Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Becoming a Christian - An Event or a Process
Is the moment of becoming a Christian an event (do you have a born-again moment?) or a process (the slow turning towards Jesus Christ)?
A dear friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about people who could not point to a definitive moment where they accepted Jesus. Are these people Christians? While I believe strongly in baptism (as a statement of our faith) the quetion is one that I think misses the point. We in America are caught up in “big moments,” and certainly there are big moments among many of the biblical characters (Paul is after all the one who calls us to imitate him even as he imitates Christ). The question I ask you, if you are married, is do you remember when you fell in love with your spouse? While you can point to your marriage day, can you point to the very moment when you fell in love? It is our love for Christ that is essential to our salvation, and while baptism (the marriage ceremony for many Evangelical Christians) is important, it is not salvation. Besides, many Evangelicals still practice infant baptism (including myself), so even that event may not be tied to our own personal realization of our love for Christ.
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