What does it mean to be Born Again?

Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, recently found himself in a discussion about the religious term “born-again experience”. He wasn’t expecting this, which made the video even more interesting. But first, lets discuss what the term means.

William James defined it.
In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), William James describes the born-again experience as an eight-sided block of polished onyx stone, like those made in Mexico, which suddenly flips from one face to another. It’s a spiritual awakening. It’s a psychological change, involving life’s purpose and possibilities. And it’s personal…. you feel like you have met God, and that he loves you no matter what you’ve done.

My Dad talked about it.
As a young man in Australia who had a nervous breakdown, and four young kids, my Dad needed help. He got it from Billy Graham who preached about being born-again over the radio. My Dad was born-again in a time of personal crisis. Billy Graham got the term from Jesus. So what did Jesus have to say about it? Not much (see Bible quote at the end of the blog). And it came about under cover of darkness, so it was rather secretive business.

Nicodemus tried to understand it.
In a secretive night meeting, a spiritual leader called Nicodemus talked with Jesus about spiritual things.
When Jesus said, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” Nicodemus was puzzled. “How can a man be born again when he is old?”
Jesus said. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but can’t tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

This non-answer likely confused Nicodemus even further. “How can these things be?” Inside, Nicodemus was probably thinking, “Does he mean that being born again is as unpredictable as the wind?” In some ways it is unpredictable.

Local examples of it.
In Albuquerque, Joshua’s father came to God out of a life of drugs and alcohol. Joshua’s marriage to Ayssa was on the rocks. But both of them came to God at the same time, and their marriage was restored. Joshua forgave his mother after many years of bitterness and alienation, and their relationship was restored. This story is reported elsewhere, and contains a dramatic list over several years of born-again experiences that changed lives .

Richard Dawkins ran up against it.
In a previous blog, I talked about Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was raised in Africa as a Muslim, and later immigrated to attend college in Netherlands. She eventually entered the Dutch parliament 2003 – 2006. She became an outspoken critic of some aspects of the Islam religion, which led to serious persecution. She was a well-known atheist who mocked Christianity.

In a 2015 book called Heretic, Hirsi Ali supported reformist Muslims and argued for a reformation of Islam. After marriage in 2011 to Niall Ferguson, an English historian, Hirsi Ali became a US citizen in 2013. She migrated to the US and now works as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. A fascinating list of her talks and publications can be found here.

In recent years, Hirsi Ali entered a period of depression. In an announcement that surprised the world, she declared she had become a Christian. Ricard Dawkins, who had said he was a fan of Hirsi Ali, conjectured she must mean a cultural Christian rather than a deeply-committed believer in Jesus.

In early 2024, Dawkins and Hirsi Ali met in a public conversation on the stage at the Dissident Dialogues meeting in New York. Here is the essence of the debate extracted from notes provided by Jerry Coyne.

Hirsi Ali’s confession:
In 2024, Hirsi Ali says she experienced a personal crisis, involving anxiety, depression, and self-loathing. It got to the point that she didn’t want to live any more. She started self-medicating and consulting psychiatrists, seeing these potential remedies as “evidence-based science”. But nothing worked until one therapist diagnosed her with “spiritual bankruptcy”.
So Hirsi Ali started praying because she “had absolutely nothing to lose”. She then immediately felt “connected to something higher and greater than herself.” That was Christianity, and she considered her discovery of it a “miracle.” She goes on to say that her conversion is hard to explain, but she is writing a book about it.

Dawkins responds by asserting that a “Christian has to believe in something”, and wonders what, exactly, does she believe about Christianity: did Jesus rise from the dead, was he the son of God and son of a virgin, and so on? She responds that these tenets of Christianity “make sense and are wise.” And so she no longer mocks faith, but argues that people with faith have something that atheists don’t have. (My response: yes, they have faith: belief in what consoles them regardless of its truth.) Judging by the applause, the audience seems to be sympathetic with Hirsi Ali’s view of the salubrious nature of religion.

The difference between the two is summarized in Hirsi Ali’s statement, “I choose to accept the story of Jesus Christ”, and that that belief rests on a “different way of perception.” It is “her choice”.
INSERT FROM THE GRAY NOMAD: THE “DIFFERENT WAY OF PERCEPTION” IS AN EXAMPLE OF INTUITIVE TRUTH – SEE MY LAST BLOG ON THIS SUBJECT.

Hirsi Ali, on the other hand, accepted Christianity since it helped her in a time of crisis, because she sees it as having filled the “spiritual void” that was inside her during a period of mental instability. She then became a real, believing Christian because of that, but also because she chose to believe the message of Christianity, which she sees as one of love and acceptance. And with the acceptance of that message came the acceptance of Christian tenets like the divinity and resurrection of Jesus, the virginity of Mary, and so on. (She’s not sure if there’s a soul that survives us after death.)

These are things that, she says repeatedly, she chooses to believe because they helped her personally. The empirical truth of these tenets she takes as a “different plane of perception,” which I construe as “a different way of knowing”. It is a subjective, emotional way of knowing, not all that different from the “other way of knowing” of people like the Māori in New Zealand.

Dawkins reaction to Hirsi Ali‘s confession:
You have to hand it to Richard. He pulls no punches with Hirsi Ali, saying that the whole Christian story of original sin and our salvation through belief in Jesus is “obvious nonsense” and “theological bullshit”. Christianity, he says, is obsessed with sin. But you also have to hand it to Hirsi Ali for standing by her guns (even though I disagree with her): she responds that “Christianity is obsessed with love.” (Loud applause follows… the audience are clearly [supportive]). I’m not sure, further, having watched American Christians, whether in general they’re “obsessed with love”.

Richard again says that if you’re a Christian, you have to accept its empirical assertions along with its moral messages; in his words, “You have to take the whole package”. Ayaan responds again why she believes that Jesus rose from the dead. . . “it is a matter of choice.” She compares Dawkins being moved by art and music to her being moved by religion, though I disagree with this comparison, for nobody asks whether art and music are “true”, only whether they move you or not.

Hirsi Ali apparently thinks that others should accept Christianity, too, so it isn’t simply a personal choice for her, but one that she thinks others should make to both improve their own mental health and Western society.

Dawkins clarifies that he sees the hypothesis of theism as a scientific hypothesis, and an important one, but one for which there is no evidence. Hirsi Ali says that, religion, contrary to atheism, “offers you something.” Richard says that yes, faith offers you something comforting, but “that doesn’t make it true.” Hirsi Ali then advances the recent argument that evidence for God lies in the observation that “there is something rather than nothing” in the universe. To that I’d add that that is a fallacious argument, but even if it did point to a Creator, it wouldn’t for a minute point to the Christian God.

The link to the video recording of the meeting is here (or click on the image).

Takeaways.
I found the video very compelling. One of the things Hirsi Ali said to Dawkins still
resonates in my brain: “I chose to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.”

My elderly Dad in Australia, Joshua, the young family man in Albuquerque, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali a well-known atheist, have one thing in common: when faced with a crisis, they opened up to new intuitive truth, and experienced a born-again event in the Christian tradition that brought them closer to Jesus and God, and changed their lives. Personal crisis is not the only way this happens, but it is often the way it happens.
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Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
[Gospel of John, chapter 3].