Conversion to Christian faith is viewed as distinct from conversion to justice and peace issues, as though the two are unrelated or in competition with each other. But what if they’re not? C.S. Lewis, adult convert from atheism to Christianity, said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Conversion becomes the light by which we see everything else – ourselves, the world around us, and our purpose in that world. Christian conversion, the process of coming to know our relationship with the triune God as central to our identity, is inherently vocational. We are called to love and serve God and our neighbors in every aspect of daily life: as neighbors, citizens, workers, family members and friends.
It is precisely faith in the God we know through Jesus Christ that compels us to action. It is the Holy Spirit, the source of conversion and of calling. As conversion becomes intricately woven in the fabric of life and vocational identity, it cannot help but last.
This message excerpted from “Making conversion stick” by Meghan Johnson Aelabouni in the January/February 2015 Gather magazine.
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