Even within a modern day Laestadian church service, I think the purpose behind some of the harsh preaching is to generate a crisis emotional state leaving one open to conversion to a deeper level of faith.
Of course, conversion is not the sole property of Laestadianism, or even conservative/evangelical Christianity. I recently read a fascinating article about Sara Miles that illustrates that even left-leaning liberals have conversion experiences:
What makes God laugh? According to a much-quoted saying, it's people making plans.
God probably had a few good giggles over Sara Miles' conversion. The San Francisco writer and former restaurant cook was a happy atheist, a probing journalist who covered wars and revolutions in Central America -- and a woman married to another woman. She certainly didn't intend to become a Christian or -- as she describes it -- "a religious nut." But early one morning she ambled into St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church on Potrero Hill, took Communion and her life changed. That day Miles found both God and her life's mission: feeding the hungry.
I can post about my own experiences in more detail later if anyone is interested, but for now I'll say that I had a typical conversion experience as a teenager in the ALC at a youth rally --which didn't "take." I was flying high on the emotions of it all for a few days. After the experience wore off I became slowly disillusioned over a period of many years. I was an atheist for a time (having left Laestadianism much earlier) before I had a second conversion experience that propelled me along a left-liberal "reconstructionist" (for lack of a better term) version of the faith.
I'm interested in hearing from others on this site about their own experiences with conversion. Did you have one? Did it make a difference in how you saw Laestadianism?
-ttg
