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Revision as of 11:33, 10 January 2006
- This article is about the religious concept. For other uses of the term see Born Again.
Born again is a term used primarily in the Fundamentalist and Evangelical branches of Protestant Christianity, where it is associated with salvation, conversion and spiritual rebirth. Outside of these circles, the term is often applied by extension to other phenomena, including a transcending personal experience — or the experience of being spiritually reborn as a "new" human being.
Christian concepts
To be born again in Christianity is synonymous with spiritual rebirth and, in many denominational traditions, salvation. The term is used somewhat differently in different Christian traditions.
The Christian use of the term is derived from the third chapter of the Gospel of John, where Nicodemus visits Jesus:
- Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."
- Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again."
- Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit."
- -John 3:1-5 (New Revised Standard Version)
- (Note that some translators consider "born from above" to be a better translation than "born again".)
Another important verse used to illustrate the concept is found in the fifth chapter of the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians.
- Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.
- -2 Corinthians 5:17 (Contemporary English Version)
Most Christian denominations hold that a person must be born again in some sense in order to be a Christian, and thus that all who are true Christians are in fact born again, whether they describe themselves as such or not. The Roman Catholic church, for example, considers that "Baptism is ... the sacrament by which we are born again of water and the Holy Ghost." , though the term is not frequently used by Catholics. This is also the belief held by Eastern Christianity, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism, among other Christian traditions. However, the term itself is most frequently used by Fundamentalist and Evangelical Protestants, where it is often associated with an intense conversion experience and an encounter of the individual with the power of God. Many Christians who are "born again" in this sense deny that those without such an experience are true Christians.
The idea of being born again carries with it the theological idea that a Christian is a new creation, given a fresh start by the action of God, freed from a sinful past life and able to begin a new life in relationship with Christ via the Holy Spirit. John Wesley and Christians associated with early Methodism referred to the born again experience as "the New Birth".
In recent history, born again is a term that has been associated with evangelical renewal since the late 1960's, first in the United States and then later around the world. Associated perhaps initially with Jesus People and the Christian counterculture, born again came to refer to an intense conversion experience, and was increasingly used as a term to identify devout believers. By the mid 1970's, born again Christians were increasingly referred to in the mainstream media as part of the Born Again Movement. The term became so prevalent that by the 1976 Presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter used the term to refer to his own faith experience.
See also
External links
- Sermon #45: The New Birth by John Wesley
- Sermon #18: The Marks of the New Birth by John Wesley
- The Calvinist View of the Doctrine of Regeneration or The New Birth
- What is Monergistic Regeneration? (Calvinist/Reformed)
- Rosicrucians: Regeneration by Charles Weber, 2003