Ordinary is Conversion

" . . . from its first moments, change has been the call to those claiming to be believers.  Sometimes it's called repentance, sometimes conversion, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes surrender.  It goes by lots of names but God's ordinary always means change."

The word conversion to a boy raised Baptist "South of God*" triggers all sorts of memories of arms flailing, people wailing, and tears flowing as childhood friend after friend came down the aisle to make their profession of faith saying they had accepted Jesus into their hearts and had been -- some said "got" -- saved.

Mind you the majority of these good people had never spent more than a week away from the safe homogeneous confines of a church culture that awarded perfect attendance and relentlessly reminded itself of the dangers of things like dancing, popular music, science fiction, etc.

Just being devout had already whittled away most of what would had been converted.  Instead we submitted and were moved to membership which mostly differed from our previous status in that we were eligible to receive communion and to vote on new members and other church business matters.  Otherwise my life stayed pretty much the same with the constant reminders of all those forbidden things that now would lead to back sliding.

I can see that part of what we were doing was maintaining a practice that was not meant just for us.  In its ideal form conversion was understood as an abrupt, one-time shift from one absolute to another: from denial to belief, from rebellion to allegiance, from sinful to saved.

But we were not deniers or rebels and our sinfulness was well constrained by heavy regulation and long practiced indoctrination.  Still we "got saved" so that we could identify with and "bring in the lost" who weren't believers, weren't allied but were living in sin and darkness and who proved their condition by drinking, dancing, etc, etc.

Another way to understand this is to note that the majority of baptisms were of children under the age of twelve.  There just wasn't much to convert.  Our transition was more like getting confirmed first and then getting baptized.  Still we had to maintain the model of abrupt one-time conversion.

I'm older now and I've danced a little.  I love sci-fi!  And I'm still getting saved.  That's how conversion works for me now.

My conversion then was more a tipping point moment when expectation, indoctrination, peer pressure and a new, developing capacity for self-determination combined and led me to stand with my dad before the congregation attending the Sunday night service at Boulevard Baptist Church in Anderson, SC in October of 1963 and to make a promise I am still keeping.

Now my conversion is ordinary and by way of this church I work on it everyday.



* Baptist South of God - a term coined by Rev. Dr. Carlyle Marney meant to counter the boasting that so often accompanied the term Southern Baptist.