convicted by the holy spirit: the rhetoric of fundamental Baptist conversion

Born‐again Christian belief follows conversion, an inner transformation that quickens the supernatural imagination. Among fundamental Baptists, rhetoric, not ritual, is the primary vehicle of conversion. Witnesses “speak the gospel,” the ramifying discourse and narrative of Christ. Listeners “come under conviction” as they appropriate the gospel in their inner speech. At “the moment of salvation,” listeners become public speakers of the gospel. They “believe” in the sense of embracing a narrative tradition that rewords their experience in terms of a personal, triune Cod who intervenes in daily life and in history.