The blog has been pretty busy today, so it is about time for me to jump and in and give my two cents worth. First, I believe that question, which is innocent in itself, assumes what I will call at this point a judicial sense of conversion. That is, there is a point in time [...]

The most stimulating discussions I have had over the years in classes and at churches when I am leading a discussion about conversion or about the Jesus Creed “emerge” from this question: What about you, when do you think Peter was converted? Let’s look briefly at the evidence. In John 1 Peter’s brother, Andrew, has [...]

The most stimulating discussions I have had over the years in classes and at churches when I am leading a discussion about conversion or about the Jesus Creed “emerge” from this question: What about you, when do you think Peter was converted? Let’s look briefly at the evidence. In John 1 Peter’s brother, Andrew, has [...]

This is perhaps not what you are looking for. By “clean” I mean that Christians often want to tell conversion stories that are clean: I was a sinner and then I found Jesus and now I’m squeaky clean. This kind of story happens sometimes — and I know lots of people like this. So this [...]

This is perhaps not what you are looking for. By “clean” I mean that Christians often want to tell conversion stories that are clean: I was a sinner and then I found Jesus and now I’m squeaky clean. This kind of story happens sometimes — and I know lots of people like this. So this [...]

One of the more interesting features of the Emerging movement (I’m not keen on calling this a “church” until we see some world-wide church structures that encompass the whole) is how it intersects with a fascinating aspect of conversion theory. Conversion theory has concluded that people convert to the Christian faith as a result of [...]

People convert to the Christian faith as a result of some crisis, though a word needs to be said about the meaning of “crisis.” Before that, this: the standard form of “crisis” we often see is what is called the crisis of “conscience,” and it is usually manifested in a sense of guilt that derives [...]

In this series of reflections based on Turning to Jesus, I want to look today at the various kinds of conversion and then at the context out of which the convert comes. The process of conversion — whether suddenly or gradually — involves the movement from one context (whoever we are and wherever we are) [...]

Trying to define conversion in a meaningful way is not easy, so I will go to two major scholars of conversion theory. In doing this, let me emphasize that the scholarly discussion of conversion avoids specific theological terms, so sometimes this can sound a bit clinical and artificial — but I want to emphasize that [...]

Each local church, whether radically independent or associated with a larger denomination, institutionalizes a conversion orientation. A church does this by the way it presents the gospel, by the way it teaches Sunday School, by the way it preaches from the pulpit, by the way it shapes the programs and platforms. As I point out [...]