The Theology of John Wesley by Kenneth J. Collins

Author:Kenneth J. Collins
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Today and Tomorrow:

Conversion Revisited

In surveying today's literature on conversion, one is immediately confronted with a diversity of frameworks that are employed to study this intriguing and, at times, perplexing phenomenon. It's like "the proverbial elephant described from various 'blind' perspectives," Sara Savage writes, "a perplexing, hodgepodge of a creature."167 Or as Kristin Menendez-Swenson points out, "there are as many definitions of 'religion' and 'conversion' as there are rumors about movie stars."168 In light of this diversity, many scholars employ resources from a number of disciplines such as theology, anthropology, history, psychology, and sociology in order to offer an accurate picture.

The careful researcher, however, is yet able to distill a number of common elements or themes within an admittedly diverse body of writings. To illustrate, the temporal dimensions of conversion are not only salient, and therefore warrant attention, but also are well contested. Indeed, an axis emerges in the literature ranging from views that revolve around the instantaneousness of such momentous changes and those that argue conversion is best understood as a process, perhaps even a lifelong one. However, the "spatial" axis of conversion, interesting in its own right, may actually shed light on the numerous debates, sometimes heated, that surround the temporal dimensions. In his own research, for example, John Smith has contended that the terminology over the centuries has taken on the "spatial connotation of 'revolving,' 'reversing' and changing direction [that] was basic."169 In other words, since changing direction is an oppositional phenomenon in that it necessarily entails no longer facing something precisely in order to face something else, then this spatial axis underscores the crucial, about-face nature of conversion in a way that is sometimes muted or outright denied in some temporal interpretations.

When a theological lens is employed, whereby the question of God is in the mix, this inclusion necessarily brings added depth and existential significance to such conversions since they involve not the penultimate (a change from being a fan of the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, for instance), but an ultimate, worthy-of-our-highest-attention concern. This is a truth that Luther, Wesley, Kierkegaard, and Brunner understood remarkably well. That is, the reality of conversion is greatly affected by what agents are reckoned to be a part of the transformative environment. For example, in his Philosophical Fragments, with Climacus as his mouthpiece, Kierkegaard focuses not so much on a change in having or even doing but on a change first of all in terms of being. This change affects everything else because it is radical, strikes at the root of a relational problem, and is brought about by no one less than God. E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist evangelist, described the reality of theological conversion by considering a number of elements:

This conversion is "the birth of a new dominant affection." It is a change in belief, but it is more than that; it is a change in attitude, but it is still more; it is a change in direction, but more; at the basis it is a change in "affection.

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