A Conversion Story

Stunning article in CT called "My Train Wreck Conversion" the story of one Rosaria Champaign Butterfield.

The header for the article reads, "As a leftist lesbian professor, I despised Christians. Then I somehow became one." 

What was her worldview?  "As a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical, I cared about morality, justice, and compassion. Fervent for the worldviews of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin, I strove to stand with the disempowered. I valued morality. And I probably could have stomached Jesus and his band of warriors if it weren't for how other cultural forces buttressed the Christian Right."  More

After writing an article on the Christian Right that led to some rather pointed responses from readers, a particular letter from a local pastor gently asked some tough questions started her down an unexpected path.  She writes, "As a postmodern intellectual, I operated from a historical materialist worldview, but Christianity is a supernatural worldview. Ken's letter punctured the integrity of my research project without him knowing it."

I am struck that the simple love that pastor Ken Smith of Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church showed her that allowed her to think, but it seems Smith did ask her some hard questions about her thought processes and epistemology.

But I am more struck with the final, huge step she took.

"One Lord's Day, Ken preached on John 7:17: "If anyone wills to do [God's] will, he shall know concerning the doctrine" (NKJV). This verse exposed the quicksand in which my feet were stuck. I was a thinker. I was paid to read books and write about them. I expected that in all areas of life, understanding came before obedience. And I wanted God to show me, on my terms, why homosexuality was a sin. I wanted to be the judge, not one being judged.

"But the verse promised understanding after obedience."

That is a reality I have had to come face to face with as well.  As much as I believe Christianity is true, evidence alone, reason alone, logic alone can never lead to a spiritual awakening.  No man comes to the Father unless the Spirit draws him.

Which is not to say Christianity is not true, not rational, not supported by evidence - it just means we cannot see the evidence until our eyes are opened.  

We are told at the end of the article that Rosaria Champaign Butterfield now lives "with her family" in Durham, North Carolina, "where her husband" pastors the First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham.

I have no doubt she faces a bit of scorn from those who are now as she once was.  I pray for her, and for her detractors.   And I pray I can have more of the grace and patience Ken Smith had for her as I joust with postmodern intellectuals with leftward leanings.