What is Conversion?

In England in 1955, a prominent atheist/humanist gave a series of lectures attacking Christianity. In response, the Anglican clergyman John Betjeman, wrote the following poem that deals with the quesiton of Paul’s conversion, and conversion writ large:

Saint Paul is often criticised

By modern people who’re annoyed

At his conversion, saying Freud

Explains it all. But they omit

The really vital point of it,

Which isn’t how it was achieved,

But what it was that Paul believed.

…

What is conversion? Not at all

For me the experience of St Paul,

No blinding light, a fitful glow

Is all the light of faith I know

“Which sometimes goes completely out

And leaves me plunging round in doubt

Until I will myself to go

And worship in God’s house below –

My parish church – and even there

I find distractions everywhere.

…

What is Conversion? Turning round

To gaze upon a love profound.

For some of us see Jesus plain

And never once look back again,

And some of us have seen and known

And turned and gone away alone,

But most of us turn slow to see

The figure hanging on a tree

And stumble on and blindly grope

Upheld by intermittent hope.

God grant before we die we all

May see the light as did St Paul.