Born Again… and Again… and Again
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The Christmas dinner had barely settled in my stomach. The taste of cut-out cookies was still sweet on my lips. The New Year’s champagne still bubbled on my tongue when I started to see them—the signs on the windows at the gym around the corner from my house. “Get in shape for the New Year,” they read. “Shed those holiday pounds.” Even The Washington Post ran a front page story on New Year’s Day, complete with a picture of two bare feet standing on a bathroom scale.
The fitness and diet industries know—even better than the rest of us—about the small window of good intentions that opens with each new year. When, even as we throw the last piece of fudge into our mouths, we are resolving to do better in the year to come. Not just to get fit, but to cultivate a passion. To change jobs. To find or to leave a relationship.
It is fashionable these days to view New Year’s resolutions with cynicism. After all, we know very well that year after year our best intentions go unrealized. Still, I view the whole custom of New Year’s resolutions with sympathy and even with delight. They are an opportunity for us to express our often latent but ever-present desire to be changed. To be transformed. The New Year gives us a chance to assess what in our lives is in need of transformation, what needs a fresh start. And though our resolutions can sometimes be trivial, this desire for transformation is not trivial at all. Indeed, it is one of the most profound religious desires we possess. And so, as we begin the new year, let us focus our hearts on transformation.
You’ve all heard the expression “born again.” “Born again” is one way that religious people describe this experience of transformation. It is usually spoken by evangelical Christians when describing their conversion to Christ. Once rare, it is now quite popular to be born again. Politicians go out of their way to describe themselves as born again. You can even buy a bumper sticker that reads “Born Again” so you can let others know that you are in the club. Religious liberals, fed up with the theological and political baggage that often comes with the phrase came out with a competing bumper sticker. “Born right the first time,” it says.
I’m not satisfied with either of these bumper sticker theologies. As the liberals point out, implicit in the phrase born again is the old orthodox notion of the depravity of humankind. We are born into sin, goes the story, and our sinful selves must die and be reborn in Christ before we have any worth. You need to know that our religious ancestors long ago parted ways with the orthodox over this doctrine of human depravity. Human beings, they said, are created in the image of God: capable of evil as well as good, yes, but fundamentally worthy creations.
My other quarrel with being born again, though, is that it gives the mistaken impression that transformation is a one-time affair. That once you’ve come to the faith, your religious journey is over. You’re born again. You’re saved. End of story. I don’t believe this is an accurate representation of the religious life.
On the other hand, although I find it a clever comeback, I’m not fully satisfied either with “Born right the first time.” First, it suggests a common failure or naïveté on the part of religious liberals. A failure to see clearly the shadowy side of human nature. Our limitations. Our capacity for evil. And to me it also smacks of a kind of smugness—as if to say, “I’m too good to change. Maybe you need to be born again. But I got it right the first time.” The truth is I don’t know anyone who—deep down—doesn’t want to be transformed: to be changed in a profound way.
So on this issue of being born again, I come down on the side of ee cummings, who once wrote: “We can never be born enough.” We can never be born enough. The soul—the curious soul, at least, the alive soul—always longs to be made new. To be ever-more whole. To be reborn. Not because we were born wrong the first time, but because we grow and learn and change. And so my wish for us is that we be born again…and again…and again. And indeed, what is our perennial New Year’s tradition of resolution making if not a small attempt to be born again…and again…and again.
That’s what we who have chosen the liberal religious path have gotten ourselves into. Because it is not a path that offers us a once and for all answer to our questions. The motto of the great 16th century Unitarian reformer, Francis David, was “semper reformanda.” Always reforming. His motto could be ours today.
Now, people ask me, “Rob, what, exactly, do you mean when you say, ‘born again?’ Because we’re much more comfortable with the notion of spiritual growth. Isn’t that a nicer way of saying ‘born again’?” No. It’s not. Both are worthy aims, but we’re talking about a completely different order of things. When I think about spiritual growth, I think about the 3rd century Desert Father, Abbot Lot. Abbot Lot was into spiritual growth. He sought God earnestly. He did all the right things. He prayed and meditated and fasted and kept silent. But even with all that he felt he hadn’t come to know God. Something was missing for the poor monk. So he went to his elder, Abbot Joseph, for advice. That’s when Abbot Joseph stretched out his hands and made his fingers burn like lamps and said, “Why not be totally changed into fire?” Why not be totally changed into fire? It’s a worthy question.
Abbot Joseph is putting the young monk on notice: the religious life, he’s saying, isn’t finally about rituals and prayers and piety, it’s about transformation of ourselves and our world. It’s about your soul catching on fire and burning bright. It’s about giving your life over to the good. Abbot Joseph is trying to say the same thing that C.S. Lewis said about religion. Religion, he said, isn’t about making people nice. That’s just a byproduct of religion. But religion isn’t about making people nice, it’s about making people new. Not nice people, but new people. Born again…and again…and again.
The Greeks had a word for this kind of transformation. They called it metanoia, which means, “to be given a new heart.” To have someone reach in and grab hold of the old one, pull it out and put in a new heart. Not because the old heart was corrupt. Maybe it was just too tired, or had been broken and patched too many times. Maybe we just needed to trade it in for a larger model. To be given a new heart. Imagine if that were our New Year’s resolution. Not a new diet, or a new work-out regimen, or a new investment portfolio, but a new heart. This would surely be a worthy wish for the New Year.
But while we can wish, we can’t will or force the kind of transformation I speak of. We can only prepare ourselves. We can only remove barriers to its fulfillment. If being born again is indeed akin to a new heart, then what we can do is try to make sure that our bodies and our souls won’t reject the transplant. To make sure that our usual defenses are removed. So that when transformation comes, we will know it for what it is, and welcome it.
ee cummings is right: for those of us who choose, the journey of the free spirit can never be born enough. Life is an endless series of rebirths. Semper reformanda. Always forming and reforming. Always opening to greater embodiments of love. Always reaching out in a wider embrace. Always ready to receive a new heart. Always willing to be changed into fire. Born again…and again…and again.
Nationally, Rev. Hardies is a member of the advisory board of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, founded by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cornell West to counter the power of the religious right. In 2006, All Souls Church hosted the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ national conference. Rev. Hardies’ public affairs commentaries have appeared on the nationally-syndicated public radio program Interfaith Voices, and he has appeared on CNN and CBS to voice his opposition to the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment.
Among his scholarly pursuits, Rev. Hardies edited Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now (Skinner House, 2006), a collection of essays by the feminist theologian, Rebecca Parker. He is an adjunct faculty member at Wesley Theological Seminary.
Before coming to All Souls, Rev. Hardies served Unitarian Universalist congregations in Oregon and California. He is a graduate of Cornell University and Starr King School for the Ministry, the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, California.
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