RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1938, Page 14

RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

EFFECT OF WESLEY’S WORK. “What was the real nature of Wesley’s conversion? Its effect is written in the subsequent religious history of the English-speaking peoples. But what happened on May 24, 1738?” asked the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Barnes, in a recent sermon. "Conversion has been likened to the process by which under certain circumstances crystalisation rapidly occurs in a supersaturated fluid. Before conversion doubtless some process of synthesis take place below the level of consciousness; when the harmony, thus achieved, by some sudden uprush reaches consciousness there is a sense of unity and peace. The eminent American psychologist, William James, 'said-that conversion was, to him who had had experience of it, a Teal, definite and memorable event.’ Though the actual mechanism of conversion be ill-understood, it occurs, if not commonly, at any rate not rarely; and when it takes place its value and importance cannot be denied. Inquiry is often made," Dr Barnes continued, “as to whether conversion can be rightly regarded as ‘supernatural.’ I personally would decline the question. I refuse to separate things and events in the universe into the two classes of natural and supernatural, as though there were one realm subject to God’s control and another which has escaped from His direction. To me all laws of nature are laws of God, and their regularity merely expresses His uniform action. God in the slow process of evolution has made man; and all man’s endowments, including his disposition toward conversion when it exists, result from the Divine plan. Thus, even though- a complete explanation of the mechanism of conversion could be given, I should still regard it as belonging to the. Divine 'scheme. In short, conversion is, in the language of the dualism which I personally reject, both natural and supernatural.”