Let’s begin today with a bit of trivia, so let’s see how you do – what do George Bush, Jimmy Carter John Ashcroft, Dan Quayle have in common? They are all politicians. How about the next list: Supermodel Kim Alexis, Stephen Baldwin, Jane Fonda, Tom Hanks, Richard Kiel and Gary Busey? They are all actors, or in the entertainment business. Now that you know how this game works, you will guess the next list: Glenn Campbell, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Bono have in common? They are, of course, musicians. And what do Julius Erving, George Foreman, Jeff Gordan, Evander Hollified, Kurt Warner and David Robinson have in common? All sports heros, right? And what about this list of notoriety: What do David Berkowitz, Jeffrey Dalmer, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh have in common? They are arch enemies of society or psychopaths or both. They are also one more thing, a thing that they have in common with every else on one of the lists I read from. Care to guess what The Son of Sam serial killer and Johhny Cash and the rest have in common? They made a list of famous people who are and I quote, “Born Again Christians.”

Yes, even Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer in New York who took orders from his neighbor’s dog to kill six people and wound several others and was nicknamed berserk-owitz in prison was converted to Christianity in 1987, nine years into his 365 year sentence. He also has written the parole board and asks that his name be removed from the parole list forever. He is serving as a chaplain in his prison. On the Website, forgivenforlife.com, Berkowitz share of his conversion experience:

A man that had been telling me about Jesus gave me a Gideon Bible and told me to read the psalms every night. I did. Every night I would read from them. And it was at this time that the Lord was quietly melting my stone cold heart. One night, I was reading Psalm 34. I came upon the 6th verse, which says, “this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles”. It was at that moment, in 1987, that I began to pour out my heart to God. Everything seemed to hit me at once. The guilt from what I did… the disgust at what I had become… late that night in my cold cell, I got down on my knees and I began to cry out to Jesus Christ. I told Him that I was sick and tired of doing evil. I asked Jesus to forgive me for all my sins. I spent a good while on my knees praying to Him. When I got up it felt as if a very heavy but invisible chain that had been around me for so many years was broken. A peace flooded over me. I did not understand what was happening. But in my heart I just knew that my life, somehow, was going to be different.

Being born again is a religious phenomenon in this country, with millions claiming to be on the list who have simply prayed the sinner’s prayer, including most of you and me. And speaking of famous people, I may have told you this one, but when I was in seminary, my pastor introduced a famous Born Again congregant that day, Tom Lester. In case you don’t recognize his name, he was a goofy farm hand named Eb on the TV series “Green Acres.” The pastor said “Eb, come on down to the pulpit and speak to us.” We were all excited to see such a big star, and born again to boot. After all, he was on a first name basis with Arnold the Pig and you don’t get any bigger than that! All I remember him saying was something about all the Hollywood stars he was witnessing to. And then one he was really working on with due diligence was a contemporary popular TV star of Baretta, named Robert Blake. He said that Blake was on the verge of a conversion experience, but just hadn’t committed as of yet. I often wondered after that day in the late ‘70’s if Blake was ever “born again.” Maybe we have our answer now. But who knows?

So many people have had the born again experience, from serial killers, to famous actors to everyday god-fearing folk. When Jimmy Carter was elected, the phrase “born again” was plastered all over the news, and non-evangelicals were wondering what all the fuss was about. You see, just as many god-fearing folk have never heard of the experience. An Episcopal friend of mine divides Christians into two clear-cut categories: not the usual Protestant and Catholic, but she suggests the categories of liquored and non-liquored. I like her categories, because the modern church is divided along these lines which are more precisely stated as evangelicals and non-evangelicals. So what are we to think of the “Born Again” crowd?

In John Chapter 3 we have the locus classicus for the Born Again evangelicals. Here we have Nicodemus coming by night to interview the Nazarene. And he was in the dark in more ways than one. He begins complimenting Jesus and says that he knows he is from God. Jesus appears not to be one for small talk, and cuts to the chase. You must be “born again” he says, and then the double-talk multilevel discourse is off and running, and a cornerstone keyword of my Southern Baptist heritage is spoken. They banter back and forth talking on two different levels about being born again, and Nicodemus seemingly doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is sarcastic at best and tells Nicodemus that he is a teacher and ought know better. He also states that he doesn’t believe the earthly things, so how on earth could he believe the heavenly things? What heavenly things? All he has said is that he must be born of water and of the spirit to enter the kingdom of God. The fact that he said born of water is important to the non-evangelicals and the infant baptizers of Christendom, and to all those who believe in some form of baptismal regeneration. However, our traditional explanation of the water birth as referring to our natural births seems to make sense in the context of the conversation, but again, who knows.

To say the least, there is a lot we don’t know about this discourse. There obviously is a lot of talk left out, so it probably isn’t necessary to the point John is trying to make. There is the confusing metaphor of the wind blowing where it wants to secretly and without detection, to that of being born of the water and spirit. And I sort of get the idea that Nicodemus was a spy for the Pharisees, or up to something, because Jesus was skeptical at his questioning. Then there is a foreshadowing of the cross in verse 14, if he had lost Nicodemus earlier, he must really be lost now. Then the verse that is the manifesto of born again people everywhere, John 3:16 follows. After the you better get saved verse of John 3:16, of course comes 3:17 which has been used by some universalist to indicate that Jesus wouldn’t condemn anyone. However, the verses following 17 seem to indicate that while Jesus coming wouldn’t condemn anyone, he wouldn’t have to, because they would condemn themselves because lack of belief.

There is also controversy as to whether the exact phrase “born again” occurs in this passage and thusly the New Testament at all. Some translations translate the phrase “born from above” a more literal and likely reading instead of born again. To understand it as “born from above” carries with it the connotation that this is something that God does for us (the non-evangelical view) and to understand it as born again is something that we have to do (the evangelical bent). A lot of theology hangs in the balance of one Greek word, ANOTHEN which is mostly translated “from above” in the New Testament. But in the end, the word does in some places mean “again,” so the rendering of your particular version probably represents the bias of the translators. Thus, another example of the division.

Most Christians who are no told the born again variety are not impressed with the conversion experience of born againers. They see it as a highly emotional, transpersonal experience that does not take into account any life style expectations or choices, and only involves reciting a simple formula independent of who we are otherwise. You can live like hell and not be worth a plug nickle, but if you recite the formula you are better off than Mother Theresa. More seriously, critics see it as an earned type of salvation where one has to do certain things to get God to jump through their hoops and grant salvation. They attack the very fundamental issue of salvation through the very grace that the sinners prayer attempts to summon.

If on the other hand, we are born from above, then it is God who grants us salvation and God alone. It does not involve a magic formula. It is as Presbyterian Tim Johnson says,

We have before us this morning what I would consider one of the most misused, misunderstood texts in the entire Scripture. One single verse has provided motivation for some of the most destructive and unchristian impulses of those who take the name Christian. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” Taken literally it suggests that those who do not believe in this Son will perish. It is difficult to overestimate the harm, hurt and abuse that has been encouraged by this literal rendering of John’s Gospel. The bloody Christian Crusade against Muslims of the middle ages was based on the belief that Muslims were a threat to believing in the Son. The Holocaust toward Jews was nurtured by the notion that Jews were a threat to believing in the Son. Christian missionary work was often conducted among native peoples with John 3:16 as its driving force. If you do not believe you will perish. Therefore, we are free to use every tool at our disposal to stamp out Indigenous beliefs, including Indigenous language and culture, which was so naturally entwined with Indigenous beliefs. John 3:16 is hung today in big banners at football games and baseball games as a reminder that unless you believe in a God who sends his son as a blood sacrifice for your sinfulness you will perish, and suffer eternal damnation. I grew up believing that Catholics were going to hell because they failed to believe the right things about Jesus. Lutherans were questionable and the rest of the world, of course, was condemned. Taken literally John 3:16 becomes the cornerstone for an edifice of beliefs that include rejection of those who differ in sexual orientation or gidentity, the dominance of women by men, the sense of entitlement that Western countries have over the rest of the world. A literal rendering of John 3:16 is alive and well. It remains a potent and I believe often destructive influence, from matters of individual salvation to the way we conduct foreign policy as a nation.

But the born againers don’t take a back seat to anyone when it comes to a good argument, and even suggest that folks who don’t know the formula are bound for eternal torment in hell. People who are good, moral, concerned about servanthood, dedicated to God and their church are simply lost as a goose and don’t know God because they can’t recite the formula. They will burn in the same place as Osama Bin Laden. You must be born again, and the only way to do that is to verbally ascent to its formula. You must stand up for Jesus, and you should be able to recall the exact moment that this occurred for you.

So what are we as an ecumenical community in the Baptist tradition folks to think? “Born again,” or “born from above?” Which is it? Which translation is in your Bible? Well, most of us thinking folk try not to limit God, or place him or her in the proverbial box. We tend to see value in the conversion experience and believe that the David Berowitz’s of the world can change in an instant on one hand, but acknowledge that God is big and coming to salvific knowledge is just as big and may happen in many different ways. Besides, many of us in this room have had this experience firsthand, and you can’t argue with religious experience. But for me the acid test is how we love God and how we show it in our lives. God is too big for a simple canned formula to be sure, but also big enough to make the way to him simple.

Maybe the key is not in John 3:16. Maybe we ought never quote John 3:16 without including the context of John 3:17 – the verse distinctions are artificial anyway. Jesus didn’t come to condemn, He came pure and simply to save, to find a way out for all of us, for the whole world. Because the truth is, we are in desperate need of saving. Becasue the way most of our faiths play out in everyday practice shouts condemnation to any that we would convince to be born again or to be born from above. It is as one author I read this week said, (can’t remember the reference) “The mainline churches, both Protestant and Catholic, faced a series of moral crises in the twentieth century, which they were unable or unwilling to meet: residual slavery, racism and segregation; the status of women; the consequences of the evolution of homo sapiens from earlier forms of life; the sexual revolution; homophobia; the sexual abuse of children; the privilege of patriarchal hierarchies in ecclesiastical bodies; and the ecological crisis. The failures in meeting these crises compromised the integrity of the Christian tradition and eroded confidence in the prophetic strand of Christianity.”

So the bottom line is, whether it be by reciting a formula or being dunked as an infant, we are failing at affecting change in our world. We sow hostility instead of love; we sow strife instead of unity; we sow arrogance instead of humility; we sow intolerance instead of tolerance. And we all reap ineffectiveness in a world that doesn’t need condemning, but saving. It is surely true that Christianity is the only army that shoots our own soldiers. And centuries of important ministry is reduced to how we translate one Greek word in one passage of scripture. We are worried about whether we should be born again or born from above, and maybe we are neither.

We don’t know what happened to Nicodemus, nor should we really care, I suppoe. The point is, what will happen to us? Will we fight over what it means to be saved, or will we fight together to save the world – you know the one – the whole one Jesus died for.

So again, I ask you: Born again, or born from above? Maybe that is really not the question. Maybe the answer is somewhere else. Maybe its time we stopped and looked at the evidence. To fail to do so may leave us and the movement we call Christianity condemned already, and all the Nicodemuses of the world scratching their heads. For if we can’t sing all the verses, then we may be nothing more when all is said and done than a name on a long list of Born Againers who pale into insignificance. May it never be so. For us born againers need to be sure we are also born from above, and the born from aboves need to be sure they are born again. Maybe the ambiguity is there for a reason, maybe its not either/or, maybe its both/ and. For the undeniable truth is that the fate of the world depends upon us communicating the love, the real love of the one who gave his only begotten son, that WHO SO EVER believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen.