Cynics Unlimited

A few weeks ago I was watching a program on kangaroos. When baby kangaroos (called “joeys”) are first born, they are tiny, almost embryonic. Their forelimbs however are powerful enough to allow them to crawl up their mother’s bellies into her pouch and onto her nipple. They remain attached to the teat for several months, maturing in the pouch as placental mammals, such as cats, dogs, horses and even humans, would in the womb. Eventually the joeys start sticking their little heads outside of the pouch. They ultimately jump out of the pouch and start hopping around on the ground, although they return to their mother for warmth and nourishment. On leaving the pouch for the first time, the young kangaroo is described as a “born again joey” because he or she is then at the same stage of development a placental mammal would be at the moment of birth.

Of course the phrase “born again joey” is a play on words on the expression “born again Christian,” which in its turn comes from Jesus’ declaration to the Jewish ruler Nicodemus in John 3:3: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In popular usage, though, the term “born again Christian” refers to a person who has explicitly stated that he or she has accepted Jesus as his or her personal saviour. While this definition is fairly simple, the “born again” phenomenon has a number of social, theological and other implications worth examining in more detail.

I first became aware of this phenomenon in my hometown of Windsor, Ontario, a small mainly working-class city on the border with the United States. When I left Windsor in the late ‘80s to go to college, the town seemed to be literally teeming with born again Christians. Two of my high school teachers, for instance, claimed to have been born again. However, the born again trend began in fact around the 1970s and continues until this day. “Born again” celebrities include Jewish-born folk singer Bob Dylan; Larry Flynt, editor of the pornographic magazine Hustler; Norma McCorvey, the woman who was “Roe” in the case legalizing abortion in the United States and who later became a pro-life activist; and actor Kirk Cameron. Perhaps the most famous “born again” is current US President George W. Bush, who said he “found Jesus” and proceeded to break his heavy drinking habit. Though born again Christians are not associated with any one particular denomination, they tend to belong to fundamentalist groups such as the Baptists, Pentecostals and Church of Christ rather than liturgical churches like the Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ones.

I was always intrigued by why people became “born again.” One recurrent pattern that struck me was that many, though not all, of them had found Jesus at a time of crisis in their lives (example: George W. Bush). In other cases, they embraced born again Christianity because they felt they were “missing” something from the religion in which they were raised, typically the Catholic or a mainline Protestant Church (a phenomenon I mentioned in my previous article on why some people were drawn to the New Age movement). For instance, a Catholic friend of mine in high school confided to me that she wasn’t “getting anything out of” her weekly Mass and thought being a born again Christian might help brighten up the spiritual lacklustre in her life. Ironically, a Catholic nun once told me that perhaps some Catholics left their Church because it no longer offered things like processions, pilgrimages, etcetera that in the past made their religious practice more meaningful.

For some individuals, getting “born again” motivates them to make changes for the better in their lives. Some have managed to break free of alcohol or drug abuse. Norma McCorvey now counsels women faced with crisis pregnancies. On the other hand, at times it appears that the born again experience is a bit like a spiritual “high” that relies a great deal on emotions and day-to-day feelings – like falling in love. And while I think spiritual intensity is positive in many ways, if one’s relationship with Jesus depends on one’s mood at the moment, there is a danger that this relationship may deteriorate once the “high” wears off. Some born again Christians may end up questioning or even renouncing their faith after the initial bliss fades. Bob Dylan, for example, returned to Judaism. Norma McCorvey eventually joined the Roman Catholic Church. Larry Flynt became an atheist and described his former conversion as a “bipolar condition” (“bipolar” refers to the disease once known as manic depression). As a practising Christian myself, I prefer a more “even-keel” relationship with Jesus to one punctuated by manic ups and downs, just as I think a good but not always exciting marriage has greater promise of lasting than a head-over-heels love affair.

Members of liturgical churches believe the “born again” experience occurs through baptism. Indeed, shortly after John 3:3 Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The sacrament of baptism as a new birth is prefigured in Ezekiel 36:25: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.” The idea of baptism as a rebirth is strengthened by the fact that both physical birth and baptism involve water: in the first case, the amniotic fluid from the womb and in the second the sprinkling by a priest or minister.

It might be interesting to contrast the liturgical view of baptism to that held by people who actually call themselves born again Christians. First of all, while the former believe in infant baptism, most of the latter do not (one “born again” girl I knew who had been baptized a Catholic as an infant was later rechristened). Most born again Christians would probably not see the baptism of a baby as proof of him or her being born again. In addition, born again Christians often speak of being saved, which they usually associate with the moment they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. However, the Apostle Peter explicitly declares that “Baptism doth save us” (1 Peter 3:21). One Lutheran Missouri Synod website adds to this distinction by explaining that “Lutherans do not direct people to subjective personal experiences (i.e. being born again as a personal experience) for assurance of salvation, but to God’s objective Word and Sacraments.” Baptism, as opposed to an emotionally-driven personal experience such as “finding Jesus” all of a sudden, provides a concrete sign of a child’s (or occasionally adult’s) membership in the family of God.

Going back to the subject at the beginning of my essay - kangaroos - I must say that I nicknamed my fourteen-month-old daughter the joey because like a baby kangaroo she is always at the breast and because I carry her in a “pouch” (Baby Bjorn). She was baptized in August of last year. She is now starting to walk around outside of the pouch. So I suppose she is both a born again Christian and a born again joey!