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FROM CHAPTER SIX: BORN AGAIN - A NEW HEART

Born Again: The Process
The born-again experience can be sudden and dramatic. It can involve a dramatic revelation, a life-changing epiphany, as in the case of Saul on the road to Damascus, an experience through which he became Paul. Such dramatic conversions continue to this day; some people can name a day or even an hour when it happened. There is no reason to doubt that such "sudden conversions" occur. William James not only reports many such experiences, but speaks of them as one of the most remarkable psychological phenomena known.26

But for the majority of us, being born again is not a single intense experience, but a gradual and incremental process. Dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity, dying to an old way of being and living into a new way of being, is a process that continues through a lifetime. The Christian life as it matures is ever more deeply centered in the Spirit--that is, centered in the Spirit of God as known in Jesus, the Spirit of Christ.

For most of us, this takes time. And even for those who can name an hour when they were born again, the process of living into the new life takes time. Of course, progress is not automatic; one can thwart it, obstruct it, impede it. But in the Christian life, aging, if not interfered with, has a way of deepening our centering in the Spirit. The messages and lures of youth and middle age are muted; we can rest more and more in God, more easily be in silence with God. And by being more centered in God, our lives are transformed. As the Christian life matures, we begin to experience the self-forgetfulness that accompanies a deepening trust in God.

The born-again metaphor not only applies to a single dramatic event or a lifelong process, but also to shorter rhythms in our lives. It is a process that may occur several times in periods of major transition, whatever the cause.

It even applies to the micro-rhythms of daily life. Martin Luther, a major spiritual mentor in my childhood, spoke of "daily dying and rising with Christ" and, in language that sounds a bit archaic, of "daily putting to death the old Adam," the old self in us. By adding "daily," Luther echoes the gospel of Luke.

The "dailiness" of the process fits my experience, as it does that of many people I know. In the course of a day, I sometimes realize that I have become burdened, and that the cause is that I have forgotten God. In the act of remembering God, of reminding myself of the reality of God, I sometimes feel a lightness of being--a rising out of my self-preoccupation and burdensome confinement. We are called again and again to come forth from our tombs.

This process is at the heart not only of Christianity, but of the other enduring religions of the world. The image of following "the way" is common in Judaism, and "the way" involves a new heart, a new self centered in God. One of the meanings of the word "Islam" is "surrender": to surrender one's life to God by radically centering in God. And Muhammad is reported to have said, "Die before you die." Die spiritually before you die physically, die metaphorically (and really) before you die literally. At the heart of the Buddhist path is "letting go"--the same internal path as dying to an old way of being and being born into a new. According to the Tao te Ching, a foundational text for both Taoism and Zen Buddhism, Lao Tzu said: "If you want to become full, let yourself be empty; if you want to be reborn, let yourself die."

This process of personal spiritual transformation--what we as Christians call being born again, dying and rising with Christ, life in the Spirit--is thus central to the world's religions. To relate this to John's affirmation that Jesus is "the way": the way that Jesus incarnated is a universal way, not an exclusive way. Jesus is the embodiment, the incarnation, of the path of transformation known in the religions that have stood the test of time.

Seeing this commonality between the way of Jesus and the ways of the world's religions is sometimes disconcerting to Christians, given our history of "Jesus is the only way." But the commonality is cause for celebration, not consternation. Not only does it mean, to echo an exclamation in the book of Acts, the Spirit has gone out to Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, and so forth, but it also adds credibility to Christianity.27 When the Christian path is seen as utterly unique, it is suspect. But when Jesus is seen as the incarnation of a path universally spoken about elsewhere, the path we see in him has great credibility.

Born Again: Intentionality
Being born again is the work of the Spirit. Whether it happens suddenly or gradually, we can't make it happen, either by strong desire and determination or by learning and believing the right beliefs. But we can be intentional about being born again. Though we can't make it happen, we can midwife the process. This is the purpose of spirituality: to help birth the new self and nourish the new life. Spirituality is midwifery.

Spirituality combines awareness, intention, and practice. I define it as becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God. The words are very carefully chosen. Becoming conscious of our relationship with God: I am convinced that we are all already in relationship to God and have been from our birth. God is in relationship with us: spirituality is about becoming aware of a relationship that already exists.

Becoming intentional about our relationship with God: spirituality is about paying attention to the relationship. Though God is "Mystery," there is nothing mysterious about paying attention to our relationship with God. We do so in the ways we pay attention in a human relationship: by spending time in it, attending to it, being thoughtful about it. We pay attention to our relationship with God through practice, both corporate and individual: worship, community, prayer, scripture, devotion. About practice, I will say more in Chapter 10.

A deepening relationship with God: in what is now a familiar theme, the Christian life is not very much about believing a set of beliefs, but about a deepening relationship with the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Paying attention to this relationship transforms us. This is what our lives are to be about: a transforming relationship to "what is," "the More."

In short, spirituality is about the process of being born again (and again and again). It is at the heart of the Christian life. If we as Christians and as the church took this seriously, we would recover the rich spiritual practices of the Christian tradition. We would learn them and encourage their use. One of the central purposes of our life together as church would be to midwife and nourish the process of being born again.

And this is happening. The recovery of spirituality and spiritual practices in mainline churches in our time is an encouraging sign of the revitalization of Christianity. It is also a sign of the emerging paradigm with its emphasis on a more relational and experiential understanding of faith and the Christian life.

FOOTNOTES
26 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, lecture 10.

27 The passage is Acts 10:45:They "were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles," that is, to those who were not of the chosen people. See Acts 11:18.

Excerpts from The Heart of Christianity ©2003 by Marcus J. Borg are used with permission from HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.

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