Recovering the Gospel for These Times

The times in which we live cry out for conversion.

Crisis has become a word to describe our whole way of life. The world appears to be falling apart while social commentators argue the probabilities of which might come first, economic disaster or nuclear destruction. A spirit of fearful insecurity and mass resignation abounds. Young people say that they don't expect to live out their lives, and couples hesitate to bring children into the world. We have become alienated from the poor, from the earth, from the survival of future generations, and, at root, from God.

How we need to be converted, to be turned around! Only a fundamental transformation in the ways we now think and live can provide any basis for hope. Our energies can no longer be directed to fighting for the lesser evils in our public life. Rather, we must devote ourselves to altering the spirit of the age and the framework of our society. Changes in our basic values and assumptions, both personal and corporate, are urgently needed. But how do we break out of the attitudes and habits that control us? How do we chart a new course?

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned. From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Matthew 4:16-17

Just as light breaks into the darkness, the kingdom of God has arrived. That is how the prophet Isaiah, quoted here by Matthew, said it would be. The times into which Jesus came were dark indeed. Political domination at the hands of Rome, economic oppression by the rich, and human sinfulness on every side--these were the experiences of the common people. But where there was no light, God's new order would shine for all to see in the person of Jesus Christ. No wonder the word gospel means "good news"! The people had been waiting for a long time.

Jesus inaugurated a new age, heralded a new order, and called the people to conversion. "Repent!" he said. Why? Because the new order of the kingdom is breaking in upon you and, if you want to be a part of it, you will need to undergo a fundamental transformation. Jesus makes the need for conversion clear from the beginning. God's new order is so radically different from everything we are accustomed to that we must be spiritually remade before we are ready and equipped to participate in it. In his Gospel, John would later refer to the change as a "new birth." No aspect of human existence is safe from this sweeping change--neither the personal, nor the spiritual, social, economic, and political. The kingdom of God has come to change the world and us with it. Our choice is simply whether or not we will offer our allegiance to the kingdom.

Jesus called people to follow him. The first disciples took him quite literally. They were young Jewish men with established occupations and family responsibilities who nevertheless left everything to follow him. Jesus called them to himself, and he called them to a mission. "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Their calling was not just for their own sake. From the outset, Jesus' disciples were--and are--called for a purpose.

To leave their nets was no light choice for these Galilean fishermen. Their fishing nets were their means of livelihood and the symbol of their identity. Now Peter and the others were leaving not only their most valued possessions; they were leaving their former way of life. That is what it meant to follow Jesus. Old ties were broken, former things left behind. Peter said, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you" (Matthew 19:27).

In the Bible, conversion means "turning." "To convert" in the King James Bible is translated "to turn" in the Revised Standard Version.

The Old Testament word for conversion (shub) means "to turn, return, bring back, restore." It occurs more than one thousand times and always involves turning from evil and to the Lord. The prophets continually called Israel to turn from its sins and worship of idols and return to Yahweh, the true and living God. This call to conversion was both individual and corporate in the Old Testament. These people of God were much like us, always falling away from their Lord and getting themselves into trouble. Conversion meant to come back, to come home again, to wander no longer in sin, blindness, and idolatry. To convert meant to be again who you really were and to remember to whom you really belonged.

Transformation
The New Testament words for conversion (metanoein and epistrephein) mean "to turn around." Turning around involves stopping and proceeding in a new direction. The New Testament stresses the necessity of a radical turnabout and invites us to pursue an entirely different course of life. Thus, fundamental change of direction is central to the meaning of the words. The assumption--from the preaching of John the Baptist through Jesus to the first apostles--is that we are on the wrong path, moving away from God. The Bible refers to our self-determined course as walking in sin, darkness, blindness, dullness, sleep, and hardness of heart. To convert is to make an about-face and take a new path.

Correct intellectual belief was a major concern of the Greeks. The early Christians, in contrast, were more concerned with transformation. The first evangelists did not simply ask people what they believed about Jesus; they called upon their listeners to forsake all and to follow him. To embrace his kingdom meant a radical change not only in outlook but in posture, not only in mind but in heart, not only in worldview but in behavior, not only in thoughts but in actions. Conversion for them was more than a changed intellectual position. It was a whole new beginning.

Thus conversion is far more than an emotional release and much more than an intellectual adherence to correct doctrine. It is a basic change in life direction.

Conversion in the Bible is always firmly grounded in history; it is always addressed to the actual situation in which people find themselves. In other words, biblical conversion is historically specific. People are never called to conversion in an historical vacuum. They turn to God in the midst of concrete historical events, dilemmas, and choices. That turning is always deeply personal, but it is never private. It is never an abstract or theoretical concern; conversion is always a practical issue. Any idea of conversion that is removed from the social and political realities of the day is simply not biblical.

In the biblical narratives, the "from" and "to" of conversion are usually quite clear. Conversion is from sin to salvation, from idols to God, from slavery to freedom, from injustice to justice, from guilt to forgiveness, from lies to truth, from darkness to light, from self to others, from death to life, and much more. Conversion always means to turn to God. But what it means to turn to God is both universal and particular to each historical situation. We are called to respond to God always in the particulars of our own personal, social, and political circumstances. But conversion is also universal: it entails a reversal of the historical givens whatever they may be at any place and time--first-century Palestine, sixteenth-century Europe, or the United States in the 1980s. As such, conversion will be a scandal to accepted wisdoms, status quos, and oppressive arrangements. Looking back at biblical and saintly conversions, they can appear romantic. But in the present, conversion is more than a promise of all that might be; it is also a threat to all that is. To the guardians of the social order, genuine biblical conversion will seem dangerous.

Change of Lords
In both the Old and New Testaments conversion involved a "change of lords." Conversion from idolatry is a constant biblical theme: False gods enter the household of faith; alien deities command an allegiance that rightly belongs to God alone. The people, then as now, resisted the naming of their idols and stubbornly clung to them. What were the idols that lured the people of God? Which were the false gods that demanded service and fidelity? Our contemporary idols are not so different from those of biblical times: wealth, power, pride of self, pride of nation, sex, race, military might, etc. Conversion meant a turning away from the reigning idolatries and turning back to the true worship of the living God.

There are no neutral zones or areas of life left untouched by biblical conversion. It is never solely confined to the inner self, religious consciousness, personal morality, intellectual belief, or political opinion. Conversion in Scripture was not a self-improvement course or a set of guidelines to help people progress down the same road they were already traveling. Conversion was not just added to the life they were already living. The whole of life underwent conversion in the biblical accounts. There were no exceptions, limitations, or restrictions.

If we believe the Bible, every part of our lives belongs to the God who created us and intends to redeem us. No part of us stands apart from God's boundless love; no aspect of our lives remains untouched by the conversion that is God's call and God's gift to us. Biblically, conversion means to surrender ourselves to God in every sphere of human existence: the personal and social, the spiritual and economic, the psychological and political.

Conversion is our fundamental decision in regard to God. It marks nothing less than the ending of the old and the emergence of the new. "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old has gone, and a new order has already begun" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Heart, mind, and soul, being, thinking, and doing--all are remade in the grace of God's redeeming love. This decision to allow ourselves to be remade, this conversion, is neither a static nor a once-and-finished event. It is both a moment and a process of transformation that deepens and extends through the whole of our lives. Many think conversion is only for nonbelievers, but the Bible sees conversion as also necessary for the erring believer, the lukewarm community of faith, the people of God who have fallen into disobedience and idolatry.

The people of God are those who have been converted to God and to God's purposes in history. They define their lives by their relationship to the Lord. No longer are their lives organized around their own needs or the dictates of the ruling powers. They belong to the Lord and serve God alone. They have identified themselves with the kingdom of God in the world, and the measure of their existence is in doing God's will. Transformed by God's love, the converted experience a change in all their relationships: to God, to their neighbor, to the world, to their possessions, to the poor and dispossessed, to the violence around them, to the idols of their culture, to the false gods of the state, to their friends, and to their enemies. The early church was known for these things. In other words, the early Christians were known for the things their conversion wrought. Their conversion happened in history; and, in history, the fruits of their conversion were made evident.

Biblical conversion is never an ahistorical, metaphysical transaction affecting only God and the particular sinner involved. Conversion happens in individuals in history; it affects history and is affected by history. The biblical accounts of conversion demonstrate that conversion occurs within history; it is not something that occurs in a private realm apart from the world and is then applied to history.

The goal of biblical conversion is not to save souls apart from history but to bring the kingdom of God into the world with explosive force; it begins with individuals but is for the sake of the world. The more strongly present that goal is, the more genuinely biblical a conversion is. Churches today are tragically split between those who stress conversion but have forgotten its goal, and those who emphasize Christian social action but have forgotten the necessity for conversion. Today's converts need their eyes opened to history as much as today's activists need their spirit opened to conversion. But first, both need to recover the original meaning of conversion to Jesus Christ and to his kingdom. Only then can our painful division be healed and the integrity of the church's proclamation be restored. Only then can we be enabled to move beyond the impasse that has crippled and impoverished the churches for so long.

Conversion in the New Testament can only be understood from the perspective of the kingdom of God. The salvation of individuals and the fulfillment of the kingdom are intimately connected and are linked in the preaching of Jesus and the apostles. The powerful and compelling call to conversion in the Gospels arose directly out of the fact of an inbreaking new order. To be converted to Christ meant to give one's allegiance to the kingdom, to enter into God's purposes for the world expressed in the language of the kingdom. The disciples couldn't have given themselves to Jesus and then ignored the meaning of his kingdom for their lives and the world. Their conversion, like ours, can only be understood from the vantage point of the new age inaugurated in Jesus Christ. They joined him, followed him, transferred their allegiance to him, and, in so doing, became people of the new order. His gospel was the good news of the kingdom of God. There is no other gospel in the New Testament. The arrival of Jesus was the arrival of the kingdom.

Our conversion, then, cannot be an end in itself; it is the first step of entry into the kingdom. Conversion marks the birth of a movement out of a merely private existence into a public consciousness. Conversion is the beginning of active solidarity with the purposes of the kingdom of God in the world. If we restrict our salvation to only inner concerns, we have yet to enter into its fullness. Conversion, then, is to public responsibility--but public responsibility as defined by the kingdom, not by the state. Our own salvation, which began with a personal decision about Jesus Christ, becomes intimately linked with the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. The connection between conversion and the kingdom cannot be emphasized enough.

But what if our particular conversion is misshaped by an inadequate preaching of the gospel or the church's lack of faith? What if our particular conversion event knows little of the intimate connection between conversion and the kingdom? We must submit our conversion to the standard of Scripture. Having stressed the importance of the kingdom, we will now turn to Jesus' own description of it.

His description of the new order is found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7; Luke 6). The Sermon explains what the kingdom is all about. Its message is clear and compelling. The Sermon is a practical vision of how to live in the new order and of what it will mean to follow Jesus. It is not a new law, but it is a vivid description of the kind of behavior involved in accepting the good news of the kingdom.

In fact, the Sermon on the Mount is the declaration of the kingdom of God, the charter of the new order. It describes the character, priorities, values, and norms of the came to inaugurate. The early church took it to be a basic teaching on the new age Jesus meaning of the kingdom; the Sermon was used to instruct new converts in the faith.

Examining the content of the Sermon, we quickly realize that this new order is not as theoretical and abstract as we might have hoped. It has to do with very concrete things. Jesus speaks to the basic stuff of human existence. He concerns himself with money, possessions, power, violence, anxiety, sexuality, faith and the law, security, true and false religion, the way we treat our neighbor, and the way we treat our enemies. At stake are not just religious issues. These are the basic questions that every man and woman must come to terms with and make choices about. The way we respond to these issues will determine our allegiance to the kingdom of God.

Yet, the sermon begins not with a list of obligations but with a series of blessings. The beatitudes, as they are called, reveal the heart of Jesus and the core values of the kingdom. Jesus' blessings are for the poor, both in spirit and in substance. They know their need of God. He promises comfort to those who have learned how to weep for the world. Those with a meek and gentle spirit will have the earth for their possession. He blesses both those who are hungry for justice and those who show mercy; they will receive satisfaction and obtain mercy. It is the pure in heart, he says, who will see God. Jesus blesses the peacemakers and says they will be called God's own children. Finally, he blesses all those who suffer unjustly for the cause of right; the kingdom of heaven will be theirs. This is the personality of the kingdom. It is straightforward. It is both gentle and strong.

Jesus goes on to counsel his disciples to live simply and without hypocrisy. He tells them to trust God for their care and security rather than relying on the accumulation of possessions. In Luke's account of the beatitudes, Jesus pronounces a series of "woes" upon the rich and warns of the judgment that awaits them. He tells his followers to turn the other cheek when attacked and to go the extra mile when prevailed upon. Jesus instructs his disciples to love their enemies and not to return evil for evil. If they live this way, they will be like salt and light to the world. If they seek the kingdom of God first and value it above all else, everything they ever need will be theirs as well.

Blessing and cursing in the Bible are matters of life and death. Blessing is life and the power of God poured into our lives. Cursing is, inevitably, to die. Clear in the Sermon is the fact that the specific things that Jesus blesses are the very things we most try to avoid. On the other hand, the things that are so opposite to the description of the kingdom are the things we seek most eagerly. We can only conclude that the values of the kingdom of God are utterly incompatible with our own values and the way of the world. Our culture rejects those who live in the way Jesus calls blessed. Only those who are willing to be despised by the world are ready to enter the kingdom of God. The sermon reveals that God's will for us is completely different from our own inclinations and social training.

The kingdom indeed represents a radical reversal for us. Aggrandizement, ambition, and aggression are normal to us and to our society. Money is the measure of respect, and power is the way to success. Competition is the character of most of our relationships, and violence is regularly sanctioned by our culture as the final means to solve our deepest conflicts. The scriptural advice "Be anxious for nothing" challenges the heart of our narcissistic culture, which, in fact, is anxious over everything. To put it mildly, the Sermon on the Mount offers a way of life contrary to what we are accustomed. It overturns our assumptions of what is normal, reasonable, and responsible. To put it more bluntly, the Sermon stands our values on their heads.

Not everyone responded to this upside-down value system the way the fishermen did. The chief priests and scribes were critical and unbelieving from the beginning. These leaders of society, the holders of wealth and power, plotted against Jesus, mocked him, and sought to destroy him. They wielded religious and political authority. Jesus showed no respect or deference toward any of them. Some of his harshest words were reserved for them. He called them "hypocrites" and "vipers"; he referred to his political ruler as a "fox." Jesus' teaching and behavior created conflict with the ruling authorities wherever he went. The kingdom he proclaimed undermined their whole system. His confrontation with the religious and economic powers in the temple was the incident that led to his crucifixion.

The early Christians were referred to as the people of "the Way." There is a lot in a name.

First, it is highly significant that they were called the people of the Way. Christians at the beginning were associated with a particular pattern of life. Their faith produced a discernible lifestyle, a way of life, a process of growth visible to all.

This different style of living and relating both grew out of their faith and gave testimony to that faith. To all who saw, Christian belief became identified with a certain kind of behavior. Unlike our modern experience, there was an unmistakable Christian lifestyle recognized by believers and nonbelievers alike. That style of life followed the main lines of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and his other teaching. To believe meant to follow Jesus. There was little doubt in anyone's mind: Christian discipleship revolved around the hub of the kingdom. The faith of these first Christians had clear social results. They became well known as a caring, sharing, and open community that was especially sensitive to the poor and the outcast. Their love for God, for one another, and for the oppressed was central to their reputation. Their refusal to kill, to recognize racial distinctions, or to bow down before the imperial deities was a matter of public knowledge.

The early Christians were known for the way they lived, not only for what they believed. For them, the two were completely intertwined. The earliest title given to them reflected the importance of their kingdom lifestyle. They were not called the people of "the experience" or the people of "right doctrine" or even the people of "the church." Rather, they were the people of "the Way."

Second, it is equally significant that the Christians were known as the people of the Way. More than just individuals who had been converted, they were now a people, a new community of faith, which had embarked together on a new way of life. The first thing Jesus did after announcing the kingdom was to gather a community. To follow Jesus meant to share Jesus' life and to share it with others. From the beginning, the kingdom would be made manifest through a people who shared a common life. Their visible fellowship would be the sign and the first fruits of God's new order begun in Jesus Christ. Those who had left everything to follow Jesus were given the gift of community with one another. Henceforth they would belong to Jesus and be inextricably bound together as brothers and sisters in the family of God. The call of Jesus was not only to a new commitment; it was also to a new companionship, a new community established by conversion.

The quality of life shared in the Christian community was a vital part of the evangelistic message of the early church. Christian fellowship became the companion of the Christian gospel; demonstration was vitally linked to proclamation. The oneness of word and deed, dramatically evident in their life together, lent power and force to the witness of the early Christians. The word was not only announced but seen in the community of those who were giving it flesh.

The message of the kingdom became more than an idea. A new human society had sprung up, and it looked very much like the new order to which the evangelists pointed. Here love was given daily expression; reconciliation was actually occurring. People were no longer divided into Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. In this community the weak were protected, the stranger welcomed. People were healed, and the poor and dispossessed were cared for and found justice. Everything was shared, joy abounded, and ordinary lives were filled with praise. Something was happening among these Christians that no one could deny. It was very exciting. According to Tertullian, people looked at the early Christians and exclaimed, "See how they love one another!" The fervent character of Christian love not only bound them to one another; it also spilled over the boundaries of their own communities and extended to all in need. The economic sharing practiced by the early Christians, together with their generosity toward the poor, was one of the most evangelistic characteristics of their life. Radical, practical love became the key to their public reputation.

The basic movement of conversion is a change of allegiance to the kingdom of God, the good news which Jesus brings. To convert means to commit our lives unreservedly to Jesus Christ, to join his new order, and to enter into the fellowship of the new community. Our sins are forgiven, we are reconciled to God and to our neighbor, and our destiny becomes inextricably bound to the purposes of Christ in the world.

Evangelism is to this end. The purpose of evangelism is to call for conversion and to call for it in its wholeness. The most controversial question at stake in the world, and even in the church, is whether we will follow Jesus and live under the banner of his kingdom. The evangelist asks that question and aims it right at the heart of each individual and at the heartbeat of our society. Evangelism confronts each person with the decisive choice about Jesus and the kingdom, and it challenges the oppression of the old order with the freeing power of a new one. The gospel of the kingdom sparks a fundamental change in every life and is an intrusion into any social order, be it first-century culture or our twentieth-century world. Evangelism that is faithful to the New Testament will never separate the salvation of the individual from visible witness to God's kingdom on earth. Rather, biblical evangelists will show people how to "cast off the works of darkness" and how to live "as in the day" (Romans 13:12,13), in the light of the kingdom that is coming and has already begun in Christ Jesus.

In every renewal movement since the time of the early church, the true nature of conversion has been freed from the narrow limitations and restrictions imposed by the world, and the wholeness of conversion recovered. The power of evangelism is restored and the gospel again becomes a message that turns things upside down. The task of the evangelist is not to make the gospel easy but to make it clear. Instead of merely passing on knowledge or imparting an experience, evangelism should call for (and expect) a radical change in behavior and lifestyle.

The unequivocal assertion of the evangelist is that we are saved only through Jesus Christ. Evangelism refutes every ideological prescription for the salvation of the world, defying the suggestion that we can, after all, save ourselves.

Our need, in the rich countries of the northern hemisphere, is for a fresh consciousness of conversion. In the midst of social conditions so oppressive to others and to ourselves, we must again turn to Jesus. Then will authentic evangelism flower and genuine revival break forth in this land once more.

Jim Wallis was editor-in-chief of Sojourners when this article appeared. This article is excerpted from the first chapter of his book The Call to Conversion.