Conversion

Gordon T. Smith’s Transforming Conversion: Rethinking the Language and Contours of Christian Initiation is quite satisfying.  He’s got all the right enemies, revivalism in particular, and he wants to sketch out an account of conversion that overcomes all the dualisms that dog the heels of modern Christianity – heart v. mind, body v. soul, individual v. community, personal v. sacramental.  He places conversion within a broad account of God’s cosmic action through Jesus and the Spirit, and emphasizes repeatedly that the Christian life is a life lived in a community of believers.

His chapter on baptism is quite good. He outlines a “baptismal spirituality” that include comments like “the anniversary of our baptism may well be of more significance to us than our biological birth” because it represents a “discontinuity” in life, pointing to “our primary allegiance (to Christ), our experience of the forgiveness of God, the indwelling of the Spirit and our participation in the church.”  Baptism continuously calls “us back to our identity as a forgiveness people” but also is a “commitment to live in righteousness.”  It is “a political act” by which “we declare that our ultimate allegiance is not to family of origin, tribe, or nation, but to Christ; indeed, baptism is an act of defiance against any human authority – family or culture or nation – that would in any way, shape, or form compete with or undermine our loyalty to Christ.”  The baptized are no longer under principalities and powers but under “the reign of Christ.”  Baptism “marks us as part of the faith community” and is thus a catholic/ecumenical rite, and it assures us that “our work, our engagement in the world, is that of those who have been immersed in the waters of baptism.”  As a result, everything we do is a “response to the ascended Christ, into whom we have been baptized.”