Whether seen on bumper stickers, heard during altar calls, developed from a narrow interpretation of Lutheran or fundamentalist theology, or perpetuated in fluffy paperbacks, the reduction of the gospel to cheap forgiveness is ever with us. This idea often comes from those who have taken Jesus' parable (in John's gospel) about being born again and made a theology out of it, usually ignoring much of what Jesus himself said about what beginning and living life as one of his followers meant.