"You cannot enter the family of God unless you are born into it.." -- Jesus
When former Watergate figure, Charles W. (Chuck) Colson was "converted" to Christ, and wrote his book, Born Again, a lot of people laughed. The book became a runaway best seller. A movie was made of it, starring Dean Jones as Colson, and Jay Robinson (the guy who played Caligula in the movie The Robe), as Colson's attorney.
I, too, was skeptical. Like many others, perhaps most others, I thought, "Here is a yet another politico trying to use religion for self-serving purposes."
When the book first came out, I was living on Catalina Island at the time, 26 miles out in the ocean from the shores of Los Angeles, California. Not much to do on an island. I coached a junior soccer team, did a lot of weddings, some counseling, a little pulpit-supply preaching and wrote a book in the three years I lived there. So, one day I wandered down to the Avalon library, to nose around the stacks and maybe pick up something to read. There on the shelf sat an unsightly yellow and black volume with the words "Born Again" printed on the spine. Colson's book.
I extracted it from the other books, flipped through a few pages and along with five or six other books, took it home thinking, "I'll read a few pages, likely lose interest, and read one of the other books." I always, even to this day, do that. I rarely pick up a book thinking I'll read it through. I'll give it maybe 50-60 pages. It if hasn't grabbed my interest on a suitable level by then, I'll toss it and try something else. The 1996 version of Colson's book on Amazon is 352 pages. Not sure what it was when I read it back in 1977. But except for a few hours sleep, 18 hours later, I had read the book straight through. Although I am an avid reader, I have never done that with a book, either before or since. When I finished, I knew that Charles W. Colson had been what Jesus Himself, called (John 3:3), "Born Again."
A few months later, there was a knock on my door. His name was John Jasper,* a licensed professional counselor from the mainland. Tall, ridiculously handsome, but with a kind, approachable countenance. "Are you Paul Morris?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Did you write a book entitled, 'Love Therapy?'"
"Yes."
"I've read your book."
I don't remember asking him if he liked it, but I was left with that impression. In the conversation that ensued, I learned that John was from my denominational tradition, and that in addition to his private practice, he worked as a counselor at the Federal Correctional Facility on Terminal Island (separated from the mainland by a small channel).
In the following months, as I was sitting in my office on the Island, my phone rang. It was John. He was coming to the island in his sailboat, and bringing a friend. Someone named Paul Kraft.* The name rang a bell, although I couldn't seem to place it. Mr Kraft, it turns out, was a fellow inmate with Colson while they were both in prison. I remembered him from the book. Now he worked with Colson. John wanted Kraft to meet me.
Next thing I knew, I was doing seminars in prisons around the country, for Prison Fellowship, Colson's ministry to inmates and their families. Then again, the next thing I knew, I had been hired to head up all the seminars, both in prison and in Washington, D.C., as Prison Fellowship's newly minted National Training Director.
BOOM! As John Madden might say.
Now I must tell you, I dislike the term, "conversion," as in "he was converted." The dictionary defines conversion as, "the spiritual change from sinfulness to righteousness." I won't take time here to debate the propriety of that definition, although I could.
I dislike the term because it misses the point. The notion of being "reborn," or "born again," is far more germane. That is, of course, why Jesus used it. With the idea of birth comes also the idea of a New Life! Not just a mental paradigm shift, as in "once I was a pagan, now I'm a Christian." And let me tell you something, buddyroe, you don't mess with the reality of a new life!
I watched a baby being born once. Close up. I had my left hand under the mother's knee and my right had under her shoulders, working the LaMaze thing. Seemed to work ok because the baby popped out without much trouble. The doctor caught him, cut the umbilical cord; the nurses cleaned him up, put a little cap on his head and presented him to his ecstatic mother. Nothing is more real than that. No guesswork or fantasy. Leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.
I can tell you from personal experience, being "born again" is no less real. It happened to me on a Wednesday night, June 12, 1957, around 9 p.m. I wasn't there when it happened when to Colson, but I can tell you that it happened, and that it was genuine. It takes one to know one. Leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. And just as that baby is a new life, a new creation, so also is the life of one who is born again.
Now it should be said that it doesn't happen this way to everyone. I speak of method here. Not everyone goes forward in a Billy Graham crusade. Not everyone weeps their way to Jesus. Not everyone experiences the "new birth" in the same way. But however it happens, don't kid yourself. It happens.
There are some who think that you can reason your way into God's family. I think I would put it a little differently. It is possible I suppose, for someone through a reasoning process, to prepare his mind and his emotions to be receptive to the Holy Spirit, and hence, to being spiritually born into the family of God. But rebirth does not occur through reason. It occurs through faith, and through the operation of God's Spirit. Being "Born again," is wholly and completely an operation of the Holy Spirit of God. It can't happen any other way.
You can't reason your way into the family of God any more than you can choose to be born. One can only be receptive to, and respond to the influence of the Holy Spirit. One isn't "converted to the Christian religion." Instead, one enters a new life in the same way a child issues from the womb of its mother. It is a miracle on a par with anything that Jesus did. It is, indeed, a resurrection.
Propositional theology can help. The study of the Bible, the consideration of its Truth and a good theology can prepare a person to be open and receptive to the Spirit. And once the heart, soul and spirit are ready and ripe, a miracle occurs that is greater than speaking the stars into existence, greater than parting the Red Sea, greater than walking on water, greater than Lazarus coming out of the grave, for a new life has been created, a life that will never die -- ever.
*name fictitious
-- PDM
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