Choosing My Religion

Question of the Day: Who gets to choose your religion?

Two very different news stories this week have raised the question about who decides what religion a person might be. One I read in the Tacoma News Tribune (01-29-08)--a story about a prison chaplain who is struggling with fallout from a new regulation that allows inmates to be a part of more than one religion. Under the new rules, to select a religious preference, all an inmate has to do is fill out a form. Further, they can change their religion once every six months.

The second story involves an Egyptian man named Muhammad Hegazy, a Muslim convert to Christianity who is requesting that the Egyptian government officially change his religious affiliation. According to the ruling of an Egyptian judge, "He can believe whatever he wants in his heart, but on paper he can't convert."

So, is one's religion really just a matter of filling out the right paperwork and having it approved? And the deeper questions: Who decides what religion an individual truly is? Can a person "self-convert," or must a person be received by the religious community of which he or she seeks to become a part?

As Americans, we are heavily biased toward the individual. We have been trained by our culture to believe that the individual is the center of authority and decision-making power: I decide what to buy; I decide what I want to be when I grow up; I decide who to vote for; I decide what church to attend; I decide what is true for me. But such a perspective is somewhat unique in history.

Even looking across the history of Jesus' followers and the Church, we see that there has always been a place for the community in conversion. In the book of Acts, an individual's conversion or coming to Christ would often be attested to by others who were already a part of the early Christian community (e.g., Saul by Ananias; Cornelius by Peter; Samarians by Peter & John). In addition, acts such as baptism and the laying on of hands accompanied the individual's conversion and reception into the faith community. These acts would be formalized over the years so that becoming a Christian included not only a public confession of faith in Christ, but also a period of training or catechism and the sacrament of baptism. The value of the community is sorely missing in much of American Protestantism.

And as much as we must wrestle with the role we play and the role the community of faith plays in our choosing our religion, we must also look ultimately to God. Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" (Jn. 6:44). Paul the Apostle likewise understood that it is God who chooses us long before we might choose God, writing that God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world and decided in advance to adopt us as his children (Eph. 1:3-5).

So, how do you understand your conversion? If you are a Christian, how did you get there? What did you do? What did the Christian community do? What did God do?

Michael Vick's Redemption

God continues to give me opportunities to learn patience through waiting. My computer that I have used for blogging got infected by a virus a few weeks back. I couldn't get it off. The computer techs couldn't get it off. So, they wiped everything off the machine, and I've had to start over with reloading everything back on. As my father-in-law might say, "That sucketh great wind!" Anyway, all that to say that I haven't been writing here for almost a month, but I hope to get back at it more regularly. A quick thought for today...

You've probably seen the news stories on Michael Vick, the former NFL quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons. Vick was convicted in federal court for charges related to dog fighting and sent to prison. In one of the countless articles on the fallen football star, I came across the following quote attributed to Vick as he was preparing to face his jail sentence: "Through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God....I will redeem myself. I have to."

With all due respect, Michael, if you have to redeem yourself, then you haven't found Jesus!

I truly hope that Michael Vick turns his life over to God and asks for forgiveness. But the reason he needs to do so is precisely because he can't redeem himself. Jesus came to live, die, and rise again because redemption is out of our reach. Even the word "redemption" implies the need for another outside ourselves to be intimately involved. To "redeem" means to "buy back" or to "free from a lien." We can't buy ourselves back from our enslavement to sin. The price is too high, even on an NFL superstar's salary. Futher, redemption always involves an exchange of some sort. When I was a kid, I remember redeeming Coke bottles for cash. But in case of our own redemption, Christ takes on our death and gives us his life in return. The Apostle Peter wrote: "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect" (1 Pe. 1:18-19 TNIV).

Hopefully, the Spirit of God will lead Michael Vick to a place where he can say, "I will not redeem myself. I don't have to. Jesus Christ has redeemed me by His power and grace."