How Did I Become a Christian?

In order for me to feel validated as a “real” Christian in Evangelical/Charismatic/Pentecostal eyes, I think I ought to “share my testimony” with you. However, my experience doesn’t really fit the standard Evangelical/Charismatic/Pentecostal mould. People from a more traditional Anglican or Catholic background may relate more easily to where I am coming from.

There is a certain need to be able to relate a specific incident when I was “born again” and another when I was “baptised in the Holy Spirit”, so I have always chosen two particular points in my life and labelled them as such. This is to prevent people from rushing to “lead me to Christ” and counting me as one of their “sheaves”, and to prevent people from suddenly laying hands on me (yes, this actually happened, so I learned my lesson).

In terms of the question of when I first believed about God, Jesus and the Bible, I can’t recall a time when I didn’t believe, except for some moments as a teenager when I wondered whether it was all really real. The main teacher lady at nursery school was a Catholic, so there were prayers every day, which I think consisted of the Lord’s Prayer and one about blessing our mothers and fathers and other important people. Then, like most Prep. schools (particularly in the 1970’s) the one I went on to had a Christian foundation. We didn’t have “R.E.”, but we were taught Scripture as a subject, which meant learning all the stories of the Bible: the books of Moses, Judges, Kings, episodes from the prophets, the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. Chapel was compulsory every morning, and for boarders and those in the choir, on Sunday evenings too.

When I first went there, the chaplain (who taught Scripture) was old, never smiled and believed in the Authorised Version of the Bible. His favourite words were smite and smote and he threatened to “thrash” anyone who spoke out of turn. He didn’t actually smite or thrash anyone, but he did used to drop his Bible very heavily on the desk of anyone who wasn’t paying attention.

Then he went and was replaced by a young vicar with a 12-string guitar. His name was Mr. Boddington (well, Rev. but we called him Mr.) and it’s to him I owe my life really. He was a genuine Christian and taught about Jesus’ death and resurrection and its significance. It was then, around the age of 8 or 9, that my own prayer life began, and I had a relationship with God. Although I truly believed everything in the creed, I have to say that I didn’t truly cotton on to the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross, although I did understand about the availability of forgiveness of sins – I didn’t quite make the connection then as I do now. I normally label this time as when I was born again, though I don’t recall any Road-to-Damascus experience or anything remotely resembling it. In any case, I recall my relationship with God the Father as having many of the same elements as my relationship does today.

I have another thoroughly non-Evangelical confession to make. I really came to understand the true practical significance of Jesus’ death on the cross after I was healed of autism, when I read the books on inner healing by John & Paula Sandford. Yet I was filled with the Holy Spirit and doing the things that go with that before that time. I suspect that even now I have deeper understandings still to come.

Time went by and I went on to Public School, and my prayer life had its ups and its downs. I didn’t meet anyone with as living a relationship with God as Mr. Boddington until I went to university. However, at the age of about 14 or 15 something suddenly dawned on me. I used to pray in the third person: “I hope God does this” and “I hope God does that”. I had what I now call a postal relationship with God. I would pray that something would happen, and then it would and I would know that God was real. I was doing this all the time so it was way beyond the realms of coincidence. I know that for a lot of Christians their relationship with God is like this, though most will talk to God in the second person and talk about how they feel when God answers prayer. Anyway, I realised how daft it was to talk to God in the third person and how it made so much more sense to talk to him directly. Then I thought that having a one-way conversation was a bit limiting, and if God was everywhere then surely he could talk to me the same way – more of a telephone relationship.

I should mention at this point that my seeking the Lord was not without a catalyst. I was heavily victimised and bullied from the age of 7 to when I left school at 16. Being autistic, I was unable to cope with this or stand up for myself in any way, and my parents didn’t seem to understand or recognise what was going on. So really God became my father from a young age, and even more so from this point on. Actually, what really fuelled my desire to be close to God at this stage was that old chestnut: a failed long-distance relationship with a young lady. Ironically, up to that point the other boys at school viewed me as sub-human, but news of the incident spread and I was now one of the lads (briefly, at least).

At the time, I was extremely insecure, and I wanted to know what was going to happen the next day and so on. So I would ask God questions about that and “hear” a response in my mind. Then, lo and behold, what I heard actually happened. This developed and topics of conversation widened to more than just reassurances about the future, although those reassurances led to faith and trust in God and a significant reduction in the level of insecurity.

I recall one incident in the dormitory at school (the dormitory being a large room with about 25 beds in). There started the all-to-frequent jeering about some aspect of my character, which always cut deep – it was designed to. I can’t remember exactly what I prayed, but it was along the lines of asking God to come close. Then it was as if all the jeering melted away into the distant background and I felt the love and presence of God – it was almost like being transported elsewhere, but I could still hear the pitch of the jeering rising until everyone in the room was shouting at the tops of their voices. Yet it had no impact on me, and it seemed distant and irrelevant. It was this incident that I normally label as being baptised in the Holy Spirit , though I didn’t speak in tongues as I hadn’t heard of such a thing.

In my conversations with God we talked about a lot of aspects of life and about God’s view of me and mankind. I think I even learned some things that I didn’t pick up through normal means, being autistic, but I don’t remember any details. I remember God suggesting that I should get my Bible down from the shelf and read it, but I never dared to for fear of being caught.

In my year in Germany things waned a bit – well almost completely, except once I apologised for not having talked with Him for so long. But He said not to worry as things would resume when I got to university, which is exactly what happened.

When I got to university, I had my mind blown apart when I discovered that I wasn’t the only person in the world that had a 2-way living relationship with God. What’s more, I started reading the Bible and discovered that so many of the things that God had told me when I was talking with him at school were actually written in the Bible!!! Up until this time I had lived a dual existence: what to me was almost a fantasy life, and on the other hand the real world. It was here that the two met, and I actually caused quite a stir amongst the Christians at university.

Well, I had an extended Apollos experience where I learned the ways of God more adequately. I did have quite a few funny ideas mixed in with the things that were genuinely of God. But this concludes the topic for this chapter.

I should really try to dispel fears that I am a complete heretic, though, so I don’t get burned by mistake. I do genuinely believe that people have to make a conscious decision to follow Christ in order to be a Christian, and this is the point at which people are born again. It’s just that not everyone remembers it, particularly if it happened at an early age. Similarly, I take the view that that people need to be baptised in the Holy Spirit (see also here, here, here, here and here), but this is just the first of an ongoing relationship experience, and it doesn’t always happen according the official Charismatic/Pentecostal pattern. And, yes, I do speak in tongues, though not as much as the apostle Paul.