-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 05/11/07 08:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On 10 May, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote: > >> On Thu, May 10, 2007 at 12:25:43PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> wrote: > >>> I agree with you on this. My point was that some American >>> evangelical churches put a lot of emphasis on each person >>> having a specific, identifiable conversion event in their >>> life, which I don't feel is soundly based in scripture. I >>> wasn't sure if your use of the term "rebirth" referred to >>> this type of event or the more general usage. >>> >> I see what you are saying. I generally believe that "born >> again" experience should generally be a significant moment in a >> person's life. However, I don't think it is always some sort of >> "light shining from heaven, angels signing" type of experience. >> In my case, it came on gradually over a period of weeks. But I >> can identify a definite before and after. I think that is >> "sufficient", so to speak. More importantly, however, is >> whether you feel that you are right with God in your conversion >> experience. That is, when God judges you will you be certain >> that you *have* at some time in your life accepted Jesus >> Christ? >> > > The reason that I mentioned it is that I have some friends who > grew up in churches where everyone was expected to come forward > at some time (usually as a teenager) and make a proclamation > about their own "rebirth experience" in front of the > congregation. Somehow it was not acceptable to be born into a > Christian family and gradually mature in your faith.
Because everyone must make their own choice. Even if you are born into a Christian family and grow up learning about evangelical theology, "you" must eventually make a concious choice: the "wide" way of the world, or the "narrow path". > There was enormous peer pressure to conform to this model, and > several teens just made up stories to get it over with. It is > this emphasis on some sort of a personal transcendental > experience ('light shining from heaven', as you state), that I > object to. Being physically born means N months of maturation then a single point-in-time experience when you actually are "born". Still, that communal pressure is, of course, a gross perversion of the whole tenor of the New Testament. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Hit him with a fish, and he goes away for good! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGRHHMS9HxQb37XmcRAltbAJ9hs4aM/pLAlaZJgFLPfEaLFNBXawCg3nPS rd2wX4Y0wTNn9HDg28LSOeA= =yIEG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]