A Deep Dive into Christian Conversion

why you should care about how people experience God

I have been writing for years, but mostly academic papers and formal presentations. As I begin publishing more regularly on Substack, I want to develop a voice that carries the intellectual weight of an academic essay with a more idiosyncratic and focused meandering that mirrors how I process ideas.

I want to do a soft launch of a series of essays that have been percolating for seven years. They've appeared in countless journal essays, fragments, and private conversations. This post is an overview of what I'm looking to do moving forward. My topic is Christian conversion: what does the Bible say about it and how that should affect the way I talk to my kids (or anyone else) about becoming a Christian. I've struggled to find a resource that explores the landscape of views on conversion, especially as it relates to child conversion, evangelistic methodology, and how evangelism-focused organizations are not self-critical of their conversion theology and methods.

This project is forcing me to organize and articulate the thousands of fragments on conversion floating around my head and computer. I am taking a posture of learning as I have not resolved all this issues. I don't know if there's a subculture within Substack that is interested in this, but I would be excited to have you join me if you find these comments stimulating.

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I have a nagging question that just won't go away. It has to do with my oldest son S. Ever since he turned four, he keeps coming to me with deep questions about the Bible. Some of our recent conversations have been about the gospel and what it means to believe in Jesus. Sometimes I have a quick answer because I've been studying the Bible for many years. Other days he'll come with a question that's so simple, yet so complex that I'm not sure how to explain it. My nagging question is one of those: what direction should I give S about believing in Jesus?

I would start by explaining to my son what the Bible says about sin, Jesus dying on the cross, and believing in Jesus. These are relatively simple for someone familiar with the Bible. What happens next becomes more complicated. Now that the gospel has been presented, what should he do? Maybe I'm too educated for my own good, but I know that there's more than one way people conceive of coming to God. This reality confounds me. Should he pray a prayer of decision? Should he get baptized? Should he wait until he's older and able to cognitively comprehend the gospel message? Or is he already saved because he is growing up in a Christian family?

Based on your tradition, you'll skip even considering some of these questions and focus on the one most familiar to you. If I want to give him the best answer I can, shouldn't I know something about how people approach conversion and how that lines up with the BIble's teaching? For me to talk to S, I need to have a theology, a practice, and a language of conversion.

Christian conversion may sound like a niche topic, but most everyone I've ever met is concerned at some level with how they experience God and have assurance they're an insider, not an outsider. For sure this is an anxiety for Christians and other religions, but even the label of "atheist" signifies a chosen posture before God. Religious anxiety causes people to think about conversion, so does church history. Theological debates about salvation, conversion, God's sovereignty, and the identity of the people of God are at the center of controversies that have been raging for centuries.

So we can say that at the very center of human experience is the desire to know rightly and stand rightly before God. While I don't expect theological debates about conversion to abate, high quality teaching about conversion should be both more interesting and accessible to you.

But I've found that this is not the case.

Why There's a Shortage of Knowledge on Conversion

The first reason people don't know much about conversion is that critical reflection stays in the academy and has not filtered down into society enough to make an impact.

On my desk right now is a big stack of books on conversion published by reputable publishers. One of them is an 850 page book called A History of Christian Conversion by David W. Kling published by Oxford University Press in 2020. OUP felt that it was valuable for the academic community to have a lengthy analysis of how conversion has been understood and practiced throughout history. What I've read so far is meaty, yet rich with insight for Christians today. The last hundred pages of the book are endnotes, clearly showing the large shoulders Kling is standing on.

Unfortunately, few people are going to engage with Kling's work or its predecessors because their intended audience is for professors, university students, and researchers. In this way, critical reflection and analysis on Christian conversion has become a niche topic. There are some popular level books about conversion, but most lack the synthesis of conversion theology and history that the higher level texts contain. Many such books will focus on evangelism, which is different from conversion.

Evangelism focuses on gospel sharing methodology often within a predetermined perspective that aligns with a particular theological camp or publishing company. Conversion is a theology of posture and focuses on how people approach belief in Jesus from an intellectual, cultural, and historical perspective (i. e. revivalism, fundamentalism, the Protestant Reformation, etc.). It is intellectual malleable because it is not bound to a specific time and context like methodology (i.e. (such as the Wordless Book or Evangelism Explosion). Blending the components above help to build a landscape of conversion, a synthesis, that is often lacking in popular level books.

When I look at this stack of books what I want is for Christians to have a good grasp of the landscape of conversion because it's a central question we all ask. But because of the audience of these resources, the very people who need them don't get them. The people who really need to understand Christian conversion are lay people, parents, church leaders, and teachers.

The second reason people don't know much about conversion is that quality teaching on the topic is in organizational silos.

In 2018 the 14th edition of the Handbook of Denominations in the United States was published with a description of over 200 distinct groups. There is great diversity in the American Church, even though many of these denominations share commitments and roots. The Christian church in America has become very splintered with new groups being created all the time. Many of these groups seek to be involved in the Great Commission, Bible teaching, and evangelism/missions. In doing so, many gospel-centered ministries have been founded to address the needs of these groups and the people they are seeking to reach. So we've ended up with ministries focused on similar goals, but from a narrow brand (tradition) of conversion theology and method without giving the necessary historical context or discussing other views.

A reason that evangelistic organizations become silos of conversion theology is copyright law. Here's an example. For over a decade I was involved with Child Evangelism Fellowship, Inc. This is the largest evangelistic ministry to children in the world with some of the highest quality Bible curriculum and teacher training material that I have ever used. In order to remain consistency as an organization across the world and to protect people from claiming their intellectual property rights, they have had to place strict copyright restrictions on how their training materials can be used. Some of their great teaching, can only be taught in the context of their courses. Since so much of what they produce is tied closely to their own content, there teachings on conversion and the history of child evangelism is not accessible to people not involved with the ministry.

This is a win from the organization's perspective. Yet, it's a shame the rest of the Christian church doesn't have access to this great material. Now I don't raise this to challenge CEF to change their copyright policy. I am simply pointing out, that great teaching on conversion and evangelistic methodology that can enhance the church has been so protected and inaccessible.

Gospel-centered organizations keep good teaching in siloes, and they are also not self-critical. For example, many evangelistic ministries and churches today practice some form of revivalistic techniques (such as altar calls and sinner's prayers). Such techniques have come under attack and there are a lot of good points for or against these methods. Do organizations using these methods give any critical thought to why and how they are using them and how they connect to the theology and practice of evangelism in the Bible snd history?

As I said earlier, that in answering my son's questions about becoming a Christian, I needed a theology, practice and language. Organizations involved in conversion need to orient their theology, practice, and language in a contested landscape. In seeking to develop quality evangelists, organizations need to be preparing them for the diversity they will find. It's likely that churches these organizations will partner with may not hold to the same theology, practice, and language. For example, when I was with CEF I was trained to talk about how the punishment for sin is to be separated from God. I was once challenged by a parent who wanted to know why I tried so hard not to talk about separation from God being in hell. CEF did a good job preparing me for these kinds of questions. Knowing the concerns of this parent helped me to teach with greater clarity. It also helped us have a great conversation.

What I hope to do in this project is to layout the approaches to conversion and evangelistic methodology that will help us all be better evangelists who are informed, self-critical and confident. I want to lay out a map, for myself, for you. It may be a much larger project than I realize, but it's worthwhile.

Objections

First: you may be asking yourself why I'm making such a big deal about the importance of knowing the landscape and being self-critical. If people are getting saved, why does all this matter? Why am I questioning organizations that are aggressively fulfilling the Great Commission? Shouldn't we rejoice that people are being saved regardless of theology and practice?

Consider these words from the Apostle Paul:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1:15-18)

These verses encourage us to rejoice when the gospel is proclaimed, despite a flawed presentation! Plenty of committed Christians prayed the sinner's prayer and went forward during an alter call. God has used all kinds of to advance the gospel (sometimes in startling ways!). But to say that Paul doesn't care about what a person believes and practices, would be ignore everything else he has written.

A second objection is that there is no "right" way. Since Christians have a responsibly before God to believe and live rightly, seeing conversion as a diversity makes us feel uncomfortable. The history of Christian conversion teaches us that conversion is more like a mosaic than a mold. To say this doesn't deny absolute truth or that there are multiple ways to God. It simply shows that people experience coming to God in many different ways. Do a survey of how people came to faith in the New Testament and you'll see that it's as varied as the present day.

All this goes to show that we need to sketch the landscape. To know where we are, where we've come from, and where we're going. There are many questions that need to be pursued as a result of this essay, so I will continue to wrote. I'll need help though, probably from some experts and conversations with people from different faith's and traditions than my own.

This project will be structured around three driving questions:

1. How should I go about answering my son's questions about believing in Jesus?

2. What does the Bible say about conversion?

3. How should this inform my practice?

Thanks for sticking with me to the end, I know this was long. I welcome any feedback you have.

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In my next essay, I'm going to be exploring the trends and traditions that shaped my Christian testimony. I'm going to be self-critical to draw out some observations that will begin to help us answering the questions above.