Buechner on Being “Born Again”

In his book, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary, Christian writer Frederick Buechner explains how the term “born again” now sounds in the ears of some:

You get the feeling that to [those who use the phrase ‘born again’] it means Super Christians. They are apt to have the relentless cheerfulness of car salesmen. They tend to be a little too friendly a little too soon and the women to wear more make-up than they need. You can’t imagine any of them ever having had a bad moment or a lascivious thought or use a nasty word when the bumped their head getting out of the car. They speak a great deal about “the Lord” as if they have him in their hip pocket and seem to feel that it’s no harder to figure out what he wants them to do in any given situation to look up in Fanny Farmer how to make brownies. The whole shadow side of human existence – the suffering, the doubt, the frustration, the ambiguity – appears as absent from their view of things as litter from the streets of Disneyland. To hear them speak of God, he seems about as elusive and mysterious as a Billy Graham rally at Madison Square Garden, and on their lips the Born Again experience often sounds like something we can all make happen any time we want to, like fudge, if we only follow their recipe (p. 24).

That this is the way being ‘born again’ sounds to some is unfortunate, first of all, because it is a wonderful biblical expression that we find used in several places in the New Testament, not least on the lips of Jesus himself (see John 3:1-10). But, secondly, and more importantly, this is unfortunate because being born again is a profound biblical experience – an experience that not only marks the beginning of the Christian life, but also provides a basis for wonder and worship in our lives. To be born again is the foundation of Christian living, as well as the wellspring of the Christian’s praise, as 1 Peter 1:3 reminds us: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”