Conversion--a topic that repeatedly comes to mind as I write curricula--“If our children (and adults) aren’t converted to Christ, what difference do these lessons make?” I came across a Protestant theologian, Scot McKnight, who used the term, “liturgical conversion.” In a few sentences, he noted that liturgy uses ritual and symbol, and then went on the next category. I was left with the desire to explore “liturgical” conversion, and I will do so with this blog which will contain authors, key passages of their works, and initial thoughts. If this topic interests you, please contribute to the blog by sending comments to aodce@aol.com.
I will also blog passages from the works of Harakas, Coniaris, and Boojamra. In addition, I have found insights in, The Transforming Moment, by James Loder. The book that began this exploration is, Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels, by Scot McKnight. He is the one who posits three models of conversion, one of which is “liturgical.” I have used it as a point of departure for my study, “Liturgical Conversion.”
Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels,
(Scot McKnight, WJK Press, Louisville 2002).
Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University.
Note: these are direct quotes, but emphasis is mine. Page numbers precede quotes.
Introduction
1 In abstract terms there are three orientations to conversion: socialization, liturgical acts, and personal decision. Each is aligned with a major component of the church, and each appears to be allergic to the others.
Question 1: What is liturgical conversion? Can we nurture it?
4 Asking any one of these orientations to change is like asking the desert to cool off--it's just plain silly. Instead because each orientation discussed herein reflects a deep need in the human heart, the aim of this book is conscious appreciation. If the request is answered, the church will be more salubrious, a fountain of healing. But neither is the dream of this book the old ecumenical dream, for that movement sought too resolutely a lowest common denominator and, as a result of that reduction, lost its power and then its steam and then its push.
5 I will argue that conversion is a process, sometimes more sudden than others. At its core, conversion is a process of identity formation in which a person comes to see himself or herself in accordance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The I who is I is an I related to Jesus after conversion.
5 Socialization
. . . First, for many Christians conversion is a process of socialization, which is to say that many Christians "become Christians" by being nurtured under the sacred umbrella of a particular church. . . . This sacred umbrella was the primary force shaping their Christian conversion, and many have no comprehension of a time and date on which they became a Christian. The process of becoming a Christian for such persons is imperceptible yet palpable, like the soft-step dance of evening shadows. . . .
Mix into this special brew an ethnic identity, and you have the conversion realities that many Christians experience.
. . .
Socialized converts never remember when they weren't Christians and the questions "When did you become a Christian?" or "Are you born again?" or "When were you saved?" make no sense to them.
Liturgical Process
7
Alongside this first approach, and perhaps a dimension within it, it is a second orientation where a convert's primary moments emerge from a liturgical process. Socialization into the faith can focus itself for some on key moments and sacramental rituals that are performed by ordained priests empowered to dispense grace. Here an emphasis is on what the priest is authorized to accomplish for the benefit of the parishioner. If the "liturgical convert" and the "socialized convert" share a similar growth process, they diverge when it comes to the value laid on the rites performed by priests. . . .
The socialization or liturgical orientations share not only a similar process of conversion but also a common understanding of how faith develops in the lives of those who are nurtured within the walls on a specific faith. From the cradle to adulthood a person's religious life evolves no less developmentally than does one's body, one's emotions, one's psyche, and one's relationships with others.
[He will later laud the liturgical process primarily for its attention to the psychological/developmental needs of people! Clueless!]
Personal Decision
9
This leads to a third orientation, the decision orientation, which emphasizes the importance of personal faith (In contrast to a socialized and implied [therefore impersonal] faith) on the part of a converting individual. Some call this "born again Christianity." Conversion, as personal decision, is often understood as crisis and release, and the experiences of the apostle Paul, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther are paradigmatic for this orientation. . . .
. . . This orientation concentrates on individual responsibility before God as well as a thorough integration of faith into all the complexities of a person’s life. The witness of thousands of converts from a socialized or liturgized background makes me think their emphasis is important.
[He also states that people change denominations because of expectations and needs]
13 . . . the emphasis on personal decision can lead to private Christianity. And the latent emphasis on a one-time decision settling for all time the issues is also worthy of criticism. As we will see in what follows, Jesus gives absolutely no attention to "the big decision" or to a single-event conversion. Instead, he continues to call the same group of followers to renew their commitment to following him in love, service and obedience. Whether one is socialized into the faith, is liturgized into the faith, or makes a decision later in life does not matter: at the end is the challenge from Jesus to follow an unknown path of surrendering to him, of loving God and others, and of experiencing joy in the journey.
13 . . . in general, the liturgical convert has come to appreciate the centrality of the cross and the importance of worship. The absence of liturgy for many prohibits those converts from what is humanly normal: rites are a part of the human need to express faith in physical form. . . . The emphasis in socialization conversion on family and community cannot be eliminated without doing damage to the corporate form of Christianity. And the decision orientation focuses its energies on personal responsibility as the framework in which all true religious expression takes place. One cannot evade this emphasis in the marvelous preaching of the prophets or their threnodies over Israel's exile.
15 . . . Can we go to [the Bible] to understand conversion? Yes. But how to proceed? If we settle ourselves into ancient Jewish history, we would have to settle for either the socialization or the liturgical orientation. Ancient Jews were raised into the faith; they underwent various rituals in life's development, but it was an ethnic identity and a faith heritage that shaped faith development. If we proceed through the biblical texts, one standard approach for the Christian is to examine the apostle Paul--and whether from the angle of his biographer or himself matters--who was converted from a form of Pharisaism to faith in Jesus Christ on a trip to Damascus for the purpose of persecuting early converts to Jesus. . . .
16 . . . or Peter, or Zacchaeus, or Nicodemus
What About Today
18
Are the conversion stories in the Gospels the experience of only one ethnic dimension of humanity? . . . William James claimed sudden conversions are more typical of specific psychological conditions than others . . .
19 zeitgeist . . . Is there a difference between someone converting in an agrarian society and a capitalistic empire? Between the conversion of the homeless and a senator? Between the religious experience of a factory worker and a royal family member? Do adults convert differently than teenagers?
20 . . . Jesus' vision for his converts is a singular Jewish vision for Israel, it follows that we have here "Jews" converting to Judaism." More particularly, we are not dealing with Galilean Jews who are leaving their religion to form a new religion but with Galilean Jews who are intensifying their Judaism by shifting its focus onto Jesus' vision for Israel . . . Therefore, we need to understand Jesus in his own terms and what is implied in his own world . . .
[This would seem to apply to Orthodox, who by a conversion experience, intensity their faith.]
21 . . . Complicating the entire process is that the modern concept of the "self" or "selfhood," especially as fashioned in the capitalistic West, differs dramatically from that of the ancient Jewish world, as well as parts of the Orient today. Our own view of the self leads to, but also impedes, our understanding of the Gospel stories about conversion. We might say that the personal-decision orientation previously discussed is the most out of tune, at the social level, with first-century conversions. It is more out of step than the socialization or liturgical orientations because for these the self is conceived more corporately while the former, because it radically fashions "self-hood" individually, constructs the conversion process in a highly individualized, even privatized.
[Doesn’t the individual idea fit so well into our American culture?]
___
More to come.
