Conversion in today’s world?

References: Romans 8:1-11; Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 77

St Paul has a thoroughly religious understanding of the world, so even though his dramatic ‘Damascus Road’ conversion has become paradigmatic of the conversion journey, his conversion was from one understanding of salvation to another understanding. It was a movement within monotheism.

·         His movement through Judaism to Christianity is a movement from within one religious framework to another religious framework, one that shares a common heritage and language

English society does not operate from a shared religious framework anymore:

·         It has the memory of one, but the language, themes and concepts have been generally rejected, not just forgotten

·         to move into one again would involve a radical departure from the current arc of history

Paul’s struggles as evidenced in our passage from the Letter to the Romans reveal some of the reasons why Christianity and religious understanding more generally have been superseded by secularism, humanism, agnosticism, atheism and even a return to paganism.

People today are the product of a journey through which people came to realise and/or reject:

1.                       a God that condemns and punishes
2.              a church that wields the power to control, condemn and exclude 
3.                       a God that has the moral capacity and intention to condemn humans to eternal suffering
4.                       the body and the flesh as inherently bad or to be fought against

The reasons above are clearly ones that inform the secular society we inhabit, whether they adequately reflect the orthodox faith or not is a different matter.

If we are to see our society move from an overwhelmingly secular framework to one in which at least a religious framework is better understood and even adopted by a wider variety of people, we have a huge task ahead of us. It involves much more of a conversion than St Paul experienced on the road to Damascus.

The only reason we should or could invite people to frame their lives religiously again is because only God is good and God gives good things to his people/creation. What do those good things look like, how can we evidence them in our lives? 

‘I will recall to the mind the deeds of the Lord;
I will remember your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all your work,
And muse on your mighty deeds.’  (Psalm 77)

The urgent task we have as a church is to recall to mind the gracious deeds of the Lord; the wonders he has done from of old; and to meditate together on his mighty work. For the Jewish community the remembrance of God’s saving acts are the content and practice of their faith and it is a community, not a private or personal exercise.

What reason do we have to praise God? What wonders has he done in our lives?

o   If we cannot find any reason to praise God, we have no good news to share

o   If we cannot show that believing in God makes a real difference in our lives and in our communities, we have no good news to share

o   If we have no good news to share, we are silent and dumb like the idols that cannot speak

But God’s word:

goes out from my mouth; and it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it

(Isaiah 55:11)

We know from Scripture that God’s word performs and enacts real and positive change. We can have confidence in the power of God’s word. So, if God’s word is not accomplishing anything in us or in our community it is not God’s word at work in us.  History has rejected a God that doesn’t exist and a church that has failed to communicate God in a way that is attractive and authentic.

What or who is God?

We know from Scripture and from Jesus’ life that God is:

slow to anger, merciful and kind, loving and humble, full of compassion, shouting out for justice, defending the poor and needy, welcoming the stranger, a community, child-like, vulnerable, free.

Each of us is called to be the same, to grow in Christ-likeness; together we are the church, so if we are Christ-like the church will be Christ-like. Then we will be going someway to building a religious framework that people can have confidence in, countering the one that has already been rejected: rather than a God that condemns and punishes, one that creates and blesses; rather that a church that wields the power to control, condemn and exclude, a church that humbles itself, cherishes, nurtures and welcomes; rather than a God that has the moral capacity and intention to condemn humans to eternal suffering, one that invites them into eternal life; and rather than seeing the body and the flesh as inherently bad or to be fought against, seeing all that is created as blessed and sanctified. These are the messages that our culture must hear if it is to begin to listen even a little to the voices of faith.



Picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/frted/5512468571
'St Paul on road to Damascus' by Ted, 2011  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license