Born Again

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Singer songwriter Ben Folds tells the story of a friend who dropped acid at a party, climbed a tree and when he came down in the morning was a born-again Christian. On his live album as he tells this story, which is the intro to the song “Not the Same”, the audience cracks up laughing. As they laugh, we knowingly laugh along as well. His lyrical description of born-again Christians seems particularly accurate and cutting:

You see 'em drop like flies from the bright sunny skies
They come knocking at your door with this look in their eyes
You've got one good trick and you're hanging on you're hanging on...
To it

Perhaps you would have to be on drugs to want to be born again. Or maybe you’ve accidentally inhaled some fumes, gotten bit by a poisonous snake or bumped your head in the shower. Either way, I can see why some people might think you’re a little bit off. The very idea of being born again brings to mind squeaky-clean churches, morally sterilized art, and door to door fanaticism.

From the outside looking in, being born again seems like a traumatic experience. Religious rebirth is somewhat rare, but to those witnessing it (like Ben Folds), the occurrence seems like death – a sudden stifling of the individual’s personality, a ripping of them from their natural environment.

From observation, people are not often “born again” in the manner that birth actually happens – gradually, naturally, with room for mystery, growth and exploration. The conversion experiences I’ve witnessed often resembled the closing of a business deal or a hastily thrown together wedding. Hurry up and get the job done.

They were more like emergency C-sections, get that person out of the World before they choke to death on its impurities.

***

Christians often approach others as a doctor approaches their patients. We assume health for ourselves and spiritual illness for the person. We diagnose their symptoms and sins, and likewise offer spiritual prescriptions for all that ails them.

To take the medical metaphor further, Christians put those on the path to being born again through a rigorous battery of pre-natal tests. We are checking for any defect or deformity. There is an anxiety about whether the person will turn out “normal” and dare I say many a baby Christian has been aborted by us when it was found they didn’t fit the mold or were otherwise unplanned and unwanted.

When a baby is “overdue”, a certain shift happens in the language of doctors. They are past their due date, as if babies were a gallon of milk about to go bad. There is talk of induction, Pitocin, “getting things going”, “moving it along”.

In our churches there is also a timeline we place upon people. We eagerly await the final push when the baby Christian comes out but downplay the importance of the thousands of real life contractions that get them there. These movements of the spirit womb are mysterious, unseen, happening in darkness.

This still undeveloped faith may grow into something unrecognizable to the modern American evangelical churchgoer. It has a timetable of its own and to push it out before its time is damaging and manipulative. When we act in haste, we are carrying out the work of the devil in his mission to rob us of joy. We play the role of seed snatching birds as Jesus described in Matthew 13

The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. [1]

While we often act like spiritual doctors, we’d do well to learn from midwives.

During Zipporah’s entry into life we had many midwives along the way. They were checking in during pregnancy and present for delivery. They offered encouragement and techniques for letting nature take its course.

The midwife who would eventually deliver Z came into the room during a particularly difficult point. We were depleted in every way. Laurie was like a boxer twelve rounds in and my doubts about the process were growing.

The midwife came in quietly, introduced herself, then sat down in a chair and gazed intently at us for about thirty minutes – I’ve never seen anything like it. Perhaps she knew what we needed most at that moment wasn’t answers but someone to be with us.

***

I wonder if our concept of what it means to be born again is based on actual birth or something else entirely. Would being reborn seem so mockable if the process unfolded more like labor and delivery?

Near the end of Zipporah’s birth, I experienced a strange moment. We had been awake for several days, which made me feel tripped out and detached from mind and body – an experience not unlike dropping acid at a party.

The sun was setting, a dusky light came through the window slats. There was an other worldly-feel to the atmosphere. Oddly enough, it was then that the phrase “born again” came to my mind. Our baby was being born. It was a long and arduous effort, but we were bringing her into the world calmly, gently, naturally, lovingly.

I heard the question: If I were to be born again, how would I want to be birthed?

Would I want the bright lights and beeping monitors? Would I want the timelines, the prescriptions, the cascade of interventions?

Give me the dark room and gentle sounds. Flood my body with oxytocin. Let me know I’m loved and anticipated no matter how I come out.

Birth is messy and graphic – Sticky, thick, dark green secretions mixed with piss, amniotic fluid, sweat, and meconium. As in the Bible, the appearance of blood in birth signifies hope, an approaching of the process’s end.

And when you come out the other side, you have nothing, no clothes on your back, no money in the bank, no title to fall back on. But you’ve got a name, and a recognition of your provider’s voice, and a mother that will feed you, protect you, and grow you.

Place me on my mother’s breast and let me feed for a while. Don’t expect me to be so cleanly.  Don’t wipe my vernix off either, but rather, let it be absorbed into who I am. I’m going to be needy and I’m going to be helpless, but after all that’s what it looks like to be born again.

REFERENCES

1. Bible, book of Matthew chapter 13