Born Again?

Our Sunday school lesson yesterday was about the John 3 passage which talks about being "born again."

What do you think of the phrase, "born again"?

I think that its meaning, for me, has been corrupted (just like evangelical). It is used in such an accusatory fashion at times. "Are you born again?" It is sometimes asked as if proof is necessary -- as if I give the wrong answer, that I'm off to hell. It's the pressure of the question that I don't like. It's the simplicity of the necessary response that bothers me.

I finally made a decision that if asked, I would answer, "yes." A simplistic answer, and who can argue with it?

That's not to say I haven't worried about it. I was baptized when I was seven years old, in a local Presbyterian church. At the time, we called it christening. For the longest time, I didn't know that they were the same thing. I worried that I hadn't been baptized, and that there would be dire consequences. It wasn't until I went through confirmation classes as a senior in high school that I understood. The pastor asked us if we had been baptized. When I answered, "I was christened," he said, "Same thing." Those simple words were a huge relief to me.

Have I been "born again?" I don't think that the question is a simple as "Have you been baptized?"

Sometimes I wish that I had had a "heart warming" moment-- a time that I could point to and say, "Here. This moment I was changed." I feel like my experiences in late 2005 -- the walk with God of preparing a sermon for Laity Sunday, my Emmaus walk, and my decision to continue as Nurture chairman for another year -- left me as a different person. I feel the presence of God more than I ever did before that time.

Does the spirit of God live within me? Does his presence make a difference in my life? If this isn't God, then I am lost. I am back to ground zero. It feels like God to me; I certainly believe that this is God.

Marv paired the John passage with the one from James about faith and works. If God is present in our lives -- if we have faith -- then our faith will motivate us to good works. Does my life reflect the presence of God? Does my faith yield God's fruit? That's a harder questions to answer.

On my original Emmaus walk, one of the women at my table said that she wished that she had had a conversion moment -- a time to which she could point and say, "Here. It happened here." I didn't understand her at the time.

And then God acts. JtM just sent me an email pointing to Living Stones and this post. Read this quote:

While hitch-hiking from Washington DC to Nashville in 1973, I was picked up by a Christian truck driver who shared his faith with me for 2 hours. I went back home and starting going to church again. For four years I sought a born-again experience like some Christians describe but it never happened. Then, one day during private prayer in a campus ministry chapel, it became clear that I was a Christian. I was indeed born again sometime during that four-year, three month journey, but I’m not sure when. After that I went to seminary and became a United Methodist preacher.