THE CONVERSION OF A FAMOUS CHRISTIAN BASHER

THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL TO CHRISTIANITY  

A light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground

and heard a voice saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

Acts 9 1-20

Are you saved? Have you been “born again?’ Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior? If you really want to make a Catholic squirm and doubt their religious upbringing, just get them against the wall and rattle off that set of questions!

When I worked in the Bible Belt, down in the south eastern corner of what is now the Lexington Diocese,  Catholics, including myself, were often bombarded with those questions. More than one Catholic was left confused and bewildered. Their counterparts could date the precise hour they were “saved,” while Catholics were left standing there puzzled and confused.

Does one have to have a dramatic, certain and dated experience or can one grow toward God in an extended process, sometimes without a clear beginning or end? In Sts. Peter and Paul we see both types of conversion experiences: Paul with his definite and certain experience of conversion at a particular moment and Peter with his long and extended process of conversion over time.

Many of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters look to the Apostle Paul as their hero and ideal. His conversion was a shattering, clearly memorable confrontation with the person of Christ on the road to Damascus when he was on his way to hunt down Christians and kill them. After this dramatic about-face, Paul fanatically embraced what he had recently persecuted and attacked. His conversion experience was so dramatic that the story is retold three times in the Acts of the Apostles and referred to three more times in various New Testament Letters.

Paul’s emphasis on personal-individual faith, his emphasis on dramatic decision and evangelistic zeal have become the prototype and model of conversion for some Christian groups, especially the more fundamentalist groups. Many of these groups attach a certain spiritual superiority to this type of conversion, leaving many people who have not has such an experience feeling inferior and second rate.

Roman Catholics, while respecting Paul’s experience, look to the Apostle Peter as their hero and model. Peter’s experience was very different. Peter does in fact make his profession of faith, but, like many of us, it is the climax of a long and gradual insight into who Jesus was, and in his case even a denial or two! 

Even though some would like to suggest that everybody has to have a definite conversion experience that can be dated, the New Testament does not suggest a single stereotype for an authentic Christian conversion experience.  The fact is, the church has always welcomed both kinds of conversion experiences. God calls us in a variety of ways. If you have never had a “fall-to-the-ground conversion experience,” you need not feel inferior nor apologetic. We all answer God’s call in our own way and in the way that we are called, be it like Paul or Peter!

With all that said, however, the fact remains that all of us, sooner or later must choose or reject Jesus and the path he invites us to walk - even if we cannot remember the hour we first believed!