I won't be able to defend my interpretation of what it means to be "born again" in a fully satisfactory way in the short space of this blog. But I hope that this last week I can at least address some obvious challenges.
First, my interpretation may be thought of as inherently anti-evangelical, since I am advocating for a richer understanding of Christianity than a simple adherence to a creed. But if a creed is not involved, someone might say, doesn't that discourage missions? I don’t see why that follows at all. The correct motive missions is an excitement to introduce people to the Judeo-Christian story, so that they may worship the author of their salvation. Since Christ is the only way to God, there may be many people like Abraham: they are born-again because of Christ’s redemptive work, but they just do not know the Gospel, or have heard of it, but do not understand it. It seems to me quite easy to make missions compatible with an affirmation of our ignorance about who can be born-again.
Second, I am not saying that a pure character is the cause of being born again. As if we could be 'good' enough to merit God's infinite mercy! No, my interpretation of the New Testament passages is that having a character of agape love is an indicator that someone already does know God in some deep way. I'll try to put this thought into a compound proposition: "If you love, then there is unmistakeable evidence that you are born again." Like the Scripture, I make no judgment as to why some hearts are hardened and others are not.
Third, I may be viewed as some kind of universalist, or as saying that every nice person or good parent is really a Christian. This is not my meaning at all, since people may treat each other well as a result of simply being socialized. I take being socialized and being an agape-lover as having nothing to do with each other. If anything, I would guess that a born-again person is rather rare. Jesus may help explain my point: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?...” (Matt. 5: 46-48). Nor do I believe that people who have a genuine attachment to their children or family are necessarily “born of God.” There is an evolutionary analysis that may be made here.
And finally, there is the issue that there are many passages, especially in Romans, that seem to contradict my interpretation. I will not be able to offer a lot here and now about this topic, but I will remind my skeptics of the story of Martin Luther. As the simplified story goes, Protestantism began when Luther had his perspective changed on Christianity by the Epistle to the Romans. Specifically, it was Paul’s provocative statements about faith that Luther was excited about. Although this event was historically important, for the Catholic church was corrupt in a lot of ways at the time, I regard Luther’s re-interpretation of the Christian religion as incomplete. What we have today, at least in conservative Protestant circles, is more like “Romans-ianity” than Christianity. Take a classic example: we find Luther saying things like “The Book of James should be thrown into the river,” since James says very plainly that faith is not enough. But this conflicted with Luther’s personal theology, and so he saw fit to remove James’ letter from the canon. While conservative Christians today are happy to include James in the canon, they do the same thing in effect, because they give Romans an unhealthy interpretative priority. For example, when a contemporary conservative Christian opens the book of James, she says something like, “Whatever James is talking about, it must not conflict with Romans, because we know for sure that Romans is true.” But this is to brandish Romans like a sword, slicing and dicing the rest of the Bible into pieces until it ‘fits.’ A Christian should try to synthesize all of the teachings of Scripture into one world-view.
What I have done the last eight blogs is more mature, I hope. I am trying to derive an interpretation of the phrase “born-again” that all of the New Testament writers are on board with. At least, no one can blame me for trying.
