Open Thread: Does Conversion Include An Experience?
March 24, 2008 by iMonk
Despite the fact the the pedigree committee has recently met and found me a Barthian mutt, I am a Southern Baptist. Classic Southern Baptist fundamentalism has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember.
I want to open up a discussion on one theological and experiential aspect of that heritage that I no longer embrace: the belief that conversion includes a definite and discernible subjective experience.
In the typical Southern Baptist sermon, a lost person is invited to come forward and “get saved.” “Getting saved” means, of course, to become a Christian, but it’s expressed in various terms, such as to “accept Christ,” or to “pray to receive Christ” or to “ask Jesus into your heart.” In many sermons, this is coupled with other statements that promise definite, discernible subjective experience.
“You will be born again.” This is expressed as an experience a person will have, will know that they have had, and will feel that they have had. It is not just the expression of a promise, but of something you will be able to describe later.
“You will leave here rejoicing in your salvation.” In other words, you are going to experience happiness and joy.
“You’ll know that Jesus has come into your heart.”
One pastor I hear frequently says things like this: “Come forward and experience the love of God.”
I’m not sure what this means, but it explicitly promises an experience.
The promise of a conversion experience also appears in testimonies. Christians often say they can remember when God saved them, or that they know the moment Jesus came into their lives. They testify to the sudden onset of peace, the taking away of sinful desires, the lifting of depression and a complete certainty in what has happened “in their heart.”
If your denominational background didn’t use any of this kind of language, then you were far from revivalism and very far from the kind of Christianity that dominates in much of evangelicalism. The expressions may not be this strong, but they are just as real: Conversion is accompanied by a conversion experience.
So, do you agree? Does conversion register with a discernible subjective experience? What would you say to someone who insists that to be born again must include a discernible experiential starting point?
Open thread from this point on. Let’s hear what you have to say.
I certainly have some deep misgivings about the whole emotion thing, and I think this is never so dangerous as when applied to teenagers. I say this having come from a background of a SBC youth group which went through a leadership change halfway through my stint there. I’m grateful God brought in some people to repair the damage the first guy did. He was a nice enough guy, but I just couldn’t ever have quite the right feelings he told us we should, or at least I couldn’t sustain them for that long. I have to think that most teenagers don’t have stable emotional lives, and giving them a faith that requires certain feelings is a little bit like nailing Jello to a wall-it creates a culture that requires constant, stressful maintenance.
On the larger point of emotional experiences in general, I will accept the idea that meeting Jesus gives you a certain feeling as soon as someone backs it up with that inerrant Bible thing they love so much. I guess that’s what’s more important anyway: Does Scripture back this up? I’d have to say no.
That’s precisely the mentality that I ran from. There’s a lot to say about it. It’s engrained in our thinking for lots of reasons: for Luther, the gates of paradise opened. Calvin’s “mind became teachable.” Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed.” All our heroes had one of these.
And then there’s the book of Acts. No one there gets mildly converted, or is converted before he or she realizes anything happened. There are rushing winds and tongues and blindness and all sorts of tangible experience. But then, Luke’s point was to paint a vivid picture of the Spirit’s power, so that has to be taken into account in his choices of conversion stories.
So we see these experiences in Scripture, but we also see them in our own day and age…and we see them last for about 3 days…or every summer at summer camp, and then fade away. And the disciples, in some ways, serve as a counter-example. We watch them over the course of three and a half years as they slowly trundle on toward becoming followers of Jesus who have the smallest clue what it’s all about.
I think if Israel really is a picture of what it’s supposed to look like “when God’s in charge” (as N.T. Wright says), then I think it’s likely that we’ll see a community that has radical conversions and conversions that don’t look or feel so dramatic, as well as children who grow up having never remembered a time that they didn’t love Jesus. I think some experience a radical conversion, and some are converted to the kingdom work of the church long before converting to Christ himself – and after so much time around loving members of the kingdom, conversion just sort of creeps up on them. Might even be converted before they recognize it.
I definitely grew up in an environment similar to yours (although it was a BGC church, not an SBC church, and not quite so fundamentalist), and I can remember the heavy emphasis on the conversion experience.
I think in some people’s lives, conversion experiences are very real. And we definitely see examples of them in Scripture–Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 being perhaps the most famous example. I think true conversion experiences often happen among those who trust in Jesus for the first time as an adult.
However, among those who grow up in the faith, and stick with it into and throughout their adult lives, I think the emphasis on conversion experiences is decidedly unhelpful. For example, I raised my hand to “ask Jesus into my heart” at least 3 or 4 times, all between the ages of 4 and 10 (I’m fuzzy on the details at this point). Which one was my conversion? Were the others false conversions? How am I supposed to know? With my “conversion” coming so early in life, I’d definitely say I was more visibly sinful AFTER my “conversion” (pick one, it doesn’t really matter which for this purpose) than BEFORE. For example, when I was a child, I didn’t have the struggles with lust that I began having as a teenager. This is the opposite of what a conversion is supposed to do in your life…so what does that mean?
In my life, conversion hasn’t been a single momentary experience, but has a lifetime of seeking to follow Jesus more and working out the implications of the Gospel in my own life. If someone asks me when I was saved, I’d tell them I was saved 2000 years ago when Jesus died and rose again for me.
When a true conversion comes about, and there is a marked and lasting difference in their life after it…then we should rejoice with them. But I’m not convinced this is the paradigm for all believers.
I believe that an “experience” can be had but is not the rule nor required. Great saints of the past have recorded experiences that range from the profoundly definable all the way to the simple feeling of a strange assurance.
The revivalist method IMO has many pitfalls and can often lead to something other than a genuine conversion. This is especially acute with respect to children who are easily persuaded and generally want to please by doing and saying what they know an adult wants to hear. They “ask Jesus into their heart” at age 4 and from that point expected to “act” like one who is a new creation. Many wind up in their high school or college days hit with the realization that they have been dishonest with God, others, and themselves.
Moral of the story? Lets focus on making disciples as we go, trusting God to do his work in his good time.
John 3:16 (The Message)
16-18″This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”
In the above, I don’t see anything about a requirement for an experience. Believing (committing to one’s trust) can even be a process.
I once chatted to a friend of mine who was born in a christian family and went to church all his life about this very thing.
I personally had an “experience” where I conversed with Jesus and consequentially acknowledged Him as King. It was a week or so later that the comprehension of what sin was and that I had been saved etc sunk in. I didnt pray and ask God into my life or any such baloney. There isnt a magic salvation formula imho.
My friend can never recall any “experience” but he recalls many times in his life where he made conscious decisions to follow God and to put “himself aside”. That is, the WWJD thing. He ended up a missionary in Europe and I ended up at seminary.
So, I agree there is some kind of experience, some conscious moment or moments where its immediately, or upon reflection, obvious that you have relinquished control of yourself and submitted to God. I dont think that the “conversion experience” defines the whole shebang. Its different for everyone. Thats not to say that the “conversion experience” is illegitimate, but that the whole external thing doesnt necessarily reflect the internal.
I certainly wouldn’t seek to invalidate or belittle anyone who DID have a very discernible salvation experience. I’ve met Christians on an anti-charismatic warpath that aren’t helping anyone at all with this attitude.
It seems that this subjective experience comes in many different flavors, some of them more defined than others. Growing up Baptist, SOME kind of experience was considered the norm, but what it actually was for various individuals was relatively open-ended. If you really didn’t have much of one, you probably weren’t going to be bothered about it.
In college I was in the company of pentecostals who had a much more filled-out version of what the salvation experience should look like. Crying, public confession, some sort of exorcism, speaking in tongues, overwhelming joy, dropping out of school to go to seminary, etc. It was good if you could nail down your conversion with two or three of these. If you couldn’t, then you might need to move to the reformed camp on the other side of town…
…where having an emotional subjective experience was rather suspect. How can you think clearly enough to articulate the 5 points if you’re crying tears of joy over Jesus taking away your sins? (Women were pretty much exempt here though.)
To be fair, I never met anyone in either of these camps who would seriously insist that your conversion experience (or lack of one) was really a problem. I think they each cultivated an understanding of different personalities, cultures, and backgrounds helps with that. The reformed here are well read and well traveled. The charismatics are friendly and have benefited from years of having new members work through a lot of excellent adapted Larry Crabb material that has helped them be open to the other Christians in town.
My own experience would probably rate as a 1 or 2 on a scale of ten, so I’m certainly for a soteriology that at least allows for being light on drama!
Actually, a friend of mine did a survey on this as part of his dissertation for Fuller Seminary. He interviewed 845 adult Christians from 34 different churches, and crunched the numbers thus:
31.1 percent had what he calls a sudden conversion experience: they came forward at an altar call or something like that.
42.6 percent had a gradual conversion experience: God had been calling them throughout their lives, and they found themselves getting deeper and deeper into Christianity until they became regulars.
26.3 percent had “always been a Christian.” (He calls this an unconscious experience.) They had grown up in the church, and had always, to their recollection, followed Christ.
So that means nearly 70 percent of these Christians haven’t had the definite and discernible subjective experience you’re speaking of.
And my own personal experience backs this up. If my memories didn’t extend all the way back to my own confession of Christ when I was four (and they barely do) I would probably fall in the category of “always been a Christian.” Most of the people I know grew up in the church. Very few of them didn’t—and of those, I’ve led maybe a third to Christ, and know from their testimonies that God was already working on them for years before I ever talked to them.
My denomination is fond of the altar call, as are many pastors in it—a lot of them went through a dramatic conversion experience, and think it’s normative. We’re Arminians; we like the idea that people choose to follow Jesus. But that’s really just an outward sign that God chose us first. We couldn’t accept Jesus without the Holy Spirit drawing us to Him.
Warm fuzzy feelings, or awesome supernatural experiences—those’ll happen, but in my experience they happen after we’ve been walking with Christ for a while and our faith has developed a bit. I never promise they’ll happen immediately; I have no right demanding that God speed up His timetable so that I can offer a dramatic conversion experience. God will do His think when He feels like it. Meanwhile, I tell people to stick with the basics: pray, read scripture, hang out with fellow Christians, and tell everyone around you you’re a Christian now. Usually God does plenty through that simple obedience, and cooler stuff than I could ever promise.
“the belief that conversion includes a definite and discernible subjective experience.”
Maybe it would be more accurate to suggest that conversion includes a definite and discernable OBJECTIVE experience – a conscious, albeit not always “felt,” decision to repent and receive.
Or perhaps that conversion includes a definite and discernable transformation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Maybe the problem isn’t the belief, but the accompanying practices associated with the belief. Walking down an aisle, praying a prayer, “asking Jesus into our hearts” are all extra-biblical practices that have the potential to obscure UNbelief as easily as they reveal true belief. I know one guy that at last count had prayed five times to receive Christ; each subsequent “conversion” was the latest “real deal.”
Biblically I am hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t make some sort of conscious, knowing choice of repentance and faith. The experiences, of course, were as varied as the readers of this blog.
I’d have to agree with Doug’s last word. While there’s certainly a ‘conversion moment’ aspect to some of the conversions in the New Testament, most notably Paul’s, I don’t think that it’s there for them all. Peter, for example, doesn’t seem to have a single moment when he experienced some subjective conversion feeling. His denial of Christ comes after his identifying Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and his talk with the Resurrected-Christ about loving Him and feeding sheep seems to have struck Peter as just so cryptic as it seems to me. Yet in Acts he is the embodiment of evangelical boldness. Peter’s journey seems more in line with the notion of ‘working out’ one’s salvation than with the current popular idea of a single conversion experience.
I can only speak about my experience growing up in a Christian family. I spent many tortured meetings as a young person growing up chasing that illusive salvation experience. I desperately wanted to be “saved” and have this pivitol life moment. It never came. I laid it to rest when in a “basic living seminar” by Bill G. who said it was a common problem of those brought up in the faith not to have a experience of salvation.
I struggle with this whole experience thing as it imply’s that one was lost to start with. My reading about convent and the families role is the convent would suggest that one is “saved” while growing up in a christain home, then as you follow Jesus on your own you move from being “Saved” to being “saved” so there is no real difference……
I am not a Baptist, but this whole process is common to Wesleyans like myself.
We are now acknowledging something that Wesley spoke about often. He called it Prevenient Grace – in modern terms we know it as being on a journey or discipleship. I don’t think there is very much biblical in the ‘getting saved’. I don’t remember Jesus (or anyone else) needing people to say ‘the prayer’ or responding to an alter call. Jesus was followed prior to belief for the best part of 3 years by his disciples. I just think the deliberations we have come to know are just for bean counting purposes or self gratification of the caller.
I have for the past 27 years been an “itinerant” and much of that time has been as an evangelist. Responsibilities have often differed, but one consistent factor has been that of being an ‘itinierant’ minister. And that has been within the Southern Baptist denomination.
I sometimes feel as if I am the square peg trying to fit into a roung hole, or vice-versa. I resonate with your question.
Romans 10:9 promises that if one confesses with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in the heart that God raised him from the dead, that one will be saved. Verse 10 amplifies that. I understand this to be a choice of the will that one chooses to believe the gospel in their innermost being and to confess that belief expressed as Jesus is Lord. Context certainly is applicable here, but I do think that captures the essence of the “experience”.
Preferable to me is to define salvation as an experience (we are being delivered, or being saved) but to define the entry point as the event of salvation.
When I am in a context of giving a public invitation, I frame it as the beginning of a life-long journey of following Christ and ask those who are willing to enter that journey to identify themselves by coming to the front and making that known to church staff who are at the end of the isles.
I recently attended a Roman Catholic Easter Vigil and observed as a number of people were confirmed into the Catholic church. As I followed the commitment time in their miselet, it seemed to me that it was very close to what evangelicals would call a ’sinner’s prayer’ and was more inclusive of the gospel than just the four point summary so frequently used by evangelicals.
Emotion isolated seems to be nothing more than emotionalism. Emotional experiences are so untrustworthy, imo.
My preferred way of calling people to commitment to Christ is not the “come forward” at the end of the service, but rather to have some way for the inquirer to identify themself and then to visit with them privately afterward. That works best for me with my personality. I believe method is quite often more connected to the personalities and culture of the people involved than with a methodolical mandate from Scripture.
The start of the Christian life doesn’t have to start with a discernible experience. Indeed, as someone who was baptised as an infant, I’d say that discernible and memorable emotion was distinctly absent from the start of my Christian life!
However, a Christian life that is entirely lacking in the sort of emotions you describe – in which rejoicing in Christ, peace, assurance, joy and so on are unknown – is one that is seriously deficient, other than in exceptional circumstances.
I grew up Roman Catholic in Austria, a country which at the time I grew up was still very much dominated by that denomination, but mostly, in terms of the everyday life of most of the population, in a nominal fashion. By the time I hit my teenage years I no longer took religion very seriously, attending church only because it was easier than arguing with my parents while still living at home.
When I was 16 I encountered some evangelical Christians working with a mission team of Operation Mobilization, and after observing their life and their interaction with each other for about two weeks I decided I wanted what I observed in them. So I prayed and committed my life to Christ.
No experience. No emotion. I joined a church (Mennonite Brethren background, but not affiliated with them) and eventually was (re-)baptized; had some arguments with my parents about it, mostly with my Dad, and not because it wasn’t Catholic, but because it was too naive and simplistic to believe that God answered prayer and that the things recorded in the Bible really happened that way.
I quickly became aware that the evangelical believers around me (a) did not believe in visions, voices, tongues, prophecy, etc (in fact, at that time evangelicals and pentecostals/charismatics in Austria hardly talked to each other), but that they still tended to talk about their “relationship with Jesus” in terms such as “God told me”, “Jesus said to me”, etc.
I still had no emotional component to my faith, at least no more than I used to have growing up Catholic, I did not hear God or Jesus speaking to me, although in reading Scripture and hearing it preached it began to shape my convictions.
At times I became quite despondent because I did could not say, like those others, “God said to me”, and later on, as I got to know the pentecostal/charismatic end of the Body of Christ, because I did not speak in tongues (never did, even though some of these dear brothers tried their best to “mediate” the gift for me — “Just say ‘lalalalalala’ as we pray for you, and relax and let the Holy Ghost take over” — never worked!).
It has taken me a long time to realize that different people “experience” God differently, and that, for example, a quiet confidence in the face of various hardships and difficulties is also an “experience”.
It helped me immensely at some point along the way, when my lack of emotional experience was giving me trouble once again, to hear from my mother that she had noticed a remarkable change in my attitude and behaviour from the time I made the decision to follow Christ.
So while I do not believe everyone has to have a very emotional expericence, or even one they notice at the time, I do believe that everyone has to come to the point (and perhaps more than once!) where they decide to follow Christ or not.
This is hard to write about, because I still am uncertain what I think. The difficulty is enhanced because I too come from an SBC background, and was a child and a youth in the midst of the “Conservative resurgence.” So, I understand exactly what you are talking about.
I definitely think such thinking all too often promotes a salvation of “pray this little prayer” or a salvation of conversion rather than the gospel of the Kingdom. However, I think there is an awakening – whatever you call it – where you are taken from death to life. I see this throughout the NT, and I do not think you can discount countless testimonies of peace, awakening, understanding, etc.
Perhaps it is the baptism of the Spirit. Perhaps it is when you begin to understand the things of God. Regardless, it is when the scales begin to fall off your eyes and you can taste and see that God is good rather than the enemy.
It doesn’t mean you are suddenly mature – as the scripture also teaches the import of discipleship and continued growth, but i do think there is a time when you accept the truth about Jesus and begin to move on from there.
Although I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, the church that I was “saved” at used this kind of language all the time. I first heard about Jesus at a junior high youth group, and it wasn’t long after that I raised my hand during one of those times that the pastor told everyone to close their eyes and raise their hand if they wanted to Jesus to come into their heart. I raised my hand and prayed the “sinner’s prayer” in my head along with the pastor, and then didn’t feel much different afterwards. Consequently I didn’t know if I was really saved or not, and no one explained to me what I was supposed to do after I was saved, so I didn’t really know where I stood. Just to be sure I raised my hand or went up to the alter every time the pastor had an alter call. Looking back, they must of thought I was one weird kid to keep doing that. Why didn’t anyone explain things to me? When people ask me to tell them my testimony (it took me a while to realize that when Christians ask this question, they’re expecting a conversion story), I really don’t know what to say. All I know is somewhere along the way I figured things out, and I’m sure glad I did!
Nope.
I don’t think one has to have “an experience”. Although if one does, well then… one does.
The trouble with experience is that you can’t trust it.
Someone at a really exciting or emotionally frenzied worship gathering might just be caught up in the moment. They’re feelings may just be a reflection of all that is going on around them and not really an indwelling of any real spirit.
And that brings to mind, ’spirits’, There’s more than just the ‘Holy Spirit’, (according to the Bible). There’s the spirits of ‘darkness’ which may come ” all dressed up as ‘light.(it says something along those lines somewhere in scripture…St. Paul, I believe)
That’s why as a Lutheran, the born again experiences that I can really trust in are my baptism, and holy communion. And it’s probably better if you don’t feel anything. We can’t trust our feelings but we can trust what God does for us in the sacraments, even if we can’t feel it.
Not to say that feelings are bad. God gave us feelings and we do have them. My only point is that we can’t trust in them.
I believe this is exactly why the Lord instituted the sacraments, that we might have something that we can rely upon, absolutely, without having to go to our feelings, or our performance, as a benchmark if we really belong to Him, or not.
– Steve Martin (no, not that one)
One day I wanted nothing to do with “religion,” particularly Christ. Then, I had an accident, I prayed, “God help me.” The next day I could not get enough of Christ, His book, His church, His Father. I have been this way for 20 years. Is that experience? I’ll find out when I leave this life and begin the next. But I know I cannot go back to the way I was 20 years ago – something changed in me. I think that is called “regeneration.”
Conversion – yes.
Conversion experience — not necessarily.
I would see baptism as the more appropriate threshold marker for entering the Christian life and the Church. Baptism, of course, is ultimately sterile without conversion of life attached to it.
But hey, I am an Anglican priest. We believe in all kinds of goofy stuff!
I’m a Wesleyan mutt and I reckon that the Wesleys were at least in part responsible for starting this whole ‘born again’ thing.
May people do have some kind of ‘feeling experience’ and I’ve heard some dramatic stories of conversion that I believe to be totally legitimate.
BUT. This tradition that we share can also do a lot of damage when it suggests that only the ‘feeling experiences’ of conversion are authentic conversion. Many people raised in a Christian family don’t have a huge ‘a ha’ experience, but simply decide at some point that they want to be followers of Jesus. They might not even know the date and time. Shock! Horror! I know one congregation that kept telling people like this that they weren’t ‘really saved’ until they could name a time that they said the sinners’ prayer. Tosh.
Experience the love and joy of God? If that means ‘Have full assurance all the time’, then I say tosh again. Many Saints have had long and prolonged ‘Dark Nights of the Soul’ where they could not feel or perceive God. One of the strengths of traditional reformation theology (I grew up conservative Lutheran, not Calvinist) is its emphasis on the objective promises to all who believe. This is something we can hold on to even when we don’t feel God or feel saved.
Finally, what about Christians who are ‘thinkers’ and not ‘feelers’? Although I’m a ‘feeler’, I do frequently have my faith strengthened through reading theology and I often have occasion to praise God because my faith has been strengthened through my reading.
The main thing about ‘conversion’ is that we have turned from the way of sin and that we are following in the direction of Christ. For this, we need little every-day conversions and we need the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. John Wesley told his followers that being a disciple sometimes means being laid aside by God as well as being used by God. Wesley said that it also means sometimes doing things that we don’t like doing.
I had an interesting talk with my mother in law where she told me that if you didn’t have this kind of experience then she didn’t believe you were saved. To which I told her I must not be, and so did several other believers in the family, it was fun. I am really beginning to unravel how many things that are part of the church have no basis in scripture and this was one of my earliest.
I got into some trouble as a YP for not giving alter calls (No, I meant to spell it that way)
I must say that my feelings about this issue have changed over the years. I had a most definitive salvation experience. I remember the exact moment that I believed and understood the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection. It was truly transformative for me. I was almost 17.
I used to be SBC for many years and had this concept of a salvation experience touted and reinforced by countless pastors, leaders, and congregants. Christians who didn’t have this experience were sometimes viewed as not really being “born-again” or “regenerated”.
My views have defintiely changed and are still evolving concerning this. Having children makes one rethik things. Do I really expect a 6 year-old to have a radical, emotional experience when we talk about the gospel? No. Instead my husband and I describe being a Chrisitan as “following Jesus” rather than “asking Him into your heart.”
I do think that it is impossible to follow Christ without some sort of change, but I view the change as not necessarily being an overly emotional one. Instead, I think it might resemble more of a paradigm shift in which one realizes that the way one used to think about something was wrong or based on faulty assumptions.
Whenever people bring up “false conversions” I am reminded that the people Jesus called goats, and claimed they never knew Him, are the ones who said they did miracles in His name–if those aren’t experiences then what are? Yet, those “experiences” didn’t seem to prove much of anything.
Ooh.. many comments already.
I won’t go much deep or long but I’ll say that the conversion does not require a discernible subjective experience. An emotion, or some kind of epiphany may be present in the memory of a believer as the turning point, conversion, but I don’t think it is a necessity. Sure, one must grasp the meaning of the Gospel, but I think it can come gradually or happen at such a young age that the person cannot pin-point when it was. If anything, I think what matters more is the continuing faithfulness (including struggles because of our sinful nature) other (close) Christians can see in a believer. An authentic conversion is more (or better) discernible by an enduring out-working of the on-going faith which is often displayed through their commitment and service, than by a mere presence of a subjective experience at his conversion or even the ability to articulate the Gospel in words.
I would agree with Andy – that most of us come to a point when we encounter the objective reality of Christ dying not only for the sins of the world, but for MY sins. I certainly had a day when that became so, and I prayed as a result, and experienced an inner peace and joy unknown until that moment. It was not in the midst of a church or a crusade, it was in the quiet of a Sussex field after a lengthy discussion concerning faith with a friend, but it was the moment where my life totally changed. I can, of course, look back and see how many presuppositions were ’seeded’ in my youth to lead to that moment, but I have no doubts some 30 years later that this was indeed my first conscious acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord.
I’m not opposed to a conversion experience; I had one myself. But for my daughter, who is growing up in church (unlike me) I don’t want her to think she is not in the camp because, as one born in the camp, she never had the experience of coming in from the wilderness.
I’m in the SBC currently…sort of…and I get so tired of hearing the phrase, “ask Jesus into your heart”, I never use that phrase, where is it in the Bible? I think I read an article or something similar some time ago that talked about the dangers of “asking Jesus into your heart”. I’d love to hear more thoughts about this Michael and where it came from and why it’s such a popular catchphrase in the SBC.
Ah, Cahleen mentions the famous/infamous “sinner’s prayer.” The idea seems to be “just” (Imonk, you could go off on the use of that word, and probably have at some point) pray the words and you will be saved. I don’t doubt that at all, but what does come next? In your post above, the “benefits” all seem to be about me: peace, the end of sinful desires, the lifting of depression, etc. Well, great, who wouldn’t be for that? But what about a call to serve others, grow in the faith, etc., what John Wesley called sanctifying grace? Cahleen, bless you, you may have made an untentional slip with your misspelling of “altar” as “alter.” Following Jesus following time at the altar (or whenever, wherever that occurs) should alter our lives as we live for and serve him.
I would add that it was clearly no mistake that Jesus calls us to go and “make disciples.” That is different than making “converts.” Just reading Cathleen’s comment highlights the problems that can occur when all you do is have people pray a prayer without continued discipleship.
I would say that one could have some kind of discernible conversion experience. In fact, that’s what happened with me. But I don’t think it’s necessary to have it to validate one’s salvation or relationship with God. It could be something that happens over time with a gradual turning away from sin and increasing belief in Christ. Or one could have grown up in the Church, be baptized as a child or infant, been always taught to talk to God and ask forgiveness for sins and never really strayed from it to any be extent.
Why would such a person have to “pray the sinner’s prayer” or come down the aisle? They’ve never known anything other than the notion that God is real and being in a relationship with Him.
This maybe off topic as I’m in a church that does not rely on the conversion experience or emphasise it much. Not to say it is wrong to experience such emotion, but we don’t believe it is necessary or a thing at which to be aimed. And some of us think it hold potential dangers.
but since the subject was brought up, i was driving around yesterday, and heard a country song I think by Kenny Chesny (I don’t listen to much country anymore, liked it better when it was about illicit sex, drugs, and rock and roll.) But I found it peculiar that he compared this conversion experience to the experience he had the first time he had sex, which was not after he got married. Anybody else catch that? Well if he can convince the teenagers that the experience is the same as the experiences I have had at revivals,then maybe he can keep them from havig sex. Honestly though the closest I ever got to a “revival” was a baptist church a friend of mine invited me to. The pastor I think did his best. But having grown up Lutheran he wasn’t going to convince me that beer was the devil’s kool aid. I have pretty much stayed clear of anything smacking of it since.
When my son went to college, he got involved with a Christian organization on campus. It didn’t last long, though, because he said there was no tolerance for someone like him who had grown up in the church, had always been a believer, and had never had some big “come to Jesus” moment. Thankfully, he had the maturity to move on and find a different group to connect with, but how many kids don’t and are left questioning their faith?
I grew up Church of Christ. My salvation experience was motivated by fear and urgency to get the baptism accomplished before I died and went to Hell. It was relief at being saved just in time. After it was over my immediate thought was “that’s it?” Since then, and since joining another church flavor, I have seen God provide many different experiences for everyone. None seem to be the same, but isn’t that God? Some are dramatic, some are silent, some are emotional, some are peaceful. I wish that for everyone it would at least be a celebration of their community and a “get to” experience rather than a “have to” experience.
For those raised in the Christian church, it is certainly possible to have faith in Christ and believe in God apart from a conscious choice. Some children accept the truths of God’s love and the brotherhood of Jesus long before they are capable of understanding the more complex concepts involved. I believe the Holy Spirit indwells these just as fully as any adult.
But at some future point in growth and in the process of encountering the philosophies of the world, everyone eventually must reaffirm the beliefs they have accepted from childhood. For some, this reaffirmation is a specific, memorable experience. For others, it may be a less defined process of continuing acceptance of the truths they have been taught through their adolescent or young adult years.
Regardless, it is not a subjective conversion experience that provides an assurance of one’s salvation. It is the actual belief in Christ and the atonement He brings that assures one of God’s love and acceptance – whether this knowledge comes decisively in a moment, or dawns softly upon the consciousness over a period of time, it is the knowledge itself that saves, not its timeframe of delivery.
“So while I do not believe everyone has to have a very emotional expericence, or even one they notice at the time, I do believe that everyone has to come to the point (and perhaps more than once!) where they decide to follow Christ or not.”
This sums up what I believe. People are wired so differently and come from very different experiences. If a person is very emotionally-oriented to begin with, he/she probably would have a more emo conversion. Also, if someone comes out of an extremely sinful lifestyle, the conversion may affect the person very dramatically. Bottom line, the “experience” should not be the requirement. We are known by our fruits.
In my own experience, sudden, momentous experiences have not been the norm. Growing up in a Baptist church and going to a Baptist college, most people when sharing their testimony desperately try to pinpoint a specific time when “gettin’ saved” happened, because thats what they think is supposed to happen. However, most of them make it pretty clear, that they through much time and thought and life realized, I believe in this guy and I’m following him, I’m not sure when it really started, but here I am. I think thats the way it happens with most people. Certainly one can have an experience where they were faced with a choice, “do i really believe this or not?” or “should I make this public right now or not?” or “if I believe all of this, then i shouldn’t be doing ____,” and that kind of thing, but I think its something that happens within the context of a process.
John Piper said once, “A decision for Christ isn’t nearly as important as a life for Christ.” Even in the gospels, the disciples highly irrational decisions to follow Christ, but was that the actual salvation experience? It seems like it was a process for them too.
The New Testament seems to focus quite a bit more on where we are in the present rather than what experiences we’ve had in the past. Take the entirety of 1 John, for example.
The church I attended in college was a little light on teaching the gospel than it really should be, but the average new believer begins attending as a non-believer, begins to learn new things about Jesus and God, gets involved, begins to really follow Christ and then realizes “I guess I’m a Christian,” and gets baptized. The ones who do that rarely turn away, its the ones who begin “following Christ” based on an emotional experience who often go astray.
Is there any instance in the Bible where there is an altar call or where someone is asked to pray the prayer?
Paul proclaimed Christ and left it to the Holy Spirit to do the saving. If someone goes to the alter because of peer pressure they are going to start out on rocky soil if they’re really being saved at all.
The two things Paul stresses in the Bible are receiving the Holy Spirit and being a new creation. This may happen in a moment or in a month. FWIW it happened with me over a week. God can do this however He wants.
Jeff
Lutheran theologians differentiate between saving faith and the subsequent awareness of your faith. Most conversion experiences would probably fall under “reflective faith” or the awareness of having faith. The way it was explained to me was you believe already or you wouldn’t “walk the aisle”, “raise your hand” or pray the sinners prayer. Why would you pray the sinners prayer unless you trusted Christ to answer? I know some Christians who, as far as they can tell, never knew a time in their life when they didn’t trust Christ. They were baptized as babies and raised in the faith. Later on down the road they have sometimes come to a profound awareness of the presence of God and their experience of trusting Him, but these were not “conversion experiences” but gifts from God that were part of their journey and growth as Christians. As for me, I experienced one of those radical conversions and have a “testimony” in the Baptist sense of the word.
I grew up a practicing RC. Didn’t believe in that “born again” nonsense. Was a lapsed/part-time Catholic for 23 years When I was saved there was no doubt that God sent the Holy Spirit to me and I was saved. Regeneration, faith, repentance; the whole deal.
People are turned from indifference to God or from hostility to God to trust and love. You could call that conversion, and yes, it is necessary, but its no less necessary every day of your life.
I guess you could say the Orthodox have an altar call. Every week, the priest extends the Holy Gifts and proclaims:
Μετὰ φόβου Θεοῦ, πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης προσέλθετε.
“In faith, love, and in the fear of God, draw ye near”
When Pope John Paul II died, a mail list to which I belonged went wild over his presence in heaven, with much of the debate focusing on his “conversion experience” (or lack thereof). I wrote an essay on the subject that was published on the list’s Web site. If it helps this discussion, great; thank God. If not, please ignore it as the ramblings of an unusually cerebral, liturgical SBC soul who felt rather lonely until I found this blog.
http://www.macministry.org/pulpit/salvation.html
Does conversion include a “definite and discernible subjective experience”? This is a very tricky notion to nail down, isn’t it?
Perhaps it all depends on which church is preaching conversion, because what counts for conversion differs from church to church. Conversion is preached differently in revivalist camp meetings than it is preached, say, in Lutheran Churches; and as a result conversion is experienced very differently by revivalist Christians and Lutheran Christians. I guess what I am saying is that conversion probably cannot be abstracted from the communities that are preaching conversion. Perhaps this ties into the notion that experience is linguistically mediated.
I really don’t know.
But I will say that I think the danger with over-emphasizing some kind of experience or decision is that you could end up trusting that experience or decision; i.e. “I know I am saved because I prayed a prayer when I was 6.” That kind of thing. John Piper said once in a sermon that you don’t know you’re alive because you have a birth certificate…you know you’re alive because you’re alive.
I don’t know when I actually “got saved.” I prayed the prayer and raised my hand and went forward more times than I can remember in high school and junior high, only to more or less abandon the faith in college, and then, after that “crisis of faith,”…begin again. For line-in-the-sand purposes I say that I came to Christ May 2004…because there was an “event.” But I know without a doubt that God had His hand on me looong before that.
There are all kinds of people, and I don’t think God calls anyone the same way twice. I am rambling and I am fairly certain I never really answered the question.
I think whether or not someone has a subjective conversion experience depends on how one became a Christian. In other words, the “subjective experience” is usually a human response to the hope, sense of belonging, and joy that can come with accepting faith, not a divinely given feeling that results from being suddenly “filled with the Spirit.”
People who were brought up in a Christian household may not remember a specific point in time when they “got saved.” To them, professing faith is not something extraordinary, they have been doing it one way or another their entire life.
For me, there definitely was a subjective “feeling,” but it’s origins were most likely human. Religion was not discussed growing up. The word “Jesus” alone would make all of us feel uncomfortable. My mother was a lapsed Catholic, and eventually she started taking us to Mass on Christmas eve. Through those masses, I eventually pieced together the Christmas story, but was clueless as to the theology behind it.
In college, a series of events lead me to try to see if there was a God, and if so, what he wanted me to do. Eventually, I found Christ in the Gospels. I was struck by Him, and soon found myself wanting to prove Christ right, wanting my religion to involve Him. Then (thank you C.S. Lewis) I found arguments to support my desire for faith, but I still had doubts. Over time, those doubts subsided into faith.
I can’t point to an exact moment when I was “saved,” but I know that I fell different now then I did before. Perhaps, it’s just that with belief in an afterlife, comes hope. Whereas, without belief, there is nothing but endless oblivion.
I do know that I felt something when I discovered Christ. I’ve said the “formulas” multiple times, thinking that I was missing something because the metaphorical “bolt of lightning” never hit me after saying them. But the “feelings” I got after saying them (if any) could never substitute for the feeling I got the first time I really saw Christ as a real person, who I wanted to follow.
Yes the ‘experience’ can accompany the conversion. I’ve known people who have heard God audibly, or spent several days wrestling with scripture and coming out of it knowing Christ.
I accepted Christ at 6 yrs old in the middle of the school day, so there wasn’t an experience attached to that moment. However, growing up in youth group , the overall vibe was to pursue a warm-fuzzy of some sort at any given camp or conference or whatever. I was a good church kid and would play right along, but I was a faker; it was just for appearance, so they would think well of me.
Once I learned to calm down a bit and just be real, I found out that I do occasionally have moments and even “experiences” where God shows himself in some way. For me they are quite calm & subtle, but when it’s God, I’m certain of it.
Hmmm, I’m not sure. I grew-up SBC, too, and was saved/baptized when I was 8. (so I’m told, I don’t really remember anything) Experientially, I kinda just grew into it and don’t remember having a “me and God” emotional experience until Jr. High. This makes me want to go back and read Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards…. I don’t remember all of what he said because it’s slightly heavy, but I know he went into some great disguishing marks of a true conversion and an emotional conversion-esque experience. I’m definitely of the St. John of the Cross mentality when it comes to emotions and experiences—when you get them, they’re gifts. But they are not necessarily true indicators of the closeness between you and God. Sometimes the Spirit gives us consolation (the good feelings), and sometimes He gives us desolation (ambivalence, lack of feeling and conviction, loss of loving feelings), and it all works together for His purposes. So with that, I would say if it’s a true conversion, He can give you whatever kind of emotional experience He wants to for purposes we may not see. But, at the same time, I imagine that feelings of freedom, love, accceptance, etc… probably correspond with most adult conversions, particularly when the person is having a dramatic turnaround. For a child who has grown-up with God’s love being shown through their parents and familiar with Jesus, it seems like more of a logical extension that gently bleeds into their life.
The older a sinner gets, and when raised in a non-Christian home, and other elements lend themselves to a greater awakening experience since it has a comparative life with which to assess. When a sinner, who can remember not believing, comes to Christ an experience usually accompanies his conversion.
It is not necessary as described and many missionaries serving around the world were raised in Christian homes and had no such “experience”.
I would say there is definitely an experience nature to conversion, but it may be most recognizable over time rather than in the immediate moment. I do not doubt that some people have a corresponding immediate felt change (I did). That being said the experience of salvation is to have a new creation.
2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
a new creature
Ephesians 4:24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
a new self
in the likeness of God
created in righteousness and holiness of the truth
Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
a new self.
renewed to a true knowledge.
in the image of God.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
- created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works.
Galatians 6:15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
- a new creation.
The change that God brings is brought through the preaching of the Bible:
1Peter 1:23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
1Peter 1:25 BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.”
And this is the word which was preached to you.
James 1:18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
1Corinthians 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
The changed person begins to pattern his life according to the truth of God instead of his own opinions.
Here’s an analogy to consider. Two guys are driving down the road, one (who I’ll call Bill) is driving from East to West and the other (who I’ll call Dave) is driving from West to East. At some point they pass each other on the road. A person standing on the side of the road when they meet and pass each other knows that both of them at some point today got in their cars and started driving. He doesn’t know their exact experience though. You see, Bill was in a car wreck a couple of weeks ago and has been scared to death of getting back behind the wheel. He finally worked up the courage today to get in the car and drive. Dave on the other hand, had no such qualms about getting in the car today. He walked out to his car, got in, cranked it, pulled out onto the road and started driving. If this person on the side of the road could ask both Bill and Dave to tell him about their experiences of getting into their cars this morning, Bill could probably give him a very detailed account of what happened. Dave, however, might have more trouble telling him what happened with him. So what is the conclusion? Well, Dave must not really be driving since he can’t remember the exact experience of getting into his car this morning.
Now, you may laugh at my conclusion, but I have heard similar things from pulpits before. One of the weirder ones is this “If you got it (meaning salvation) and don’t know when/where you got it, you might lose it and not know when/where you lost it.”
l.pilgram-
I have heard almost those exact words and thought to myself,”but God remembers, who cares if you can?”…good analogy, I’ll keep that in mind.