Controversy FAQ Interview Question 8

How is it that non-Christians can be said to be transformed? What room does this leave for the Holy Spirit in an individual's transformation?

Consider this: Paul was out killing Christians and Jesus turned him around; he was transformed, no one could argue with that. He became about as big a believer in Jesus as there could ever be. He was transformed by the Holy Spirit on a road, and there was no Church, no Bible being used, no minister, and no formula. God just intervened in his life and transformed it. Isn't this how unbelievers are met, whether on a Damascus road, or on a subway, or in a training?

This question brings up a larger issue, which is the attitude, as revealed in this question, that Christian religion has become a kind of self-appointed gatekeeper of the Holy Spirit. This view, ironically, is essentially that we Christians own the One who has come to save us and that we know exactly where, when, and how he can show up. This question seems to presuppose that the questioner has clearly defined all aspects of how the Holy Spirit moves and now is simply looking to see if our answer matches the "perfect wisdom criteria" they have received from on high. It presupposes a significant level of arrogance, as if we somehow know how the Holy Spirit's going to work and that there's no way He could be working in the life of someone who has yet to believe or that He's limited in how he can interact with them because of that. If that were true, wouldn't there be no hope for anyone? How does anyone ever come to God if a precursor is their already having the Holy Spirit? It's a non-sensical question. How in the world am I ever going to come to God unless I first have an opportunity to have an experience with him? In that sense, our work is highly evangelical, in that it presents people with an opportunity to embrace the reality of who Jesus is. Hundreds of people have come to the Lord in our trainings.

We believe and attest that, in our work, apart from the Holy Spirit, nothing would get done. If there's any fruit from our actions, it's because of the Holy Spirit, not because of anything anybody else did. If somebody leaves an ACCD training and goes back to their wife or husband and repents and transforms their relationship with another or they reach out to an unreconciled party and there's a reconciliation, that comes from God. God showed up there, and we believe that God's principles show up in the lives of those who believe and also have yet-to-believe.

We believe that if we give ourselves openly and as honestly as we're asking others to give, because such an action requires faith in God and in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit will be faithful. Even in the face of our errors--our organization's ignorance, mistakes, and errors--God will move, because we're moving in faith that He'll meet us in it. And we'll be corrected and shifted and adjusted along the way.

One of the things that has tended to generate suspicion about our trainings is the background assumption that what produces transformation in people's lives is dogma or information. Our presupposition is that what produces transformation is relationship. And so, to a dogmatist, when we sit down with a homosexual or somebody that's struggling with homosexuality or somebody who's an atheist or a staunch whatever-they-may-be, outside the current cultural Christian definition of what it is to be Christian, then our loving them and standing with them (not trying to force some dogmatic axiom down their throat, but engaging them and staying in a relationship with them) feels like "New Age" or creates suspicion. Dogmatists sometimes assume that we are condoning what people struggle with, whereas we are actually committed to being with people in their struggle and loving them through it, which has nothing to do with condoning their behavior or abandoning our convictions. We believe this is what Jesus did. We understand that it can probably be pretty threatening that we don't distance ourselves from what the Church traditionally has distanced itself from in society for over the last thousand years or so, or more, but we believe that reaching people means being willing to stand with people in their struggle even if that gets interpreted (or mis-interpreted, in our opinion) as condoning their behavior or compromising the gospel.

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