Thoughts on Conversion
Comments (1) Published April 8th, 2007 under TheologyI am taking a class at Fuller Seminary titled, “Conversion and the Process of Change.” One of the things I have noticed in my readings (on various “famous” conversions and textbooks) and during the lectures is a reflection on how we (21st Century Evangelicals) view [tag]conversion[/tag] to [tag]Christianity[/tag]. The main model of conversion that the [tag]Evangelical[/tag] Church has adopted is that of Saul of Tarsus. He had a dramatic transformational moment on the “Road to Damascus” (where he was traveling to continue his persecution of Christians). Saul-turned-Paul has become our only model of transformation — where it has to be a sudden, dated event that one could point to and say, “That’s when I got saved.”
Our evangelism and altar-calls seem to farm for that kind of transformation. Of course, for many people, there is a specific transformational moment that brought conversion to their lives. For many others, however, it is difficult to pinpoint that one event. In fact, for many Christians (me included), there have been seasons where I had to prove my Christianity by pointing to a specific date when I became a Christian. I learned to form my “[tag]testimony[/tag]” around a single event, rather than testify of the ways God has been good to me from the day I was born.
While Saul’s conversion is a helpful paradigm, it is not the only paradigm of Biblical conversion. Calls for decisions are important and I would argue that we probably could be doing more of that (particularly through our relationships with seekers rather than through the anonymous eyes-closed Church service), but we need to understand that baiting people toward a single event of transformation can rob people of seeing God’s love and investment in their lives that spans beyond one moment.
| Related Posts: |
Write a comment