{"id":177,"date":"2005-07-21T04:23:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-21T04:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html"},"modified":"2005-07-21T04:23:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-21T04:23:00","slug":"witness-as-indicator-of-conver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html","title":{"rendered":"Witness as indicator of conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p>In the fifth dimension of conversion (commitment), a person makes it clear that she or he is now committed to a relationship with Jesus. Conversion theorists say they are three &#8220;manifestations&#8221; of commitment: decision, surrender, and witness.<\/p>\n<p>We need to keep commitment all wrapped up in a relational mode instead of wandering into a judicial mode, however important the latter is, if we want to see its full-orbed nature. The decision is a decision to &#8220;be with Christ,&#8221; and the &#8220;surrender&#8221; is to Jesus Christ, and the witness is to what Jesus Christ has done.<\/p>\n<p>One observation about <span style=\"font-style: italic\">witness<\/span> that is perhaps one of the clearest indicators there can be of conversion. The witness involves <span style=\"font-style: italic\">re-telling one&#8217;s autobiography in a new way that sorts it all out in relationship to Jesus Christ<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>A convert now tells his or her story in light of a new relationship, the way a young person in love now tells his or her own story in light of that relationship. One thinks here of those who are converted who are driven to <span style=\"font-style: italic\">tell their story<\/span>. Whatever you think of them, here is a list of some who quickly had to tell their story: Augustine, John Henry Newman, Charles Spurgeon, Leo Tolstoy, CS Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge.<\/p>\n<p>Of more recent vintage: Nancy Mairs, Anne Lamott, Roberta Bondi, Mortimer Adler, Charles Colson, Robert Benson.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it: identity is shaped as we tell ourselves our own story to make sense of our own lives, and converts do the same. A revised autobiography as witness is perhaps the clearest indicator of conversion.<\/p>\n<p>Tell me your story, we ask, and what we hear will give us the best indication of conversion.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom: 0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth dimension of conversion (commitment), a person makes it clear that she or he is now committed to a relationship with Jesus. Conversion theorists say they are three &#8220;manifestations&#8221; of commitment: decision, surrender, and witness. We need to keep commitment all wrapped up in a relational mode instead of wandering into a judicial&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Witness as indicator of conversion - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Witness as indicator of conversion - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the fifth dimension of conversion (commitment), a person makes it clear that she or he is now committed to a relationship with Jesus. Conversion theorists say they are three &#8220;manifestations&#8221; of commitment: decision, surrender, and witness. We need to keep commitment all wrapped up in a relational mode instead of wandering into a judicial&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-21T04:23:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Witness as indicator of conversion - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Witness as indicator of conversion - Jesus Creed","og_description":"In the fifth dimension of conversion (commitment), a person makes it clear that she or he is now committed to a relationship with Jesus. Conversion theorists say they are three &#8220;manifestations&#8221; of commitment: decision, surrender, and witness. We need to keep commitment all wrapped up in a relational mode instead of wandering into a judicial&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2005-07-21T04:23:00+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html","name":"Witness as indicator of conversion - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-21T04:23:00+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-21T04:23:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/07\/witness-as-indicator-of-conver.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Witness as indicator of conversion"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}