It's great to be back home with my wife and two kids after a week of class. My six-month old Zoe welcomed me back into family life by getting up at 4:45 to nurse (which did not require my participation) and then deciding at 5:45 she was up for the day (which did).
Another day or so of reflections on my class...
The argument my professor was fundamentally making over the course of the week was this: the understanding of Christian conversion as a one-time event is baggage from the 19th Century Revivalist tradition. When we have a shallow or thin understanding of what it means to be fully and thoroughly converted we are set up for stunted growth in our faith. If we do not begin well, we do not grow into full maturity--we do not become wise women and men in the faith apart from a fully-orbed beginning. As in a race, the start is important.
In my professor's book Beginning Well he argues that there are seven "elements" to conversion. These seven could occur in any order and are definitely not "steps" but rather strands that together make up the whole of a conversion experience:
-Belief: the intellectual component
-Repentance: the turning away from a life of sin
-Trust and assurance of forgiveness: the emotional sense of comfort and peace
-Commitment, allegiance, surrender: the act of the will in giving over our lives, often called "Lordship"
-Water Baptism: the sacramental component (whether at birth or as an adult)
-Reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit: the empowering component
-Incorporation into the Christian community: the corporate component
All conversion stories are unique, and most happen over months or years--mine went from birth to the summer after my sophomore year of college. But apart from these elements (which are not absolutely definitive but rather his best attempt at describing the core elements of a full conversion), we don't have a good foundation from which to grow.
Could it be that so many do not mature in the faith because they did not have a good beginning?
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