Born Again?? - Explain Please

NeilJ

Hi all,
Was just wondering if someone could explain exactly what the term Born Again Christain means? It's a term I've heard for many years but no-one's actually told me exactly what it is. So how do you become Born Again and in what ways does a Born Again differ from other types of Christain like Catholics or Prostestants? Any clarity on this would be very grateful.

Thanks,
Neil

Poz3D

Maybe this link will be of help. I just found it in Wikipedia. There's hardly any topic Wikipedia doesn't cover

Sorry I can't give you any actual answers. I don't know anything about Born Again Christians either.

Excelsior

Hey Neil,

Born again is a term used by Christians of all denominations (but not all Christians use the term!) to describe the process of coming to accept the claims of Jesus independent of the religious background you were reared in.

The term comes from the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John where Jesus tells an interested Rabbi called Nicodemus that to be enjoy eternal life you must be born again for a second time (spiritually through the Holy Spirit instead of through the waters of a physical birth). As such, a Catholic, Protestant or Pentecostal Christian could all describe themselves as born again.

Born-again is sometimes very incorrectly used as a different word for "evangelical". Evangelical Christianity is an approach to Christianity (that again is not tied to a denomination or tradition) that places emphasis on studying the Bible for one's self and that tries to bring the churches back to the kind of atmosphere they would have had in the earliest days of Christianity. Some Catholic Priests in Ireland used to rant against the "born-agains" and warn that they were "a cult", not realising that unless they were born again they had wasted their lives as priests.

Does this answer your questions?

Bottle_of_Smoke

Excelsior wrote:

Some Catholic Priests in Ireland used to rant against the "born-agains" and warn that they were "a cult", not realising that unless they were born again they had wasted their lives as priests.

Does this answer your questions?

Yeah *they're* the ones wasting their lives...... Read this and this.

It's just a very large cult.

Excelsior

Christianity is "just a very large cult" is an unsupported statement that is nothing more than an opinion.

"Born again", properly used, refers to Christians of any denomination who come to Christianity of their own concious will.

Simi

I believe the term born again christian is used to describe some1 who messes up they're mind on mushies/acid/lsd etc. and is so messed up they start seeing jesus.

Manach

Well, the humourous side of that would be drink Commericals with the tag line "Meet Jesus - drink <insert beer brand>".

What I find interesting about the American born-again evalangists is how they have organised themselves into faith based pressure groups. For instance Rev. Jerry Falwell organised the "Moral Majority" as a group to lobby for their agenda, pro-life, pro-Israel etc. This played a part in the election of George Bush, by his co-oping alot of their polices.

robindch

> humourous side of that would be drink Commericals with
> the tag line "Meet Jesus - drink <insert beer brand>".

Not far from the truth. See this article which has the catholic church in the UK printing recruitment ads on beer mats. I trust they know their market!

angeldelight

My 9 year old cousin who lives in London and goes to a multi-denominational school was talking to his freind in the car one day about religion and his friend who was 8 said his mum was a born again christian, so my cousin asked what it meant and his friend said ummmm i suppose it means my mum is more addicted to God than yours is. I just thought it was very innocent

NeilJ

Thanks, this is explaining a lot. But just to clarify a point , when someone becomes Born Again, do they still continue to practise their original denomination of Christainity i.e. Catholic, Protestant etc? Or do they become more Evangelical and base their form of Christain worship on their own personal study of the bible? I ask because one of my friends in college had a Born Again flatmate and when asked what she thought of the new Pope her response was that she didn't care as it didn't effect her. Now I'm fairly sure her family are Catholic so that's why I was wondering, do Born Agains stop practising the denomintation of Christainity they were raised in?

Neil

fade2black

I think they don't like to be tied down to a particular denomination...they prefer instead to be just called christians. It's an interesting question though and there maybe different answers from different people. The only born agains that I knew were from my ex and her family. They were born again christians but a lot of their primary beliefs were protestant based i.e. they didn't agree with the emphasis that catholics put in Mary, they don't like any kind of symbols or ya know...praying to stautues etc...They were quite fundamental at the same time...in my opinion they were just mental but there ya go...They took everything in the bible literally i.e. Noah did indeed build an ark and take two of every species....There really was an Adam and Eve...I could go on...they also think gays will go to hell and actually you and I will too because, well, we're not born again christians. Hmmmm, what else....evolution is a pile of crap...I could probably go on and on...I hope something up there answered one of your questions.

Excelsior

Previous poster seems to be really good at managing to stay friends with ex's.

The process of being "born again" involves a conscious decision. As a result of this, often it involves altering the Christian tradition one was raised in. Those who call themselves "born-again" almost certainly operate within an evangelical Protestant tradition (either independent churches, pentecostal churches or the mainline Protestant churches) but a proper usage of the term would apply to every Christian regardless of denomination who believes and has reasons for it.

NeilJ

Excelsior wrote:

Those who call themselves "born-again" almost certainly operate within an evangelical Protestant tradition

So would it be fair to say that Born Agains work off the assumption that the Bible should be taken literally?

Neil

robindch

> do Born Agains stop practising the denomintation of
> Christainity they were raised in?

I would imagine that most do -- there's not much point in declaring enthusiastically that you've been 'born again', only to go back to doing what you were doing originally. Defeats the purpose of a new-found belief!

> So would it be fair to say that Born Agains work off
> the assumption that the Bible should be taken literally?

While some do and some don't, I'd expect that the majority probably do. Although, in fact, it's like any area of an belief system like christianity, where you're allowed to assert that something is true (like the bible) simply because you think that it's true, or you want it to be true.

Excelsior

There are a range of responses to the question of biblical inerrancy which range from the fundamentalist literalist view that is loudest and gets most coverage to the view that the Bible was divinely inspired as originally given and is true, but not always literally, which is the majority viewpoint (most certainly in Ireland).

I am talking here in the more rigourous use of the term born again. Amongst people who proudly declare themselves "BORN AGAIN" and ask whether you've done got yourself saved yet, literacy tends to be the norm.

robindch

> Amongst people who proudly declare themselves "BORN AGAIN"
> and ask whether you've done got yourself saved yet, literacy
> tends to be the norm.

hmm... I would have said 'illiteracy', but that's just me

Excelsior

I knew you were joking without recourse to a smiley Robin, since after all, you only believe things that have been proven empirically.

robindch

> you only believe things that have been proven empirically.

Not at all. I detest the use of the word 'prove' outside the closed world of maths, the only place where the word does have meaning. 'Demonstrated to have some worth' would perhaps be closer to the gist of it. If you're interested, then do drop by the skeptics forum if you wish; my own definition of skepticism lives here and you're more than welcome to ask any questions you might have about it.

Capt'n Midnight

People with two navels.

The whole born again / I've seen the light sounds, to me anyway, a bit like the whole "you got to sin to be saved" thing and not very far from the medival thing of not getting baptised till you were on your death bed. In both cases you could do cleansed of anything and judging by some of them the more you had sinned earlier the better your conversion was.

Is there any inverse correlation between it and confession ?

Ania

"Born- again christians" is a term exclusively Protestants use, no Catholics (some of you have it wong!).
Originally it comes from Martin Luther, the founder of the "new" Christian religion, i.e. Protestant church.
George W. Bush uses these words very often.

Though it's contradictory: Christians usually don't believe in rebirth (on earth).

neuro-praxis

Ania, it comes from the book of John, chapter 3, in the bible.

Not from anywhere else.

And it is also the Roman Catholic belief that one must be born again. It is simply the phrase "born-again Christian" that has stigma, not what it actually means.

Excelsior

I have to re-emphasise NP's points here on Ania's claim that Catholics don't use the phrase.

It is an explicit description of what it means to be a Christian from the mouth of Christ. It applies to all Christians. Luther may have used it as a key text for his reformation but so have pretty much all the reformers, including Catholic reform movements.

Christians believe in spiritual rebirth in this life as the gateway to resurrection after this life. This spiritual rebirth is the being born again. The Biblical Basis can be found here

Bottle_of_Smoke

Excelsior wrote:

Christianity is "just a very large cult" is an unsupported statement that is nothing more than an opinion.

"Born again", properly used, refers to Christians of any denomination who come to Christianity of their own concious will.

Well "hoover" properly used refers to a guy who invented the vaccuum cleaner. You know what we're referring to here!

And I didn't say Christianity was a cult, what I meant by the cult reference was the two links I posted. Read the Saved/Unsaved lists on the first link and you'll clearly see they have cult tactics.

NeilJ wrote:

Thanks, this is explaining a lot. But just to clarify a point , when someone becomes Born Again, do they still continue to practise their original denomination of Christainity i.e. Catholic, Protestant etc?

I don't think so, from reading this thread it might be possible but anyone I know who's a BAC tell me it's not a religion its their "personal relationship with Jesus". I'd say a lot of things in catholicism\most religions might conflict with their ideas so basically those other religions are kind of obselete to them.

By the by, are you Neil from the UCD bookshop?

Excelsior

But BoS, all Christian traditions including Roman Catholicism are effectively based on "a personal relationship with Jesus", but that is just a particularly evangelical articulation of the dynamic that defines a Christian life.

Jesus was and is a person. One relates to him. Whether you use pietistic language of pilgrimage or cheesey, hands-in-the-aire happy clappy language, it still involves responding in faith to the claims surrounding the man, Jesus of Nazareth.

My point is that the BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS (caps are used there since they seem to resort to them at the drop of a hat ) are appropriating a term that should be applied to all believers.

NeilJ

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

By the by, are you Neil from the UCD bookshop?

Damn I've been had!!!!!

Yeah that's me. Why do you ask?

Neil

Puck

Oh this is Christian jargon. As a beginner Christian I'm hearing jargon everywhere. I guess religion and religious feelings can be hard to describe, so when someone sums something up nicely in a phrase everyone else starts using it to describe how they feel and it becomes common.

Basically, I'm "born again" because I went into my room alone one night and tried to get re-aquanted with a God I'd been ignoring for a long time. I started a new life as a Christian and asked God to help me with this.

I "have a relationship with Jesus" because I believe He's alive and that God is everywhere and knows me and loves me and I want to know Him too. I talk to him (prayer) and read God's word (The Bible).

Now these phrases might be handy for Christians to describe themselves and their feelings to each other but the way they're bandied about all the time can be a bit off-putting for newbies like me.

If you were to ask me my religion I'd say I was a Christian. I wouldn't say something like "Oh glory be! I have been born again and save-ed by the bless-ed love of our Lord Jesus Christ!". Which technically is true but... I don't talk like that and I'm not going to turn into Ned Flanders just because I've become a Christian.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Excelsior wrote:

But BoS, all Christian traditions including Roman Catholicism are effectively based on "a personal relationship with Jesus", but that is just a particularly evangelical articulation of the dynamic that defines a Christian life.

Jesus was and is a person. One relates to him. Whether you use pietistic language of pilgrimage or cheesey, hands-in-the-aire happy clappy language, it still involves responding in faith to the claims surrounding the man, Jesus of Nazareth.

My point is that the BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS (caps are used there since they seem to resort to them at the drop of a hat ) are appropriating a term that should be applied to all believers.

I know that, my point is that I'd see the BAC moment as a large cult, not Christianity as a whole, because of the way BACs try to recruit people.

Thats what we were talking about and I thought your reply of defining born-agains was completely irrelevent since it was clear who we were talking about.

NeilJ wrote:

Yeah that's me. Why do you ask?

Rory from the Science block.

NeilJ

Ahhh. Hi Rory how are things? Tis always nice to bump into someone online

Neil