Choosing to believe - the changing nature of Christian conversion experience

In the pre-modern past, the usual way to become a Christian was unconsciously, by assimilation - through the normal processes of 'socialization'.  

This is nowadays possible only to children and with a particular combination of devout family and some isolation from the anti-Christian cultural mainstream. 

But this kind of Christianity usually washes-out at adolescence, because the adolescent innately becomes detached from socialization, become self-aware, and must choose. But what choice?

As of 2021; apostasy is rewarded in the short-term, and the socialized Christian is vulnerable because his Christian belief has never been an active choice and is bound-up with the unconscious passivity of childhood. His Christian beliefs and justifications are necessarily those of childhood, and unexamined.

Broadly speaking, a reliance upon socialized Christianity is no longer a viable option in the current world; because the secular world is anti-Christian, increasingly dominant, and increasingly aggressive.

It has become almost impossible to create a sufficiently Christian sub-culture that is sufficiently isolated; and sooner or later - adolescence, college, the workplace - the passive and unconscious Christian will be put in a position of absorbing a very different and opposed ideology, and will be short-term rewarded for doing so; because it is more socially functional.   

In a nutshell; when Christianity has been unconscious and passive - it naturally assimilates conscious and active evil; when that evil is prevalent  and dominant - as now.  

In more recent decades; the conversion experience has been reported in terms of an individual being suddenly overwhelmed by conviction of the truth of Christianity; and by having accepted Jesus as Lord. 

This mode of conversion seems to have faded greatly in both frequency and strength - and the results seem to be insufficiently robust in face of the continual and escalating pressure from mainstream culture.

I think this is because the sudden conversion - while ending with a conscious choice to choose Jesus, is still rooted in passivity. It is based upon a primarily receptive state, in which the convert has first been overwhelmed by the divine - before he chooses whether or not to accept this experience as life-changing. 

It seems that very large numbers of such Christians have - often un-consciously - since early 2020 become primarily secular (and Leftist) in their belief and orientation; and have taken the side of the anti-Christian, indeed demonic, global Establishment. 

That is, they have joined the side of Satan in the spiritual war. 

In the context of 2021 - at least in The West; the Christian needs to withstand continual and escalating hostility from multiple directions (including most self-identified Christian churches). 

The evil of secular culture is both implicit (covert, implied), and explicit; and explicit evil usually works by subversion, by discrediting, by attacking all types of Christian assumption. 

My feelings is that the modern Christian needs therefore to be conscious and active to an unprecedented degree. He cannot depend on an unconscious influences - because these nearly-all oppose Christianity; modern culture is pervasive, and is against Christianity, and indeed purposively evil. 

A modern person is far more likely to be 'overwhelmed' by Leftism (which is, now, an instrument of purposive evil) than by Christianity. 

The 2021 Christian cannot, in other words, depend on anything external. More-and-more of the external is in the hands of the Enemy - and this external world is more and more directed against Christianity. 

The motivations of the Christian need to be internal; the Christian needs to be as conscious as possible, and to have made an individual and active choice for all essential aspects of his faith. 

The Christian who retains real faith in 2021 will probably therefore have a faith, and a conversion-experience, of a very different kind than a convert from even a few decades ago.  

A 2021-Christian needs to be able to sustain his faith from within and consciously, and to acknowledge that his faith is his own continuing choice. 

Such a Christian is indomitable - even in 2021; so long as he continues to wish primarily for Resurrection into Heaven, and will follow Jesus.   

But the path to this kind of Christianity - the path to conversion - is extremely different from those of the past. Each individual must take full responsibility for his own spiritual goals and knowledge. 

He needs to find out what he most wants - not just from mortal life, but eternally; and needs to investigate Christianity actively, and guided by intuition.

And the anticipated end-point of conversion is a conscious and personal choice. 

Because; becoming a Christian is a beginning - not the end.