“I believe in conversion”
Cathedral Newsletter - 2 October 2025
Archbishop Kanishka Raffel
For those who missed it, while our Newsletter was 'off the air', here are the opening words of our Archbishop, Kanishka Raffel, in his Presidential Address at the recent Synod of the Diocese of Sydney...
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I believe in conversion because the first recorded words of Jesus’ public ministry are words that call on his hearers to be converted. Mark records:
“… Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, saying , “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:14)
For the first time in Mark’s narrative Jesus speaks. ‘Repent and believe the gospel.’
‘Gospel’ was not a religious word. It was an ordinary word for good news, but not for ordinary news. It was a word for extraordinary news, news of glad tidings or momentous occasions; news of kings being born or being crowned or being victorious. Or being present. ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand. ’ Because Jesus was at hand, the long-awaited time is fulfilled. The King is here. Good news.
World-changing, life-transforming, epoch-shaping news. Gospel. Something has happened that will change your life forever.
What God has done for us – Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin and he rose again in victory to give us new life that lasts forever. The Lord gave his life as Saviour, our Saviour rose as Lord of life, and Judge of all. He has dealt with our sin, and now risen from the dead, ascended on high, he has sent the Spirit who transforms our lives.
The Christian emotion is joy, because we have good news to celebrate, not good advice to put into practice. The loneliness of self-centeredness, the delusion of self-glorification, the burden of self-justification – are gone. The goading of envy, the captivity of anxiety, the encroach of meaninglessness – they’re despatched. We’re free from our own wretched obsession with ourselves. Religion is advice – here’s how you can get things into shape. But gospel is good news. Here’s what God has done for you – repent and believe the gospel! Repent and believe – turn and trust.
They are two sides of the one coin. Together repentance and faith are what we usually call conversion. They are the human response to what God has done in the gospel of his Son. But they are also God’s work in us, in response to God’s work for us.
Faith is trust, and Christian faith is trust in Jesus. Jesus is presented to us in his gospel – so faith in Jesus is the same as faith in his gospel. He is the object of our faith, and we come to know him in his gospel.
“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9), says the apostle Paul.
Not merely intellectual assent to certain propositions, but a clinging to Christ with heart and mind and will, a surrender and embrace of all that he is.
Faith is not a work of humans but of God, uniting people to Christ by Word and Spirit. ‘For by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast’ (Ephesians 2:8-9). The grace that saves precedes the faith that clings to Christ. Calvin said, ‘faith is the principal work of the Holy Spirit’.
Repentance is that decisive and ongoing ‘about face’ , as we daily turn from sin and turn to the Lord. “They tell how you turned from idols to serve the living and true God” Paul says of the Thessalonians (1 Thess 1:9-10).
Like the faith that saves, repentance too is the work of God. God commands all people everywhere to repent, Paul tells the Athenians (Acts 17:30-31), but God also grants repentance, as the Jerusalem elders acknowledge when they learn of the conversion of Cornelius, ‘God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life’ (Acts 11:18).
Conversion is God’s work - to bring forth in people the response that the gospel demands. Conversion is God’s work – suddenly, like Saul on the road to Damascus; gradually, like Timothy at his grandmother’s knee; alongside a river, where God opened Lydia’s heart; in a crisis as when God saved the Philippian gaoler. We preach not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord – and as we do, God gives new birth and brings forth faith and repentance by his Word and Spirit, in accordance with his sovereign and perfect will, making those who were dead in sin alive in Christ.
Kanishka also went on to say "I believe in conversion because I was converted!" and, "I believe in conversion because Sydney needs to be converted.". He then spoke of a 5 year mission focus, undergirded by prayer, with an emphasis on youth, and lots of encouraging stories about collaboration in evangelism, and making our buildings across the Diocese serve the mission, especially in new housing areas. There were other matters also, such as how the new conversion practices ban appears to impinge improperly on people's personal rights to pray, and an update on indigenous ministry.