FROM THE MANUSCRIPT
In the author’s words
As if Jesus is a label you put on. As if salvation is a social identity. As if the mystery of faith can be reduced to someone saying, “You need to accept Christ,” and expecting your entire interior world to bow without question. But when someone tells me to convert, I have to ask: Convert into what? Into Jesus? Into Christianity? Into your denomination? Into your church culture? Into your pastor’s interpretation? Into your family’s tradition? Into your fear of hell? Into your version of heaven? Into your inherited doctrine? Into your emotional need to believe that everyone outside your religious identity is lost? Into what? Because people use the word “convert” as if it is pure, but many times they are not asking you to convert into truth. They are asking you to convert into their understanding of truth. They are asking you to enter the world they inherited and call it God. That is not the same thing. A person can say “Jesus” and still not understand Jesus. A person can say “Bible” and still not understand scripture.
The God They Inherited, manuscript p. 30. Transcribed from the supplied manuscript; line breaks normalized.
The definition above is an editorial summary of this chapter, not a separately named theory or a claim of scientific proof.