Living Wittily

Call to Conversion

Written by

admin

in

,

Just finsishing a paper on Evangelical Spirituality for Edinburgh Diocese tomorrow night. Got me thinking again about what it means to be converted! I was converted on April 16, 1967 – like George Whitefield I can still see the place, and recall the exact time. I have, however, been converted many times since, and always by that same grace of God that found me that night. Here’s Jim Wallis on conversion, which he argues (rightly as I see it), is not only a personal event or process of turning, but also that constant turning that is part of our faithfully following the One who goes ahead and doesn’t always walk in a straight line.

.

Wallis We are called to respond to God always in the particulars of our own personal, social and political circumstances…As such, conversion will be a scandal to accepted wisdoms, status quos, and oppressive arrangements. Looking back at biblical, saintly conversions they can appear romantic. But in the present, conversion is more of a promise of all that might be; it is also a threat to all that is. To the guardians of the social order, genuine biblical conversion will seem dangerous…there are no neutral zones or areas of life left untouched by biblical conversion. (Call to Conversion, Lion, 1981, page 6)

Where the Kingdom of God collides with all the other status quos, that is precisely the point where conversion and witness to the One who called us, coalesce in response to God. Mission is our response to the divine commission. As John Stott put it, avoiding that pietistic, devotional self-centredness that wants to privatise faith, "Love for God is not an emotional experience but a moral obedience". Conversion is just that – the regeneration of moral life, through a renewed will, inspired by revived religious affections, and turned outwards in a passionate following of Jesus in the service of the Kingdom of God – which, as Jim Wallis so consistently witnesses, calls all status quos into question.

Comments

4 responses to “Call to Conversion”

  1. Mike Coumans avatar
    Mike Coumans

    Not sure what John Stott is driving at… What about that FIRST conversion, can that not be emotional experience?
    My conversion experience occurred on a busy summer’s afternoon on Union Street in Aberdeen, in 1984 – when I saw a father taking his little son’s hand to cross the road. There I had before me an image of trust, faith, comforting, safety. And that’s when it struck me, that was the relationship God wanted to have with me. Emotional? Yes. Twee ? Probably.
    And you know what’s nice (and twee)? I am now a father, who, when walking along the street, stretches out his hand, and within a second or two, by instinct, it is met, by my son’s hand. And when that happens, sometimes, only sometimes, I think back to that summer’s day 23 years ago, and the image I saw before me on a busy Union street. Father and son.

    Reply
  2. Mike Coumans avatar
    Mike Coumans

    Not sure what John Stott is driving at… What about that FIRST conversion, can that not be emotional experience?
    My conversion experience occurred on a busy summer’s afternoon on Union Street in Aberdeen, in 1984 – when I saw a father taking his little son’s hand to cross the road. There I had before me an image of trust, faith, comforting, safety. And that’s when it struck me, that was the relationship God wanted to have with me. Emotional? Yes. Twee ? Probably.
    And you know what’s nice (and twee)? I am now a father, who, when walking along the street, stretches out his hand, and within a second or two, by instinct, it is met, by my son’s hand. And when that happens, sometimes, only sometimes, I think back to that summer’s day 23 years ago, and the image I saw before me on a busy Union street. Father and son.

    Reply
  3. Jim Gordon avatar
    Jim Gordon

    Thanks Mike – in fairness to Stott, he is referring to love for God as a disciplined obedience that flows out of a commitment that is emotional, volitional, intellectual and moral. His target is not the emotional dimension of spiritual experience, but emotionalism, that dangerous mistake of identifying emotional experience with a transformative encounter with God in Jesus Christ. He isn’t so much talking about conversion as that first encounter with Christ, and with god as Father through the Son, and our hand placed in God’s hand by the Holy Spirit! – he is talking about the ongoing commitment of living the lifestyle of the child of God, and that isn’t about feelings primarily, but about faithfulness, obedience, and openness to both the demand of God and the grace that enables the demand.

    Reply
  4. Jim Gordon avatar
    Jim Gordon

    Thanks Mike – in fairness to Stott, he is referring to love for God as a disciplined obedience that flows out of a commitment that is emotional, volitional, intellectual and moral. His target is not the emotional dimension of spiritual experience, but emotionalism, that dangerous mistake of identifying emotional experience with a transformative encounter with God in Jesus Christ. He isn’t so much talking about conversion as that first encounter with Christ, and with god as Father through the Son, and our hand placed in God’s hand by the Holy Spirit! – he is talking about the ongoing commitment of living the lifestyle of the child of God, and that isn’t about feelings primarily, but about faithfulness, obedience, and openness to both the demand of God and the grace that enables the demand.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts