Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?  It's an evangelical thing, I assume, but these days I've been hearing it from old-school Lutherans and people who grew up in that church with the "Whence then knowest thou thy misery" catechism.  It's practically a catchphrase and, like most catchphrases, it tends to get said without much thought about what it means.

The first thing that strikes me is the use of the word 'accepted.'  If there's one thing the New Testament teaches us, it's that salvation is a gift.  If there's one thing I know about gifts, it's that what you do with them has no effect on the intent of the giver.  Christ is our lord and savior, whether we accept him or not.  Refusing a gift doesn't mean it hasn't been given.

And what's all this about 'personal'?  How is he your lord and savior in a way that he isn't everyone else's? Granted, Christ probably would have gone to the cross if only one person in all of history had needed the sacrifice, but that wasn't how it was.  He died for all of us...regardless of whether we 'accept' it or not.  It's not as if he's your savior in a way that he isn't everyone else's.  In a way, the phrase sounds almost like bragging.  I've got a personal lord and savior, and you don't.  Like some twitty kid with a new toy, or the girl who's read Twilight fifty times and understands it on a level you couldn't possibly understand.  I appreciate the Muppets on a much deeper level than you, and my personal lord and savior is better than yours.

The emphasis on the personal gets things backwards, too.  In normal conversation, personal means mine, just for and all about me.  Personal property.  Personal best.  Personal essay - the dreadful ones we all had to write in high school about our feelings.  You use it for something that derives its importance from its relationship to you.  God doesn't belong to you.  You belong to God.  This whole  personal lord and savior deal isn't even making the relationship all about us.  It's making the relationship about me.  Personally.

This emphasis on the personal is the part that bugs me the most.  People who ask you if you've accepted Christ as your personal lord and savior aren't asking if you are a Christian, or even if you believe in God.              You could say yes to both of those and mean it, and still not meet the standards of the questioner. What's really being asked is "Do you believe in God in the exact same way and through the exact same metaphors that I do?"  I never thought that was the point of sharing one's faith.  But that's just my personal opinion.