Christian Beginnings

Becoming a Christian is a gradual journey for me. There has not been a single "Eureka" moment or "Road to Damascus" conversion that I can identify, where I know I became a Christian. When I was child my paternal Grandmother was a firm believer and attended her local CofE church each Sunday. I think she was more involved than that, but not totally sure in what way. I recall Grandma being the subject of family jibes about being the "goody-goody" for going to church. Her response was always the same, "I go to church because I am not a goody-goody, but because I am bad". I couldn't understand this, it did not make sense. How could my Grandma, a sweet old lady, be bad? I now know that no-one else in the family really understood this explanation.

Throughout my teens and twenties there were various things that kept me from developing a positive interest in Christianity. Whilst studying the Renaissance and Reformation periods of history I was appalled by the Church, this was mainly the Popes. Then I developed a keen interest in left-wing politics, blinding me to Christian perspectives, though I did recognise a similarity of some of their ideals. I have been on the periphery of a church since 1995 when I married my Christian wife, but at that stage was committed non-Christian. In fact I could go further as I was an agnostic.


I believed, and it was a belief, that you could not prove the existence of God one way or the other. If anything I thought there probably was no God because of various difficult objections I held.

• How could all the world's population be descended from Adam and Eve when they only had two sons?


• How can God have created the earth and the heavens when we now know it was created by the big bang?


• How can God allow there to be such evil and wrong doing in the world?


• Why do churches seem to be at the heart of many wars?


• How can God have created all the species on earth when Darwin showed they evolved?

These are big questions and there are lots more, but these will suffice for now. At first they precluded a belief in God, but I was beginning to look for answers to bigger questions. I had a successful career but was getting completely disillusioned with work, chasing money and promotions, defining success in terms of career progression, home, lifestyle and material possessions. In short, I was thinking there had to more to it than this. At this time there was an advertising campaign running with the slogan, "there has to be more to life than this". I seemed to come across the advert everywhere I went and looked. On billboards, radio, TV, magazines and newspapers the images and words kept greeting me, it was as if someone was speaking to me directly.

The advert was for something called the Alpha Course. I mentioned it to my wife who informed me there was one about to start at the church of which she was a member, so I enrolled. I started discussing God and asking for my wifes views, I started reading and thinking and shyly saying some fledgling prayers. Gradually my knowledge has grown and I have come to believe in God and accept that there is much that mankind does not fully understand. I know this sounds a cop out and so I will return to this subject later, but for now I am comfortable with this.

At the moment I am at the point where I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ is not only the son of God but was God on earth. I believe Jesus died on the cross for everyone. He died to forgive our sins. I believe he was resurrected from the dead. I believe he modelled the values that we should live by. I repent my sins and look to lead a life in this world inspired by Jesus and his love for all. I know that I am a sinner and that I am not perfect, that I am doomed to fall short of the perfect standards set by Jesus. But however I fail, Jesus still loves me. Jesus is the path to heaven and eternal life with God and all we have to do is genuinely believe, with all our hearts, that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins and genuinely try in our imperfect way to live our lives in accordance with his values.

I'm not sure how theologically correct I am but I know I will continue to learn more with God's guidance. I now also know what my Grandmother meant. She recognised that she like everyone else is a sinner and needed the forgiveness of the Lord God. The true belief in Jesus dying to forgive her sins will have seen her to heaven. I hope to meet my Grandmother there again one day and talk about what I learned after her earthly death.