From Atheist to Christian
Chris tells his story...
I was born in Edinburgh but, after a few years in Bristol, my family moved to Newcastle. I didn't arrive in the South East until 1979 and came to live in Hounslow in 1983.
Illusions
My home background was not Christian in the sense of taking the Bible seriously. In fact my father was into Theosophy and Christian Science, in many ways quite similar to Hinduism. From the age of 8 until my early teens I was sent along to Christian Science Sunday School and accepted much of what I was taught. But it was just a philosophy, it didn't affect life much. Our teachers told us that sickness, evil and even the very physical body itself were illusions and unreal. We were encouraged to believe that everything was "in the mind".
Rebellion
But by the age of 13, I wanted to break free from the constraints of religion altogether. Even believing in a very vague "God" who was more like a force than a person made me feel there were some things I should not do. But I fancied being able to do just about anything happily and with a clear conscience. I wanted to enjoy myself and have a good time. So - maybe without fully realising this was why I was doing it - I adopted the outlook of an atheist. I made up my mind there was no God, no religion, and that we are accountable only to ourselves.
I was in with the bad lads at school and, partly to keep in with friends, I started smoking (soon to be totally hooked), breaking rules, deceiving my parents and generally trying to "have a good time" in the ways open to a 13-15 year-old at a fairly posh school in those days.
Turning Point
I well remember an occasion when my father took me to an opera by Wagner called The Valkyrie which had an amazing emotional effect on me. I came out of the opera house thinking, "I cannot explain such an experience merely in terms of atoms colliding with each other in my head. There is no way atheism or materialism can account for the way I feel tonight. Some kind of religion must be true." I was not very pleased about this; materialism is so handy if you just want to enjoy yourself. But I couldn't get away from this new conviction.
Stuart
There were a number of Christians among the boys at school, including one in my class. Stuart was a good friend of mine and he was one of the keenest of them. From time to time he talked to me about Jesus Christ and how much I needed him. He came on the school camp. There we were, five or six of us in a tent, and he would read the Bible by torchlight last thing at night. He got a certain amount of persecution, but it didn't put him off.
I invited him to come with me to the Christian Science church which I still attended occasionally. He came, twice I think, but was clearly unimpressed. He didn't get any satisfying answers to his questions about the reality of evil and human sin in the world. I'd invited him to try and put him off nagging me.
"Materialism is so handy if you just want to enjoy yourself"
"I'll show him I am a Christian," I thought. But it didn't work. The next thing I knew, he invited me to his church. Oh no! But I felt I had to go for the sake of my friendship with him.
Church
Stuart's church was one that believed in Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God. The people there were convinced that he was wonderfully alive, able to forgive people, change them by his power and bring them to heaven. And they were quite enthusiastic in the way they behaved in the services too! After I had been there once, I thought to myself, "Either these people are mad and the men in white coats ought to come for them, or this is what life is all about and I have got to have what they have!" I threw my cigarettes away: I was spending all my money on them, breaking the law every time I bought them, breaking school rules when I smoked them and deceiving my parents about them - and they were keeping me from God. But the next day I bought some more.
Objections
Over the next few weeks, Stuart spoke to me on several occasions. I didn't want to believe what he told me about Jesus Christ and heaven and hell. I remember thinking, "I don't believe this stuff in the Bible; it's an exploded myth. Haven't evolution and science disproved it all?"
Yet at the same time I was becoming convinced that it must be true, because how else could I explain Stuart's attitude towards me? There was a kind of unselfish, genuine interest and concern for me in him that I knew was lacking in any of my other friends, and was lacking in me towards anyone! With my friends, we-used each other: "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". You were a valued member of the group so long as you had a contribution to make. Otherwise you were dumped. But there was something different about this Christian at school. I was forced, against my wishes, to see that his God must be real and that Jesus Christ must live in him. I couldn't explain him in any other way.
This was terrible: I would have to change and live for God rather than for myself. It might well lose me friends!
Two roads
One day Stuart persuaded me to attend a Christian Union meeting at school. It was a Thursday afternoon at 4 o'clock, in Room C in the Chemistry Block. The visiting speaker, Derek Stringer, was explaining that ultimately there are only two roads through life: a broad road leading to destruction and a narrow road leading to life.
It was as if I were the only person in the room and I was terrified because I knew I was on the road to hell and needed to change. Jesus Christ was the way to get onto the narrow road. I took a leaflet at the end of the meeting but didn't speak to the preacher.
"I knew I was on the road to hell and needed to change"
New Life
That night and the next night and every night for about a week I prayed to Jesus Christ, asking him to come into my life, to forgive me and to change me. I meant it and he did come in. I remember thinking around that time, "I'm going to test this message out, test it to destruction; I'm going to throw my whole life into this. If it is false, I will waste my life; but I am sure it is not and so I am determined to discover its reality."
That was 25 years ago. Now I only feel confirmed in the wisdom of that decision! Jesus said he came to give us life - life in all its fulness. He has led me and drawn me, against my own will at first, to receive this life.