The Conversion of Dilbert

When famous American cartoonist Scott Adams (creator of the satirical comic strip Dilbert) announced he was considering Christianity, churchgoers took to social media to either encourage or, oddly enough, criticize him.

Why would Christians critique him? For more than one reason. A handful of people suggested that his conversion was suspect because he had terminal cancer. “It’s a deathbed conversion; he’s essentially cramming for finals. It’s fear,” they said, “not faith.” Others criticized his stated desire to live a good life, as if he were trying to earn his salvation. (This one makes no sense; his rapidly deteriorating health meant that he wouldn’t have time to rack up enough points to cross the line into heaven, even if such a thing were possible.)

The biggest critique, however? Mr. Adams’ thinking process paralleled Pascal’s wager. The seventeenth-century French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal made a logical case for accepting Christ: If God is real, then you have everything to lose by refusing Christ, and everything to gain by accepting Him. If God is not real, on the other hand, you have lost nothing by accepting Christ, and nothing by refusing Him, either. Therefore the only logical choice is to accept Christ. Mr. Adams was thinking along the same lines: If the Bible is true, he had everything to gain by accepting it, and everything to lose if he rejected it.

Scott Adams considered conversion because it seemed sensible to him: it seemed like the most reasonable option. But if you sort through social media posts, you’ll find many people—in addition to the usual trolls—suggesting that his process wasn’t emotional enough. In order to come to Christ, some people appear to believe, you have to experience an overpowering road-to-Damascus event: there’d better be tears and deep emotion.

It’s a decidedly modern—and Western—way of thinking about conversion. The truth is that Mr. Adams wouldn’t have been the slightest bit interested if the Holy Spirit wasn’t prompting him. Paul makes it crystal clear that spiritual things cannot be grasped by the carnal heart:

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

It doesn’t matter what life event prompted him to start listening to the Spirit; the fact is that he wouldn’t consider conversion at all if it wasn’t the work of the Spirit. That doesn’t guarantee that he’ll make the right choice or possess correct theology on his way into faith—after all, if an angel were to give you a Bible study on what you still don’t really understand, it would be rather lengthy. No matter how long you’ve been in the church, you’re still wrong about far more than you suspect.

Not every convert comes forward weeping in an altar call; in fact, altar calls are a relatively modern invention. Charles Finney essentially introduced them to public evangelism in the nineteenth century when he established an “anxious bench” or “mourner’s bench” at the front of his auditorium, a place where repentant sinners could pray and receive counseling. He didn’t invent it, but he certainly popularized it. That eventually blossomed into the walk-to-the-front calls that we use today. I’m not suggesting that it’s not important; the altar call gives people the opportunity to act on the conviction that the Spirit has generated in their hearts. It’s a response mechanism, and it works quite well.

But experienced evangelists will tell you that not all converts come forward publicly; not even close. Many conversion experiences happen calmly, in the privacy of the home. No two people come to Christ precisely the same way. If logic brought you to the foot of the cross, you’re still at the foot of the cross. You are still accepting the terms of the covenant of grace.

In fact, Western Christianity could afford to bring a little more logic to the process so that people understand the contract they’re signing. This is one of the key advantages of the way Seventh-day Adventists conduct public evangelistic meetings; instead of one or two nights, we take the time to instruct people and make disciples, the way Jesus prescribed in the commission:

Reason brings us to the door of conversion; faith pushes it open and dares to act on it.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19, 20). Amen.

You’ll notice there’s a “teaching sandwich” around the baptisms in that command. First you make disciples, then you baptize, and you teach converts to observe Christ’s teachings. While it’s true that some evangelists have preached Christless doctrine over the years, it’s hardly the case for the vast majority of them today. Bible doctrine is entirely a description of Christ and the terms of our relationship to Him, regardless of the topic. The Sabbath is Christ, the state of the dead is Christ, health is Christ, and so on.

While many—maybe even most—conversion experiences are deeply emotional, salvation does not require an outward display of emotion in order to convince other believers that the conversion is genuine. You are, after all, not converting for the sake of other people, but for Christ. Perhaps Charles Spurgeon said it best when he described evidence of conversion:

“ ‘Behold, he prayeth’ is a surer witness of a man’s conversion than, ‘Behold, he singeth,’ or, ‘Behold, he readeth the Scripture,’ or, ‘Behold, he preacheth.’ These things may be admirably done by men who are not regenerate; but if, in God’s sense of the term, a man really prays, we may know of a surety that he has passed from death unto life. True prayer is a sure evidence of spiritual quickening: the Holy Ghost has put spiritual life into the heart of the man who prays; for prayer is the breath of heavenly life.”[1]

Ellen White makes the following statements:

“Christ is the source of every right impulse. He is the only one that can implant in the heart enmity against sin. Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts.”[2]

“Feeling is not faith; the two are distinct. Faith is ours to exercise, but joyful feeling and the blessing are God’s to give. The grace of God comes to the soul through the channel of living faith, and that faith it is in our power to exercise. True faith lays hold of and claims the promised blessing before it is realized and felt.”[3]

“We are not to encourage a spirit of enthusiasm that brings zeal for a while, but soon fades away, leaving discouragement and depression. We need the bread of life that comes down from heaven to give life to the soul. Study the Word of God. Do not be controlled by feeling. All who labor in the vineyard of the Lord must learn that feeling is not faith. To be always in a state of elevation is not required. But it is required that we have firm faith in the Word of God as the flesh and blood of Christ.”[4]

Far too often we seem to believe that others must have exactly the same experience we did before we accept their testimony. But take it from an introverted evangelist who finds the average “praise time” service in church far too emotional—from a man raised among Dutch immigrants who seldom use the phrase “I love you” freely—no two people come to Christ in precisely the same way. Some people are quiet and contemplative—and their decision for Christ gels very nicely because of it.

If logic brings you to the foot of the cross, that’s because the divine Logos—the One John identifies as the overarching principle that holds the cosmos together—brought you there. It is not by accident that he chose that term; there were early heretics, proto-Gnostics who were attempting to Hellenize the Christian faith and reduce the status of Christ to something other than full deity. John eviscerated their arguments by reminding the church that Jesus is the logical principle that holds all together.

Perhaps part of the reason we have quietly pushed reason aside in modern Christianity is the way it has failed us over the past thousand years. When Thomas Aquinas borrowed Aristotle’s proofs for the existence of God and then added the design argument as his own contribution, he inadvertently set the table for a philosophical disaster. When unaided human reason alone could not get us all the way to God, we began to despair of God’s existence altogether. Post-modernism is, in part, a tragic byproduct of that millennium-long misunderstanding.

But that does not mean that reason is not involved or that reason is to be spurned. Perhaps it’s like a game of volleyball: reason sets the ball up by the net, and faith spikes it over. Reason brings us to the door of conversion; faith pushes it open and dares to act on it.

Ellen White reminds us that you do not even have to repent of your sins in order to begin the journey:

“Just here is a point on which many may err, and hence they fail of receiving the help that Christ desires to give them. They think that they cannot come to Christ unless they first repent, and that repentance prepares for the forgiveness of their sins. It is true that repentance does precede the forgiveness of sins; for it is only the broken and contrite heart that will feel the need of a Saviour. But must the sinner wait till he has repented before he can come to Jesus? Is repentance to be made an obstacle between the sinner and the Saviour?”[5]

“Christ is the source of every right impulse. He is the only one that can implant in the heart enmity against sin. Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is an evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts.”[6]

Those who knew Mr. Adams tell us he not only arrived at the right door; he opened it.

[1] https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/behold-he-prayeth/#flipbook/

[2] Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1956), p. 26.

[3] Ellen G. White, Early Writings (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1882, 1945), p. 72.

[4] Ellen G. White letter 17, 1902, in Ellen G. White Letters and Manuscripts: vol. 17, p. 18..

[5] E. G. White, Steps to Christ, p. 26.

[6] Ibid.