C.S. Lewis: Aversion to Conversion?
***Well not exactly, but, like Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and many others across the centuries, Lewis’ subsequent reflection upon his own conversion included punctiliar, durative and progressive dimensions. He may have been Surprised By Joy in 1931 but, as George Sayer has put it, Lewis “began to believe in a nebulous power outside himself” in 1926. Warren viewed his brother’s conversion “as no sudden plunge into a new life but rather a slow steady convalescence from a deep-seated spiritual illness of long standing.”
Some leaders of the emerging church movement advocate a “belonging before believing” approach to spiritual seekers and non-believers alike, partly as an acknowledgement that God’s dealings with those he draws to himself involve discernible divine activity often over very long periods of time. Reduction of divinely wrought conversion to the narrow confines of a Damascus Road like event may fail to do justice to the full scope of God’s providential redeeming activity.
But surely openness to more durative conceptions of conversion fails to justify the “belonging before believing” mantra of some. Merely being human and/or curious does not a Christian make. Until Lewis gave a clear, credible confession of his faith in Jesus Christ, he had not yet legitimized his reception into full communion with a body of believers called Christian.
Recognition that God’s converting activity takes place over time, even over many years, need not weaken confessional standards for church membership, but it should free us to speak differently about conversion and ease the pressure applied in some quarters to nail down ones conversion to time and place with great certainty. Indeed, might not one view conversion as punctiliar and divine converting activity as durative without expecting exacting perception and tracking of these things by believers themselves? Our comprehension of God’s hand in our own lives and in the lives of others remains proximate and provisional, and that’s OK. For Charles Spurgeon, the ability to nail down with certainty the timing and nature of what happened to ourselves or others back when was less pressing than the presence of discernible evidence for regeneration today.
Some leaders of the emerging church movement advocate a “belonging before believing” approach to spiritual seekers and non-believers alike, partly as an acknowledgement that God’s dealings with those he draws to himself involve discernible divine activity often over very long periods of time. Reduction of divinely wrought conversion to the narrow confines of a Damascus Road like event may fail to do justice to the full scope of God’s providential redeeming activity.
But surely openness to more durative conceptions of conversion fails to justify the “belonging before believing” mantra of some. Merely being human and/or curious does not a Christian make. Until Lewis gave a clear, credible confession of his faith in Jesus Christ, he had not yet legitimized his reception into full communion with a body of believers called Christian.
Recognition that God’s converting activity takes place over time, even over many years, need not weaken confessional standards for church membership, but it should free us to speak differently about conversion and ease the pressure applied in some quarters to nail down ones conversion to time and place with great certainty. Indeed, might not one view conversion as punctiliar and divine converting activity as durative without expecting exacting perception and tracking of these things by believers themselves? Our comprehension of God’s hand in our own lives and in the lives of others remains proximate and provisional, and that’s OK. For Charles Spurgeon, the ability to nail down with certainty the timing and nature of what happened to ourselves or others back when was less pressing than the presence of discernible evidence for regeneration today.
posted by Mark DeVine at 2:46 PM
1 Comments:
Our comprehension of God’s hand in our own lives and in the lives of others remains proximate and provisional, and that’s OK.
This is a fact I enjoy banking on, given the murky and provisional nature of "planning" and "self-knowledge."
Lewis's powers of perception are acute, but I appreciate the fact that he is satisfied by saying that his final conversion occurred "on the way to the zoo" (my paraphrase). Good enough.
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