New Converts, Old Selves

In his First Letter to Timothy, St. Paul, when laying out the qualifications of a bishop, includes this telling remark: “He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6).

St. John Chrysostom, in a homily on 1 Timothy, adds this gloss on the text: “For, if even before he has proved himself as a disciple he is made a teacher, he will soon be lifted up into insolence.”

Both men spoke from experience: Paul, after his conversion on the road to Damascus, apparently disappeared into the Arabian desert for the better part of three years (Gal. 1:18), and Chrysostom, after his Baptism, fled to an Antiochene cave to pray and fast for two years. Neither was particularly eager to “confer with any human being” in the city (Gal. 1:16); both were especially eager to confer with God in solitude. And it’s safe to assume that Paul, like Chrysostom, did it by reading and meditating on God’s Word.

The Church today finds herself in a very interesting cultural moment—one in which these warnings about new converts from two of Christianity’s greatest preachers would be convenient to ignore. For decades now, Western Christians—and Catholics in particular—have been beleaguered by declining numbers, mounting scandals, and an alternating antagonism and mimeticism toward the secular culture. Violence and abuse have been the breaking religious news, and the new atheists the violent breakers of religion.

In the aughts, being a Christian meant being on the defensive.

It’s undeniable that, in large part, those same dynamics still remain in play today. But the ground is beginning to shift. Everywhere there are signs of what Justin Brierly has termed a “surprising rebirth of belief in God.” For the first time in years, the number of religious “nones” in America—on a steady rise since 2007—has seen a drop. And for the first time in modern American history, young men are becoming more religious than young women.

The Bible, the Church, and the whole patrimony of the Judeo-Christian tradition are more and more on the minds and lips of cultural movers and shakers.

Maybe the most conspicuous sign of a sea change has been the uptick in conversions among prominent public figures. A Vanity Fair piece bemoaning the “Catholic right’s celebrity-conversion industrial complex” offers a roll call of recent culture-war converts to Catholicism, including Candace Owens. But it’s not only figures from the right who are converting. Recently, the philosopher Philip Goff—an open-minded champion of panpsychism—announced his own conversion to Christianity (albeit “heretical,” according to Goff).

As every attentive reader of the Gospels knows, the proper response to such conversions is not the suspicion and resentment of the prodigal’s older brother, but the joy and celebration of the prodigal’s father. Rather than look askance at new converts—even celebrities with checkered pasts, questionable opinions, and a hankering for attention as plain as the noses on their faces—we ought to run out and meet them, slaughter the fatted calf for them, and dance and sing with them, “because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Lk. 15:32). Anything less risks grieving of the Holy Spirit and underestimating the power of grace.

At the same time, Paul’s barring of new converts from prominent teaching positions—together with his warnings about false teachers, putting away the “old self,” and not twisting doctrine to suit your own desires—are a guide for both new converts and their listeners.

When an Owens draws a sharp line between the Latin Mass and “an insidious effort to modify Catholic traditions,” aligning the former with Christ’s Church and the latter with the “gates of hell,” or when a Goff describes himself as holding “very liberal views on divorce and LGBT issues” and an “unorthodox view” of as central a doctrine as the Resurrection, we see the wisdom of a Paul and Chrysostom in withdrawing for a time to be formed in the faith.

And other Christians—without ceasing to rejoice in the return of prodigal children or hope for their development—are right to exercise caution, and instead attune themselves to Scripture and Tradition.

After all, the “honeymoon phase” will pass, the initial enthusiasm of conversion will wear out—and the glories of observance and perseverance will either show forth or not. The recent sharp rise and fall of Kanye West—who went from proclaiming “Jesus is King” through his megaphone to millions, to succumbing to the world, the flesh, and the devil because Jesus didn’t “show up” for him in his trials—is an instructive case study for all who raise the banner of Christ in the culture.

Indeed, in Jesus’ parable of the sower (Mt. 13:1–23), he warns his listeners about good seed sown in three ill-fated places. The “path” is the one who “hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it”; there is no real receptivity to revelation. The “rocky ground” is “the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy … but endures only for a while”; the receptivity is there, but no longevity. And the “thorns” represent “the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing”; there’s both receptivity and longevity, but no humility.

There’s a reason Jesus warns about these three scenarios: they’re ever-present dangers in the spread of the Gospel. The new convert can either hear the word of God, or hear his own words as God’s; he can either steel himself for trials—“for gold is tested in the fire, and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation” (Sir. 2:5)—or long for the flesh pots of Egypt; and he can either humbly submit himself to the sword of the Spirit, or make of Christ and the Church his own axe to grind.

In short, he can either inhabit the new self or the same old self—either walk the way of humility and grace or the way of conceit and condemnation. These dangers, of course, remain active for all Christians, even the most seasoned spiritual master, but they’re especially turbulent for the neophyte.

The seed of the Gospel is spreading. The joy of the Church is ringing out. But the stakes are high—and time will tell where all the seed is landing.

Catholic World Report