[net.religion] About Conversion ... RE:ihuxb.217

hutch (02/16/83)

Alan Swann asks
    Since when is it a Christian teaching that you must have a personal
    conversion to be a Christian?  I have been a Christian all my life and
    didn't have to make a "conversion" because I was never something else.
    I may have known less when I was younger (hopefully I am still learning)
    and doubted or strayed at times, but that doesn't mean I was not a
    Christian.


According to the Bible, and I will  not attempt to quote scripture here,
one is a Christian after having learned about Jesus Christ and His gift
of salvation, and accepting that gift, and (according to His own teaching)
being baptised.  There are questions (which are essentially empty speculation)
about HOW MUCH one must know before one can intelligently make this decision.

Since Alan claims to have always been a Christian, I give him the benefit
of his claim and assume that from the point at which he had an independent
volition, he accepted Christ's gift, to the best of his understanding.
There was, of course, a period during which he was too young to speak or
understand, yet still had volition.  He was probably not yet a Christian
then,  but we can still give him the benefit and say that he became one at
the point at which he understood.  His own statement says the rest.

Many people seem to feel that there is no need to have a "conversion"
to be Christians.  This is not the usual case, since most people do not
WANT to give up their lives to God.  The usual case, in a family where
the children are raised as Christians, is that there is a period of time
(often during adolescence) where the child/young adult will decide to
ignore or rebel against the Christian upbringing.  This sometimes passes
without fanfare, as in Alan's case (I speculate), sometimes remains for
long periods, passing into habit and giving way to professed atheism or
some similar notion, and sometimes the "stray" will either become interested
in another religion.

The latter cases are indistinguishable from the case of someone not raised
as a Christian.  Such people seem to need a conversion experience to make
their dedication to Christ really stick.  Even then, it doesn't always seem
to take permanent roots.

Afraid to admit it, but I had to be converted,

Steve Hutchison
...decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!hutch