Conversion: Being Born Again, or What Does the New Life Imply?

Recently our men's group (which meets at the Sage Restaurant) discussed the second "affirmation" of the Evangelical Covenant Church, namely "the necessity of the new birth." Tonight it reminded me of a visit I had from a couple of men who were allegedly taking a survey that they promised would appear in our newspaper about religious views. One of their questions had to do with how does a person become a Christian. Honestly, I can't quite remember how I exactly replied, but I did mention that it started with God initiating through His grace, and our responding through faith.

One of my concerns arises from what I perceive is a legalistic understanding of conversion. I'm not a great fan of a step-by-step to salvation approach. Some evangelical groups train their troops to recite and propagate four spiritual laws, which supposes that an agreement with those formulations guarantees that a person has salvation wrapped up tidily in a bag, and they can get on with their lives in middle-class America because their "retirement plan=heaven" is a past tense done deal.

I have been asked: Are you born again? When I assure the asker that I am, or I have been, they smile and give me the equivalent of a spiritual high five, and they move on.... It is as Ken in our small group remarked: Too often the problem presents itself: We treat the starting line as if it is the finish line. I am far less interested in the question: "Are you born again?" I am far more interested in the question: "Are you following Jesus NOW, and what have you to show that Jesus is your Lord, and not merely just your Savior?" You see, if we ask the latter question, the former question is moot. There is no need at all to ask it, for only the truly born again can possibly follow Jesus. Yet if we ask the former, we may merely tap into a person's earlier experience at a Billy Graham Crusade, a tent revival or a teen-age altar call. What good does an inquiry into a past event accomplish if a person's present life, committment, faith and actions no longer have any connection with a former/previous "decision?" If we ask the latter question, and sincerely are concerned with discipleship, obedience, faith-in-action, viable-and-nutritious fruit of the Spirit, then we will truly show an interest in a person's spiritual health. No pat answer will turn the person away ignorantly satisfied. If a troubled frown creases the forehead, then you've hit home. You might need to compassionately backstep and ask about their new birth or relationship with Jesus, but at least you haven't begun the conversation with a blithe, formulaic and rather legalistic question that has reduced the person to a spiritual statistic. You've allowed the person in need to remain a person indeed, not become a religious project.

So what is conversion? What is meant by "being born again?"

First, it does not just mean "making a decision" or reciting a sinner's prayer. Decisions are a dime a dozen. To me it sounds like nothing more than a New Year's resolution. True decisions are only made at a time of action. You don't decide to go on a diet, for instance, until you have the donut in your hand, or cheese cake on your plate. Then you either act or fail to act. At that point a decision is being made. We don't decide to believe in Jesus until we are confronted with real temptations. There is no decision to invite Jesus into your heart, for instance, until you've been given too much change at the grocery store and you respond by giving it back promptly and humbly, kindly tell the clerk that they were overly generous. There is no decision to follow Jesus until you have an opportunity to tell the truth and lose an "advantage" over someone else. There is no "being born again" until you rise with gratitude in your heart, mercy in your attitude, joy in your trials, and patience in your dealings with your colleagues, clients and children.

The Covenant Church Affirmations are deliberately non-creedal in form. They read: "New birth is more than the experience of forgiveness and acceptance. It is regeneration and the gift of eternal life. This life has the qualities of love and righteousness as well as joy and peace... God's purposes entail the transformation of persons, as well as the transformation of God's world into a place of truth, justice and peace." To be born again means we are enlisted into God's service. We sign onto His agenda for life, forever. There is no salvation without following Him and doing what He tells you to do, discernable through the Holy Spirit's leading and invasion/intervention in your life. Regeneration affects every facet of your life: your relationships, taste in music (especially lyrics), choice of or abstinence from watching t.v., how your drive a car (and let others turn in front of you), what you buy, how you earn and spend money, whether you embrace your children or ignore them, how you vote and how you emote. Regeneration touches and transforms/reforms/ and rearranges every aspiration and acquisition; it electrifies and electrocutes you spiritually, consuming you like fire and leaving you gold and immortal diamond. Nothing Less.

Let me quote from a man's work that I admire greatly, namely Creation in Christ by George MacDonald: "Do you ask, 'What is faith in Him?' I answer, the leaving of your way, your objects, your self [and your agenda], and the taking of His and Him; the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself [or any other formulated doctrine or plan of salvation], and doing as He tell you. I can find no words strong enough to serve the weight of this necessity--this obedience. It is the one terrible heresy of the church, that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ." (CIC, p.98)--brackets mine.

Being Born Again implies that we have been and are continuing to be transformed, from a sin-filled or sin-oriented, broken, rebellious, self-serving life to a sin-rejecting, God-embracing, gracious, trusting, obedient, neighbor-loving life. Sometimes when I'm asked, "Are you saved?" I choose to respond that I haven't so much been saved, as I am being saved. Salvation is not a static event, it is a dynamic relationship with the Lord of Life, Creator of the Cosmos, the Advocate of Mercy, the Chief Instigator of Joy. Salvation does not end with, nor is it summed up in, our Justification. It only is worthy of the name "Salvation" if indeed we are daily being saved-- made safe--from our sins or even the temptation to sin. For that reason Jesus teaches us to pray that we should be delivered from evil and lead from temptation while we also are continually forgiving others their debts and trespasses. Salvation is all about the destruction of sin: the ending or even annihilation of brokenness, alienation, rebellion and disobedience. Sinners are forgiven; sins aren't forgiven: they are destroyed. Now that is a salvation worthy of the name.

Freedom

“You were called to be free—but not to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Galatians 5:1, 13.)

Freedom captivates the American imagination and yearning. We enshrine the ideal within in our songs. Our national anthem extols our country as the home of the free and the brave. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded his most famous speech with the words: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we’re free at last.” What exactly is the freedom we yearn for, sing of and fight for?

Freedom remains for many chiefly the hope for opportunity. Opportunity to act and be as one wishes. Freedom is viewed as the release from responsibility, or better from duty, from obligation, from servitude and slavery (in that descending order.) From slavery certainly, but notice how slowly by degrees responsibility is equated with slavery. Yet the differences are profound. Here freedom is seen as releasing us from something, but not yet for something. Freedom from oppression and tyranny; the exemption from control. So first, but not foremost, the freedom Christ calls us into or lifts us into is the freedom from the powers of sin and death, of servitude to our lusts and desires. Freedom and Salvation are synonymous. We are called out of darkness into light to be whole, saved, right, holy, and active and finally able to respond to other people’s needs. Second and foremost, you see, we are called out of servitude for or to responsibility: the ability to respond.

The purpose of freedom isn’t for ourselves to live unto ourselves. We are freed from other chains than just those of another’s making. We are supposed to be freed from the chains of our own making as well: narcissism, pride, self-aggrandizement, and egotism. God wants us to freely choose Him, not to have to choose Him as if it is an expectation based on law or force. Contemporary chains yet conspire to bind us: the false gods of food, stuff, sex, drink, inebriation, fast cars, fast music, fast internet download times, the tyranny of the immediacy of acquisition and possession. Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he warned: “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds on earthly things.” (Phil. 3:19) I consume therefore I am. The new Cartesian lie. The modern slavery.

God wants us to want Him, for He is the foundation of our one true need.

Freedom from the slavery to ourselves and our earthly, sinful nature—whatever are our besetting sins and fatal flaws—will only be effected when we willingly seek to be freed for service, for praise and action on God’s behalf and our neighbor’s good. There exists no true freedom “from” without a freedom “for or to”. One only leaves Egypt in order to enter the Promised Land, not to just wander aimlessly in the desert. One must leave slavery in order to serve as God’s people. There is no leaving darkness without entering into light. Yet imagine how often people desire to leave the darkness of obligation without eagerly entering the light and clean air of service and responsibility. If we focus on what we are freed from we won’t ever leave those chains because we are looking in the wrong direction. We need to keep our eyes on what we are freed for: where we are going to. There God waits for us to embrace the truest freedom of all: where we will gladly proclaim that we are bondservants to Jesus Christ, whose yoke is easy, and burden light.

Renunciation

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wants to follow me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.' " (Matt. 16:24)

Our Human Nature rebels in a very basic, fundamental way against the notion of self-denial. Many modern philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russell scornfully assailed this ancient Christian principle. They said that self-denial was what was keeping humanity back from self-fulfillment, from becoming bolder, wilder, better and stronger. What they meant, however, was that Christianity was keeping them from becoming more "in-your-face," more me-versus-you, more competitive and more a proponent of survival of the fittest, shrewdest, most cunning and most ruthless.

Jesus said: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." (Matt. 16:25) A paradox explodes into consciousness here. To live we must die, when we die for Christ, we live. To cling to life leads to us slipping into death. To renounce life--give it up--hearlds one's first birth cries.

Twenty-five years ago when I was at college, a particular guy used to heckle me--good naturedly, in an odd way. You see this guy, Shep, was a Christian, and in his own somewhat peculiar, confused way, he was a friend.
One day, as I walked a path under the shade of some broad, leafy horsechesnut trees at Willamette University, Shep called across the Quad in a loud voice: "Give it up, Strobel." I shouted back something like: "Never. I will never surrender." Shep was always into pushing others (and himself) out of their comfort zones. I think he knew I wasn't as bold as I wanted or needed to be. By heckling me, he tried me and toughen me in a safe way for a Christian brother. When he cried out his challenge I imagine he looked forward to my reply, "Never surrender," echoing Winston Churchill's defiance against Nazism during World War Two.

But Jesus calls us to surrender, to "Give It Up." Maybe Shep had said what he did for a different reason. Paradoxes often have many levels, that seem to mutually exclude each other. In either way I hear a call to Life.

Long before Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings had been taken over by Peter Jackson, I had fallen under the magic of Middle-earth. The epic renunciation tale of Frodo Baggins worked in my heart and imagination in ways that formed and transformed me. The Lord of the Rings relates a mythic quest in which the protagonist, a half-sized hobbit, must take a great treasure, a ring of power, and cast it to its unmaking in the bowels of a volcano. Instead of going to find some kind of treasure and win great renown, Frodo journeyed into darkness in order to lose something, and in the process he loses all joy in remaining in this world. He tells Sam, his closest friend, at the end: "I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

Renunciation bites. But it gives birth to eternal life. I know of too many people, often myself included, who refuse to renounce their desires and purposes. Marriages are shipwrecked on the insistence to build up oneself at the expense of one's spouse or one's family. Narcissism reigns far and wide, elevating Self over God or others. Yet, as Jesus foretold: this only leads to our death and alienation. Ayn Rand's philosophy of The Virtue of Selfishness is fundamentally flawed in eternal regards. The idea of Enlightened self-interest only works so far as it is tempered by society, the police, laws, and a government of checks and balances. And even then, it is only temporary: this (wrong) side of the tapestry where only criss-crossing threads and bundles of knots give vague hints to the astonishing design we will be blessed to behold once we die and can see the right side of the tapestry from God's perspective.

I choose Frodo as a better example for me to learn from than any Ayn Rand would offer in The Fountainhead. It is true: there are those who must give things up, lose them, so that others may keep them. We are those called to such a renunciation for the sakes of our families, our spouses, our children, our students and clients, our patients and customers, our neighbors and friends, and even the ungrateful and undeserving. Ultimately we do it for Christ's sake that He may make all things new.