CONTINUING EXCERPTING FROM ROSARIA CHAMPLAIN BUTTERFIELD'S BOOK on her unexpected, difficult conversion to Jesus Christ while a successfiul lesbian college English professor and the radical change (over an agonizing period of time) that followed. Today she is married to a reformed Presbyterian pastor (a man) and lives in North Carolina:
Making a life commitment to Christ was not merely a philosophical shift. It was not a one-step process. It did not involve rearranging surface prejudices and fickle loyalties of my life. Conversion didn't 'fit' my life; it overhauled my soul and personality. It was arduous and intense. I experienced with great depth and power the authority of God in my life. In it I learned---and am still learning---how to love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind. When you die to yourself, you have nothing from your past to use as clay out of which to shape your future.
Because conversion, in scripture and in my personal experience, is arduous and transformative, I fear the consequence of the easy believism that typifies much of modern evangelical culture. I live now in a neighborhood that often seems like the Disneyland of evangelical culture. I have neighbors who are members of one of the big churches in our community. Their church has a fast food restaurant (so no one gets hungry), a well-known coffee chain (so no one gets sleepy or feels deprived of creature comforts), and a Moon bounce (so children will think God just wants you to have fun). That same church organizes a church-sponsored pool (i.e. gambling pool) around the NCAA final four.
When we compare what we did at church, what we learned in Bible study and what we mean when we call ourselves followers of Christ, our vocabulary may be the same, but the meaning behind the vocabulary is vastly different. And when it comes down to how we parent our children, the differences are profound....These churches define themselves as purpose-driven and seeker-friendly. And their annual budgets, as missionary friends pointed out to me, could feed all the AIDS orphans in Africa for years. Just the Sunday morning doughnut budget would make a big dent in the problem of Third World poverty!
The purpose-driven movement makes conversion a simple matter of saying the magic words---a mantra that makes Jesus the Mr. Rogers of the conscience. In his popular book, The Purpose Driven Life, author Rick Warren represents conversion in these words: Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you. (p. 59). There is a pit of falsehood in placing our faith in our words rather than in God's compassion to receive sinners to himself. Warren falsely (and dangerously) assures us of salvation. He writes: If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to the family of God! (p. 59) How do I judge my own sincerity? The saving grace of salvation is located in a holy and electing God, and a sacrificing, suffering and obedient Savior. Stakes this high can never rest on my sincerity.
When I read something like this (Warren's book) I do not recognize Jesus, the Holy Bible, my conversion or myself at all. Recently, on vacation in South Carolina, my husband and I went to a 'community church.' My conservative Reformed Presbyterian pastor and husband noted when we got back to the hotel room that we had just witnessed a service that contained a baptism without water, preaching without scripture, conversation about disappointment and pithy observations about financial responsibility without prayer, the distribution of flowers and trinkets without grace, and a dismissal without a blessing. Everyone was smiling though, when it came time to walk out the door.
This church's conversion prayer was printed in the bulletin. It read like this: Dear God, I'm sorry for my mistakes. Thanks for salvation.
These misrepresentations of the Gospel are dangerous and misleading. Sin is not merely a mistake. A mistake is taking the wrong exit on the highway. A sin is treason against a Holy God...
Rosaria Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert (pp. 34-36)
To be continued......
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