Naive Conversion.

I once spoke to a Pentecostal woman about her faith.
She said that she had experienced a naive conversion.

I understood what she meant.

A naive conversion is when you do what you know your superiors want you to do.
Thus you become the golden-haired boy, the apple of her eye, the favorite, the proselyte.

Whilst you are merely doing what you intuitively understand your superiors want you to do you have no real understanding of your faith.  You are merely a puppet or a robot, repeating things by rote.

Inmost cases you will be obeying your superiors' fear :
Their fear of God.  Their fear of Satan.  Their fear of socialism.  Their fear of poverty.  Their fear of being wrong.  Their fear of ostracism.  Their fear of women.  Their fear of homosexuals.  Their fear of liberalism.  Their fear of crime.  Their fear of human nature.  Their fear of sex.  Their fear of evil.  Their fear of hell.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whosoever fears has not reached perfection in love."  1 John 4:18 (NRSV)

So seek to understand and overcome your fears, even surpassing the fearful faith of your superiors.

Jesus said, ""For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'"  Matthew 5;20 (NRSV)


(Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.)