a personal relationship with the Father and about being the means by which that relationship is achieved (‘no one comes to the Father except by me’). Paul picks up on this in Gal. 4:6, for example: as sons of God we share the same relationship with the Father as Jesus did. So why not talk about a personal relationship with the Father, with God - and then unpack everything that is wrapped up in this hugely significant (corporate and missional) idea of being a ‘son’?