"Feeling" God Before Conversion

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sarah_Angel
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Sarah_Angel

Guest
I just read through the “Ask a Former Baptist Pastor” thread and I PMed JustaServant this question. He said that it would be good to post in here since he said that this problem was new to him.

So, problem:

I’m very active on a secular forum and a bunch of us use MSN to talk to each other. In a group conversation, one person mentioned that he hadn’t been baptized yet. He’s Baptist and 18 years old, just graduated high school. I would have expected him to be baptized much sooner, so I asked him why he hadn’t been baptized yet.

This is what he said:
for one, i don’t feel the spirit of God
gimme a sec, it’s tough to explain what it’s like to have your soul saved by someone who hasn’t felt it
that’s the stuff i don’t feel
they talk about it all the time, the feeling that wells up in them and overflows, and all that other stuff
but look, i think i would remember the spirit of God entering my heart

Then he said that he hadn’t given his life over to God yet, but he considers himself a Christian (Baptist) and goes to church.

I asked him what he was waiting for, and he said:
i’m NOT, i’m saying that i haven’t felt it yet even though i’ve been chipping away

He then went on to say that he wants to give his life to Him but he keeps getting dragged back.

The first thing I notice is the obvious discrepancies in the Baptist denomination about salvation and baptism (I know what they are from previous research and what I’ve heard from Baptist friends).

But I also noticed how odd it seemed to him that he thought that he needed to really “feel the Holy Spirit” and have that MAGICAL MOMENT of CONVERSION before being ready for baptism.

I asked another Baptist Internet friend about this, and he said that this “feeling prerequisite” sounded really odd to him. I had asked the other friend why a Baptist who considers himself Baptist wouldn’t be baptized and he said that he wasn’t sure why. So there’s obviously something wrong here when even another Baptist thinks that the first person is in a strange situation.

I suppose my question is… what is it about the Baptist denomination that makes people believe that they need to have this ‘feeling prerequisite’ fulfilled before they’re baptized?

Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated. The fact that JustaServant and my other Baptist friend said that this situation was odd should be a bit of a lightbulb that something is very wrong here.
 
When I explored the Baptist denomination(s) before finding the Church, I never read or heard anything about this. It is very curious, and I am interested in hearing the reason for it.

Also, one must consider there may be other reasons for your Baptist friend’s hesitation. Perhaps he does not completely believe everything and wishes he did before being baptized? Or perhaps he has a paticular sin that keeps him away?
Who knows?

Sorry I can not be of more help. :o
I hope your search ends up fruitful!

In Christ,
Never
 
I find it odd so many people find this situation “odd.” I sojourned among Baptists for a few years and noted that most of those they baptized were well older than 18 years. There were a number of preteens but I don’t remember very many people who were teenagers or college-age being baptized.

There seems to be some kind of emphasis in that tradition for an emotional “connection” prior to baptism, even if it is not stated.

I suggest advising your friend that his “want” for a relationship with God is sufficient for him to follow through. He is probably aware that the only thing “dragging” him back is sin (with Original Sin compounding it). Also, advise him that he must be “saved” (which we equate with baptism) before God’s spirit can actually go to work within him. To that end, he must make a conscious decision to follow God, even if it is an unemotional one.

Caution him, however, that most people do not “feel” any different when they are baptized/saved. God is not a “feel good” god and not into magic tricks.

One of my most powerful experiences in choosing to follow God was a rather mundane, logical one.
 
That is a very strange idea. Maybe what he’s really saying is that he’s waiting for God to prove Himself before he decides to be baptised.

Testing God does not work and will turn Him away from you every time.

Examples:

People (especially the young people in the “me” generation who are used to instant gratification) demand God show Himself and appear before them–when he does not, they say God doesn’t exist.

The “prayer experiment” where a group of scientists got together to pray for someone ill and God chose to take that person’s life instead of healing him or her–so now they say that is “proof” God doesn’t exist. We don’t know God’s reasons for choosing to save or not save a particular person.

This type of thing is an example of idolatry: making God in one’s own image.
 
To my mind, the first thing that I would ask this person, is: “How do you expect to** feel** God, if you refuse to obey and follow Him”?
It sounds like a recipe for:( coasting through life without ever committing to anything…Just what does he think he has to:confused: “feel”??
🤷

Yes, there is an emphasis on some kind of experiential knowing/feeling among Baptists. But there is also–in my observation–an emphasis on obedience to God’s expressed will in Scriptures. And the Bible says, more than once, to be baptized.

You see, this is a part of the Baptist Churches that I find I cannot understand! They really do seem to me, to be :shrug:contradicting themselves again & again, about what it means to be Christian…
Has he ever been taught? Does he have any religious education?
 
He goes to church most Sundays, if not every Sunday. His religion on Facebook says Christian - Baptist. From what I know, he does have some decent formation (from a Baptist perspective) and tries to listen and follow the advice of the people he listens to at church.

When I was telling him, “You don’t need to be perfect,” “You can confess sin every day” “You’re going to fail but you can get back up,” all he did was get frustrated that I was telling him everything that he had already learned at church.

He just thinks that he isn’t completely ready.

Another person in the IM conversation, who claims to be quasi-Christian spiritually but not in practice, said that in order to change who you are, you first have to hate what you have become, and the Baptist said that he doesn’t hate what he’s become yet. So I suppose that means that he doesn’t really hate all the sins that he’s committed yet, meaning that he’s holding onto some pride.

Now, I do know that it’s difficult to hate certain sins because they make us feel good, and it’s hard to break habits, but that shouldn’t inhibit us from making a commitment to Christ. Maybe the only way to break those sins in the first place IS to make that commitment.
 
It might also be helpful to note that when I said, “You haven’t been baptized yet?” he said, “No, I’m not Methodist. >_>”

He seems under the impression that Methodists (and other denominations that baptize infants) baptize whoever the heck they want without making certain that the person being baptized will follow the Lord. And that somehow makes the Baptist denomination correct in their view of baptism because they appear overly-cautious about who gets baptized.

And thanks SonCatcher for your response. You’re the first person who seemed to have an idea why Baptists in particular can have this viewpoint. Although from what my other Baptist friend and JustaServant told me, it doesn’t seem like most/all Baptists have this viewpoint.
 
Sarah_Angel said:
Another person in the IM conversation, who claims to be quasi-Christian spiritually but not in practice, said that in order to change who you are, you first have to hate what you have become, and the Baptist said that he doesn’t hate what he’s become yet. So I suppose that means that he doesn’t really hate all the sins that he’s committed yet, meaning that he’s holding onto some pride.
Click to expand...
Just today at mass we had the memorial for St Romuald. The Gospel reading included the passage “whoever does not hate father and mother is not worthy to be my disciple.”

In the homily, Father explained that in Hebrew, there is no comparative (short version: in English, we have **good, better, best **while in Hebrew and Aramaic (Jesus’ language) they only have **good **and best). In order to convey the meaning we wrap up in “better,” they will use love/hate. So when Jesus says we should love Him and “hate” everyone else, He means that we should *prefer *him to everyone else.

Baptist theology depends a lot on literal interpretation of the Bible (John 6 aside). Thus, your friend may be taking this whole “hate” thing a little too seriously. The problem, however, is more **hype **than theology (your other friends may have been testing the theology).

Evangelicals (including Baptists) tend to promote the most radical conversions. People who hit “rock bottom” or were otherwise “broken” before they finally came to Christ are constantly talked about. People who have some deep, mystical experience as their “conversion” are also hyped up, though less so. These promotions may understandably obscure the norm (which is nowhere near as exciting).

Your friend doesn’t need a story. He needs Jesus. I’ll pray for him.
 
Having come from a Baptist-type background, my guess would be that the reason your friend doesn’t want to be baptized yet is that he is not sure that he is “saved.” Baptists view baptism as completely symbolic, an outward manifestation of what has already (presumably) happened in your heart. And they tend to rely a great deal on feelings to know if they are “saved” or not: A person has to have a conversion experience, and then has to feel assurance afterward. Baptists preach over and over again that a person should be 100% sure that they are on their way to heaven, and that if a person is not sure of this, he needs to go back and examine his salvation experience again. (You can see how this could quickly become a torturous cycle to any introspective or thinking person.)

So if your friend doesn’t feel sure in his heart that he had a true “salvation experience,” he probably doesn’t want to be baptized in case he is not really “saved,” because if he later gets saved, he will probably feel that he must be baptized all over again.
 
I think that’s terrible.

No wonder he hasn’t been baptized yet. That just sounds like too much pressure. Especially considering that that’s not even how baptism works. :confused:

I belong to an ecumenical group of Christians (many of whom are Catholic) and there’s a little bit of exposure to the whole idea of having a single moment of conversion (because, well, it happens). And whenever I think about “my moment,” I come to realize that there are many little moments of conversion in my life, not one big one that I can define in my personal history. Some Protestants in the group recognize that that’s how they’ve converted to Christianity as well.

I really don’t see why they have to believe that… it’s not Biblical at all.

Makes me want to drag my friend to a Catholic Church. lol
 
I had a lot of Baptist friends when I was at Uni, and while there are some major differences in opinion between the Baptists I’ve met in real life and the ones I’ve met online, I have seen this concept in action.

A friend of mine told me a story about how there was a stink in their house coming from the air conditioning vent in their apartment complex. Her father put a picture of Buddha in there, and the smell remained, he tried a picture of some Hindu god and again, the stink wouldn’t move, but they put a picture of Jesus in there and the smell left. So she decided to investigate Christanity (they were agnostics at the time).

When she came to NZL from her home country where the smell test had taken place, she didn’t feel she could get Baptised because she didn’t “feel” what all the other happy little Baptists said she must feel. Even with teh complete beleif she had in Jesus after the smell test they said it would be wrong of her to get baptised.

Anyway, she ended up faking the “feeling”.

I thought that was so horrible, one for faking such spirituality but mostly for being forced into a position where she felt no other choice BUT to fake it.

The other Baptists were all of the same mindset… which then made me laugh because I explained to them the many God moments where I felt Him (I also had scripture backing for my moments) and they told me it was of the devil because there was no way a “insert lengthy obscene spiel” Catholic would be granted the gift of such a “feeling”.

What I’m trying to say is its a rather dangerous path to go down, as others have mentioned, it reeks of testing God and who’s to say he hasn’t “felt” God. The Lord works in different ways for different people, some people He gives a good spiritual whack, others He approaches with a quiet gentleness that could be easily missed.
 
I was “saved” as a 14 year old, back in the early 70s. I remember that as being a very emotional event. A little while later I went on to become part of the Jesus People’s movement, (full commune deal) and in that period went through a large number of emotionally based re-dedications and spirit filling experiences at pentecostal churches, and various evangelical and charismatic churches and events. At a certain point, I was finally baptized in water, waist deep in a flowing river, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I can say that the previous emotionally based experiences were okay, more or less like a decent, but short-lived high, but that the experience of baptism, while not particularly emotional by comparison, resulted in my feeling that something had happened that could never be changed. I spent the ensuing years in every possible state of being a Christian.

After nearly 40 years, I only recently experienced what I would really call a conversion. It came in the midst of a serious inquiry into the extent and content of my beliefs, learning to and praying the Rosary devoutly, and finally, it was a simple action, a simple leap of faith. It wasn’t a conversion from heathen to Christian, but from simply, if not fully committed Christian, to absolute certainty about being Catholic, whatever it takes.

That same calm knowledge of having been changed deeply, unequivocally, and permanently when I was baptized was similar to that which I experienced in that “conversion” to Catholicism. Since then, the emotion comes from reverent worship and prayer, in a truly Catholic sense of the word. Not about singing praise songs, or getting all wound up in a group of people all feeling real happy. It comes while praying the rosary with my family, being blessed by my priest at mass weekly, from being at Night Prayers and going to a weekly Divine Mercy Chaplet in song at a very old, very small Catholic church with about 10 or 12 other people. It’s not some big emotional high, but it’s real.

I think your best thought yet was to talk to your friend with the utmost sincerity and faith in the Holy Spirit to guide you, and yes, at a certain point, bring him, don’t drag him, to your parish.

Love your young brother, give him the opportunity to learn to love Jesus, beyond what he may or may not feel.

God Bless you for caring about this man’s soul.
 
Well, I would LOVE to bring him to Mass, but I live in Michigan and he lives all the way in Georgia. He’s an Internet friend and I haven’t met him in person.

People think that I waste so much time on the computer when really I sometimes get the chance to reach out to people who know next to nothing about Catholicism and God and stuff. 😛
 
Hey Sarah,

First of all, if the Catholic Answers Forum ever conducts a “cutest avatar” contest, you have my vote 👍 (few things are cuter than a little fuzzy pup - of course, if you change your avatar one day to something else, future people may read this and wonder what on earth I was talking about).

It could be that your friend’s “Methodist comment” was rooted in the fact that like Catholics, Methodists practice infant baptism. In other words, when you encounter a Methodist, you can assume that they have already been baptized. He may be aware of this and, not being Methodist, the possibility is open for him to not yet be baptized (although still a Christian nonetheless).

Many Baptists (and certain other Protestants) believe in the idea of an “altar call.” Prior to this, they can be avid church-goers, reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. They would readily admit to being Christian. But to them, a person doesn’t decide to get baptized, but rather they wait until they are called by the Holy Spirit. Usually during a church service a person is struck by the sensation of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and they go up to the altar, sometimes with tears in their eyes, a combination of sorrow for their sins and joy in the mercy and love of God. They profess Jesus to be their personal Lord and Savior. It is at this moment that they are “born again” (or, to use another term, “saved”). This is usually followed by a baptism with water, which serves as an outward ritual expression of the previous inward acceptance of the saving power of Christ. So baptism for them is really only a ritual that gives expression to what is supposed to be a very profound and (sometimes) deeply emotional spiritual experience. And it is based on God’s time table, not the person’s.

As a side note, being “born again” does not have to take place at a church service. One evangelist I know stated that he underwent this in a broom closet at boot camp (and I am not suggesting that this is outlandish, I just think that it serves to underscore the idea that, to them, this can happen anywhere at anytime).

In light of all this, your friend may simply be waiting for this to happen to him in the same manner that he has witnessed with other members of his church. And I am not testifying to the credibility of this phenomenon, rather I am just trying to perhaps give an accurate and fair assessment as to your friend’s outlook on baptism and why he is not yet baptized.

I am a convert, but I was formerly an Episcopalian. Episcopalians have infant baptism, and don’t do “altar calls.” So I am only saying what I observed in the past when visiting other Protestant churches and Christian music venues that featured altar calls. But I fully admit that I am hardly an expert to speak on behalf of Protestants who believe in this phenomenon.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top