Conversion & entering a tradition

Conversion is one of the great spiritual experiences — the moment when a person crosses the threshold from one world of meaning into another, accepting a new community, a new set of practices, a new name for the sacred. It can be dramatic or gradual, sought or stumbled into, welcomed by the receiving community or viewed with permanent suspicion. Every major tradition has a different theology of conversion — Islam's shahada, Christianity's baptism, Judaism's complex relationship to proselytizing, Buddhism's taking of refuge — and each reveals something important about how that tradition understands the nature of belonging.