There is much to be encouraged by and learn from Derek Thomas’ story of how he came to Christ 40 years ago.
It was forty years ago today (December 28, 1971) that I became a Christian. My conversion was Saul-like: sudden, unexpected, and decisive. I was eighteen, a freshman at university studying physics and math at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
I was not raised in a religious home. My memory holds only fleeting acquaintance with the church – a “Christening” in my early teens with just my mother, an Anglican vicar and myself present; the ritual of “confirmation classes” and the visit of the bishop followed by rebellion and atheism. By eighteen, I was, like most of my peers, a firm believer in science. The universe was the product of a Big-Bang and everything that exists – Mozart, The Beatles, Rembrandt, Salvador Dali, you name them – came from this primal event. Everything comes from nothing.
Enter John Stott. In mid-December, 1971, a book arrived in the mail from my best friend. “Read it,” an enclosed card insisted. The book was Basic Christianity. Truth is, I had never read a Christian book in my life, not unless J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings counts as one (a book I had read several times). Nor had I read the Bible. In fact, I did not posses a copy.
