Born again....and again...and again....this morning

Years ago Bono baffled "bounded set" evangelicals and (intentionally?)subverted expectation of the Squeakers, by proclaiming to Rolling Stone,

"Everyone should be born again............................. every day."

Years later, in an amazing unreleased song/prayer ("Mercy," uh, "released" below), he sang his heart out at outro:

"I am born again
and again
and again
and again





and again...."

David Seamands once told of being in awe at how many responded to an altar call to be "born again"...until he realized what that phrase inevitab;y means in largely Hindu India ..(:

..talk about being born again "again."

On that note, Christian Scharen comments
"I’d say that “squeakers” believe in karma, not Grace" (link)



True as it is that there is a "first and only" born again-ness that transfers us into the Kingdom..

Jesus apparently only used the phrase once (John 3) with one person (Nicodemus)....and note that he used it (strikingly) in a plural: "You all must be born again (as one).

And as one crazy dork once said:

Without a Christ-infusion of perspective and hope, or "being born again the first time," all of life feels like, even is, a downward slide; in fact it drops into hell. Yet in the Kingdom and the economy it births, we inevitably progress, spiraling up , circling up, helixing up.
link, halfway down page

Our congregation watched a video clip Sunday where a well-meaning pastor (with Squeaker leaningss...(see him also in the fifth video here) pressed Tony Jones with the pointed question: "Have you been born again?"

We loved what happened next: