I don’t know when I heard the term for the first time. Maybe sometime in the 70s, but definitely by the 80s. It could not possibly have been more foreign. It barely registered in my consciousness, probably only on the periphery as some sort of religious movement, of which there were plenty going around. By that time, I had come to understand a lot about religious movements, eyeing most of them suspiciously, especially those professing Christianity. Of course, I was not immune to the pull of Christianity, as it had a lot to offer. But, being “born again” smacked of cultish behavior and I was not enamored with cults.

By that time, I had experimented with a wide variety of religious practices, among them  versions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism, actually acquiring a masters degree in theology along the way. Go figure. But, this ‘born again’ stuff was tough to stomach so I observed it from afar. I had exactly zero exposure to anyone who could be called “evangelical,” believing them to probably be a kind of backward folk, largely residing in the midwest and southern US. I remember coming across “Jesus Freaks” and a weird guy with multicolored hair holding up a bible passage at sporting events, thinking they actually were pretty much freaks. I also vividly remembering the absurd behaviors of TV evangelists like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and others who seemed to be anything but authentic followers of an historical Jesus. While I had felt God’s call (or something akin to a God’s call) since my late teens and early 20s, it had retreated to the point of being more academic than experiential by the 1980s.

While I had been caught up in a variety of movements in those tumultuous 60s and 70s, I had a natural revulsion for cultish behavior. My intellect rebelled against the kind of action it would take to give up one’s independence in order to join some weird group, most probably led by a charlatan. Of course Jim Jones, Jonestown, and the Kool-Aid was a perfect reminder.

In fact, “drinking the Kool-Aid” became a perfect symbol of everything that was wrong with buying into the promises of those preaching some form of perfection.

Fast forward decades to sometime, probably in late 2005 or early 2006 when I stood up in front of many hundreds of people in three different church services to proclaim that I was a born again evangelical Christian. The earth had surely shaken off its axis.

I know that I had family and some friends who believed I had gone nuts. They had perfect cause to think that.

In fact, when I made that public declaration, I only had a loosely developed idea of what ‘born again’ actually meant, although I was convinced it applied to me and I was right. But, being right didn’t mean my grasp was all that solid. I just knew without a doubt that the phrase applied to me.

Before getting to the theology, it’s appropriate to just look at the facts.

As I’ve written many times, and shared in countless conversations, a tremendous thing happened in an instant. There’s no other way to put it. One moment I was one person and the next moment I was another. While, in the immediate weeks preceding that moment, I knew something was happening, I didn’t have an inkling about the power of what actually ended up transpiring. In retrospect it made sense. God was acting in his role of “hound of heaven,” chasing me down, akin to the parable Jesus shared about the shepherd abandoning the 99 sheep to go after the one who went astray. I had little clue at the time that this was what was happening but have no doubt in the aftermath that that is exactly what occurred.

Much later, when I watched the movie, The Matrix, I realized that I had taken the red pill and it shattered all of my former conceptions of reality. I’m not being overly dramatic. That is, in fact, what happened.

Well, now. One obvious conclusion is that I had succumbed to the seductive tug of religious promise, no different than millions of others who grasped at straws in the attempt to find ultimate meaning to lives largely adrift. Utopias, communes, sects, and so forth abound. Was I just another sucker?

I don’t blame those who find that I am of that sort. My defense is bound to fall on deaf ears.

In the third chapter of the Gospel of John, a religious leader was questioning Jesus basically about how to live within the Kingdom of God, to which Jesus famously replied that the only way was to be born again. When the leader asked what that meant as it was assumed a person could only be born once, Jesus said it was all about being “born in the Spirit.” Now, there are many, many examples in the New Testament about having to die in order to live, which is another way of saying we need to shed the old self and adopt a new one … the new one being largely unavailable until the old one is discarded. Honestly, this can be very confusing stuff and is a bone of contention within Christian circles. I won’t get into all of that except to say that I believe there are only two ways that it can happen, with both involving a choice.

Most of the committed Jesus-followers I know cannot pinpoint an exact moment when the old self died and the new self was born although many will testify that that’s indeed what happened. A few, on the other hand, can recall with exactitude the specific moment as a tectonic shift. The first group will point to a kind of evolution, recognizing that “being born again” probably occurred over a decent span of time. The second group will say it happened all of a sudden … a complete reorientation. This is what happened to me and it’s also what happened to the man many know as St. Paul or the Apostle Paul, the religious leader and murderer/persecutor of early Jesus-followers who then became the author of the majority of the New Testament and the most influential person in the history of Christianity other than Jesus.

I have shared many times what happened in an instant. Yes, it did involve a final choice, as I held on to the old by my finger nails, finally releasing as the gates of Heaven opened up. This was no intellectual exercise but a realization that I’d been hearing echos of reality for much of my life but as if through a dark and heavily smudged lens. No longer. With crystalline clarity, I saw. I knew. The overwhelming power of grace coursed through me as my heavenly Father showed me that he loved me beyond anything I could have dreamt, from the moment I was created in the womb. I was his son, adored and watched over my entire life, even as I meandered, whether erect or stumbling. I could feel Heaven rejoicing as, I learned later, it does so magnificently when one who is lost, is found. It was almost as if the molecules in my body were reorienting to this new condition, one in which I now knew I lived in this world, but was not of this world. I had arrived in this life some 51 years before but that was just a small blip compared to my eternal kinship with the Alpha and Omega. The true Womb that gave me life was not one of flesh but one of Spirit and into that Spirit I was reborn.

Having sought answers for years, going back to my late teens … having explored, studied and even partially practiced the disciplines of other faith traditions … I was familiar with the concept of “peak experience.” In some fashion, I would have said I’d had a handful of such experiences, especially as a young man. I had even seen first hand that there was, actually, a supernatural realm. But these paled against the awakening I was now experiencing. I was blind but now could see. I was deaf but now could hear. I saw myself as God sees me, and there is nothing like it.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, I knew I was a new creation, not unlike a very young child, trying to orient himself to a new world with all sorts of wonders and challenges. I learned that my situation was not unique and that it was described in detail, through scripture, song and the testimony of countless others. A new creation is just that. A new creation. It is a different thing, which is hard to describe to others who see me as the same person. And not just different but radically different. It’s new. Born anew.

To reiterate, the example of my dramatic experience, while not unique, is probably in the minority of such transformations. Being “born again,” in the teachings of Jesus and, later, Paul and others, is more about the result, not the specific process. It is what happens when full surrender occurs, a death to the old and rebirth in the new, through the love and grace of God.

I mentioned Kool-Aid before and how the analogy is used widely to connote blindly accepting some powerful message from a charismatic leader, often leading to dramatic separation from a present reality. In the initial case, with the cult demagogue, Jim Jones, the drinking of the Kool-Aid at his command led to death. It is no wonder that a highly secular world is justifiably suspicious about spontaneous conversions. I accept those suspicions because they are often true. Surrender to the wrong thing, even when done in the search for authentic meaning, can lead to death and destruction.

There is the famous story of Jesus coming across a woman at a well, who is leading a life of which she is ashamed. She is of Samaria, considered an outcast by the dominant Jewish culture. She cannot believe that this rabbi speaks to her but is captivated by his presence. She offers him a drink from the well. But, Jesus responds

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus offers living water. This is no substitute promise but the real thing. As I am in the world and still struggle with the things of this world and my own (too prevalent) weaknesses, I am deeply blessed when I remember and acknowledge that that living water courses through my veins, never to be taken away. So, when I forget and thirst for things of this world, I also know that there is a well spring that has a source and it is endless and magnificent.

So, what does it mean to be “born again?” Everything.

We can leave off with the words from the famous poem, Amazing Grace, penned by former British slave ship captain and born again Christian John Newton in 1779, now the most recognized of all hymns, loved as truth by untold millions.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

 

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed!

 

The Lord hath promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

 

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun.