my glorious conversion

Date: 02 March 2012 00:21:12

Forty blogs of Lent

9

Why am I a Christian? A long, long time ago I as a student. You can tell it was along time ago, because the polytechnic I was at had not yet become a university. In 1973 I went to study Physical Electronics at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University). The route to God was a strange one. Having bumped into some members of the sect the Unification Church (probably better known as the Moonies) I got interested in what they had to say, having bumped into them as I was returning from watching Jazz/Rock band Return to Forever. I was told by the Moonies that their leader, Sum Myung Moon was the second coming of Christ and that their book, Divine Principle, was a third volume of scripture to go with the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Not being able to get my hands on this Third testament I decided to look at the background. So I got myself a Bible and started attending a church and the university Christian Union. That was March, by June I no longer had any ties with the Moonies, and a firm belief in Jesus. I wish I could tell you at what time I became a Christian, but there was no blinding flash, no Damascus Road experience. Just the knowledge that I belonged to Jesus. One thing that helped though was a sermon I heard, I think it was the Sunday after Easter, or perhaps the one after that. The reading had been from Revelation 3, the message of Christ to the churches in Asia. Nearly 40 years on I still remember the words, "I have set before you an open door." At the end of the term the Student Union had a retreat on Holy Island, I went. Looking out over the sea at the seagulls and black dots that I was told were seal heads I experienced a voice, not an audible voice, but nevertheless real saying, "I made all this for you." and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace. So there it is, the story of my glorious conversion. Not a conventional conversion story, but then again I have never been a conventional sort of Christian.