Saturday, October 10, 1998

Getting religion

By Tom Kisken

Scripps Howard News Service

The kick in the pants that sent Roger Davenport over the edge, and closer to God, came in a nightmare.

He remembers climbing down a stairway that stretched for an eternity.

"It was just black and dark and I couldn't get away," said the 51-year-old Thousand Oaks, Calif., resident. "I couldn't go up. I had to go down."

Only later did he decipher it. His dream represented hell.

When his girlfriend came into the room and woke him, Davenport was crying. They talked for two hours. She told him this was an opportunity to be saved.

At about 4 a.m., still lying in bed, Davenport invited Jesus into his life.

Now a member of a United Methodist congregation, Davenport describes his awakening as becoming a Christian. But the 50 people in shorts and sandals who gathered at ocean's edge to watch friends and family be baptized favor another phrase.

They call it being "born again."

"The old life is dead, and now there's a new person," said the Rev. Ralph Rittenhouse of Camarillo Community Church. He helped 21 people into Christianity at the ocean baptism on the last weekend of August. "It's like being able to start over."

Listening to people recount their spiritual awakenings is similar to channel surfing from the sentimental endings of "Touched By An Angel" to the reach-out-and-convert-someone themes of the Trinity Broadcasting Network to the inexplicable twists of "The Twilight Zone."

Some converts point to a slap-in-the-face experience that shook them loose from their unbelieving past. Others talk as if their spiritual formation is a building pieced together one brick at a time.

The path that ended with Katie Mitchell on her knees started with self-help books on spirituality as she tried in vain to plug the void in her life.

Katie is a hair stylist. Her husband, Bob, is a salesman who deals in lighting equipment. For most of their 17 years of marriage, they went to church only when Bob's mother was in town.

They were happy enough. But something was missing.

"I don't know how you know," Katie said of the void. "It's just there."

She started quizzing her customers about churches and heard about a nice, friendly congregation -- members of Camarillo Community Church. She and Bob gave it a try and liked it.

It was at the church, during a Christmas program, when they decided to fill out a card that asked people if they wanted salvation.

A church pastor responded by coming to the Mitchell's' house early in the evening one weeknight a year ago in January. Katie sat on the hardwood floor with Bob and the pastor on a large blue sofa. All three held hands and prayed.

"You confess your sins," Katie said. "You realize you can't do it without Jesus."

Afterward, she felt relieved. The void was filled.

"We don't have to be in control anymore," she said. "God's in control."

The Mitchells, who were baptized in a large tank at the Camarillo church, joined in the August beach baptism in nearby Ventura to support other new church members. They cheered as people waded one-by-one about 30 yards into the ocean, to the Rev. Rittenhouse, who wore a T-shirt with the slogan, "We'll leave the light on for you."

After determining each person was sure of the commitment to Jesus, Rittenhouse asked them to hold their nose and plunged them backward into the water. They surfaced, grinning and dripping.

The full-body baptism is symbolic of Christ's death and resurrection, Rittenhouse said. As Jesus was trapped in his tomb, people are pushed down. As he was resurrected, they surface and breathe.

Dawn Holmes, 32, came out of the water cold and a little scared.

A single mother who was baptized with her 10-year-old daughter, Lindsay Daniels, Holmes worries about keeping her balance as a Christian and living her life the way God intends.

People perceive born-again Christianity as being free of temptation. It's not so.

"There's a chance every day to go the other way," Holmes said. "So many people think we think we're an elite group of people designated specially by God to be loved. We're not. People who are born again realize how incredibly filthy they are and that they have a chance to be completely and totally excused."

Some Christians remember their rebirth as a spiritual film strip with each step of the path changed subtly from the last. Mike Baggs' memory of the first of his two awakenings is different. It's freeze-framed.

Baggs, who is 31 and a Navy veteran of Desert Storm, used marijuana, crack cocaine and other drugs. He explored Satanism enough to earn the nickname, "Demon Child."

"I thought, 'Well, if the dark side is real, maybe the other side is real'," he said.

His doubts appeared to be answered one afternoon at a friend's house. They were high on cocaine and marijuana when Baggs heard the voice, not so much with his ears as with his soul.

"I heard, 'Come to me'."

Baggs answered by telling himself he still had wild oats to sow. The voice persisted, so strong it nullified the substances he ingested. He felt sober and awed, as if in the presence of God.

"Come to me now," the voice said.

He couldn't resist.

"I set the bong down on the coffee table and told my buddies I had to find God," Baggs said.

The pull into Christianity lasted only a matter of weeks. Then Baggs fell deeper than ever into drugs, sleeping nights at his dealer's home. He turned back to the church only after his body eroded from 175 pounds to 118. His mother and sister helped him enter a rescue mission.

This time, it took.

Baggs, who recently spent 12 days in Nicaragua working at an orphanage, has decided to become a missionary. So has his wife, Lori, and their 8-month-old daughter, Samantha. They are waiting to find out where they'll be sent.

Once a drug-dazed slacker, he has become an evangelist who tells his friends about Jesus and asks everybody if they're saved. Say no and he explains what you're missing -- peace, salvation and a ticket to heaven.

And before he lets you go, he leaves a final thought.

"It's real, dude."

(Tom Kisken writes for the Ventura County Star in California.)