I began this blog three years ago as a discipline to write down my stories in short snippets, maybe one day to bind them together in a book and give to the kids. This is my 500th post and the account of how I came to faith.
Bertrand Russell’s book ,“Why I Am Not A Christian”, was published in 1927. I encountered it some 47 years later as a sophomore in college. It was one of many challenges to the Christian faith that prompted me to consider the Gospel’s veracity. Was the Bible simply the prolonged record of a desert tribe whistling in the dark? I have mulled over Russell’s title for three decades, thinking that at some point I would write my reasons for taking the opposite tack. This essay however is not meant to answer Russell or to be a thorough, Christian apologetic. That has been done many times over the centuries by some of the finest minds of the children of men. If interested, a more rigorous consideration can be found in C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”, or the recent work of Timothy Keller, “The Reason For God”.
I am not the reason I am a Christian. I fully believe the doctrine that man does not come to God, but rather, the reverse. It is written, “The wind blows where it will.” Nevertheless, God works through means and this is an account of those means. Some of God’s means are plain vanilla, others jaw dropping and a few are joyously entertaining. Once, I interviewed a young woman for church membership who told me that she became convicted of her need for God when in a fit of anger she threw a pie into her grandmother’s face! On another occasion I listened to a PhD computer scientist tell me of his quasi-atheism as he grew up in a nominally Buddhist family. Christianity was a non-entity in his life. Then one day, while a student at Stanford, he was in a car wreck. He put his unrestrained head through the windshield and spent the next month in a coma. He told me that when he went through that windshield he was not a Christian and when he woke up he was. Just as amazing, but slightly more conventional, was the report of his parents coming to faith in the downstream aftermath of his conversion.
My story? I can’t really ever remember a time when I didn’t feel the urging of the Spirit. The stodgy, Missouri Synod Lutheran church that I grew up in wasn’t particularly appealing, but the Bible stories I heard in nursery and kindergarten gave me a sort of metanarrative to organize my life - even if I had no idea what a “metanarrative” was. Those stories work their way into your soul and leave you with a knowledge of who your people are -- related by faith, if not by blood. Even more critical was the knowledge gained of what’s right and what’s wrong and why it was so. I grew to love the beauty of the Lutheran liturgy, especially the chanting of psalms. “Let us sing unto the Lord, let us sing unto the Rock of our sal-va-a-tion....”. I don’t remember the words quite as well as I do Jefferson Airplane lyrics, but I remember some and they are that much sweeter when I rediscover them each morning as I munch on granola and the Psalms.
Church was all fine, but I wanted, like every other human, to be in command of my own destiny. God was good on Sunday, maybe even in parts of the school week, but Christ was certainly not Lord in my life. It was after repeated invitations from my girlfriend and a cross-country buddy that I nervously showed up one night at a Young Life meeting. The leader was a short and balding, but a man’s man and clearly hip. His name was Dale Craig. Surprise! It was not cheesy. There was good guitar, good singing and then really good exposition from the Bible. All at once I had ears to hear and eyes to see. It was like getting leg of lamb and crème brûlée after a lifetime of cold, gray gruel. The feast had always been before me, but my heart and mind had not been open.
Child rearing in the ‘60s and ‘70s cannot be described as today's “helicopter parenting”. Hands off, laissez-faire, find-your-own-way was pretty typical of my parents’ day and this extended into boy-girl relationships, but left on their own, “hands off” is not what young people gravitate towards. My case was no different. Despite a tender conscience, I was content to live in two minds – one to take comfort in the solid base that God provided, the other to do as I wished. Gradually, however, the dissonance of those two minds took its toll. I still remember one rainy October night in 1972, walking alone, outside my friend’s home after a Young Life meeting. I remember the fieldstone walkway. I remember the smell of wet leaves and cold, autumn air on my face. I don’t remember that evening’s message, but I can’t forget that I felt as if I was between God’s squeezing hands. The pressure was not pleasant. This may sound dramatic, but my impression was “give it all to Me – or die.” To some that may sound like being enslaved, but I felt the chains of my autonomy drop off. I was free. The remainder of my senior year in high school was one of experiencing “the joy of my salvation”. It was a year of great progress, although there were plenty of steps backwards as well, but now that I knew to whom I belonged, I regretted those steps backwards and was no longer subject to them.
The Reformed-flavored teaching of Young Life slowly turned my thinking from a German/Lutheran mindset to that of Scottish/Presbyterian, despite having no idea what any of that meant. Certainly one aspect of that was a growing desire to understand what was under the hood. I was getting hungrier for explanations to deeper questions. Some of this came from the inevitable maturing of the intellect as the teenager left behind childish things. Most of the impetus, however, was a product of the University of Connecticut where it seemed that every class had a professor or textbook whose principal academic mission was to mock the Christian faith. Anatomy & physiology and “The Bible As Literature” were two such examples. My biochemistry book’s introductory page was particularly caustic towards faith, but it was a breath of fresh air to have the professor’s first statement after reviewing the syllabus declare that the offending statement was itself a statement of faith.
The relentless criticism, coupled with the general atheism of New England, did its work on me and I was back to being in two minds again, this time a mind of faith and the other skepticism. One thing was clear – I knew that I wanted Christianity to be true. The consequences of it being a fairy tale were staggering. How can one’s joys, sorrows, decisions – make that an entire life, have any possible meaning if you start as a cosmic accident and end in obliteration? The explanation that, “you give your own meaning to life” struck me just as nonsensical at 20 as it does at 55. What about right and wrong? How can you possibly judge what is correct if there is no standard to judge against? Justice? Fairness? These are simply the skeptic’s own fairy tales, meaningless constructs in an atheists’ world - regardless of their protests. The alternative of unbelief was grim to say the least, yet I knew that flushing my brain down the toilet and pretending that the Bible was true and authoritative, if in fact it was not, would not fly either. At this nadir, back in Pittsburgh on break, I dumped all my questions on another Young Life staffer, Dave Brewer. He told me that he couldn’t satisfy my questions, but he gave me Francis Schaeffer’s book, “He Is There And He Is Not Silent” and directed me to the Ligonier Valley Study Center and R.C. Sproul. There he said were folks that could give me answers. And so it was, a year or two later, that I left behind my life as a closet-Christian, once embarrassed by the intellectual foolishness of the Gospel, instead becoming ever more convinced that not only might this narrative be true, but that it was the only story that made sense out of life in this world.
I pored over Schaeffer’s skinny, little book and it seemed like scales fell off my eyes. I began exploring such works as Eugene Peterson’s “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction”, revealing the good, the true and the beautiful in the Psalms. FF Bruce’s “Are The Gospels Reliable?” demonstrated that in fact they were. The “Just So Stories“ of the evolutionists became as convincing as Kipling’s. A subscription to “Christianity Today” showed me the application of the faith to the contemporary issues of the ‘70’s. And of course there was Clive Staples, Lewis that is. What a treasure trove of ideas in that man’s books! I’m not sure now which were most influential to me - “God In The Dock”, certainly, and no doubt “The Screwtape Letters”, but there were so many more – “A Grief Observed”, “Perelanda,” and of course I reveled in “The Chronicles of Narnia”.
Below are bullets that represent concepts that I find make the Christian faith compelling and others not. I do them an injustice by presenting these ideas in a simple line, when in fact they deserve a chapter or a book unto themselves.
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- Why is that something organized rather than chaotic or just uniform?
- How does a dead universe give rise to self-conscious life?
- The Trinitarian answer to the problem of communication.
- The Trinitarian answer to the origin of love.
- The Trinitarian answer to the problem of unity and diversity.
- Where does beauty come from? Why not a 2-D world of black and white with cold oatmeal as our fuel?
- To what standard do we appeal to when we feel we are being treated unjustly? Why do even little children protest, “It’s not fair!”
- What’s up with evil?
- Why is evil so often illogical? Why in opposition to “the Logos”?
- What about the “problem of good”?
- What or whom is the object of our universal emotion of gratitude?
- Would the resurrection of my body and soul after death be any more remarkable than the improbable reality that I exist now?
- The general reliability of the Bible, a book written by many authors over long periods of time.
- The uniformity of biblical themes, again, authored by many men over long periods of time, such as the history of salvation beginning in Genesis 3:15 (which continues to play itself out in to the present); the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man; God’s pursuit of his own glory as the highest good of the universe; God’s desire for the heart and not just outward obedience.
One of the sparkling facets of the diamond that is Christianity is the diversity of needs and interests it fulfills. The raw story of blood sacrifice and atonement can be understood by any primitive, yet at the other extreme are concepts such as John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word...” where Christ is proclaimed as the creating, organizing and sustaining principle of the universe to which everything must be compared. That idea alone provides grist for the intellectual mill of generations! Yet, this faith is not for the head alone. Throughout Scripture the goal is to not only convince the mind, but primarily to win the heart. “You believe that God is one; you do well! Even the demons believe – and shudder!” James 2:19. Or in the words of Jesus, “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship me.’” Matthew 15:7-9. A faith that resides only in the head is cold and dead, but on the other hand, a faith that resides only in the heart can be blown in any direction and in the end will be simply superstition. Rather, the head must lead the heart such that both are in love with and submission to the God that created them. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind...” Romans 12:1-2.
So, what is the evidence that my heart has been won? Well certainly I would point to my attraction to the things of God, my desire to be in fellowship with His people, the tempering of my anger, an improvement of charity and the increasing awareness of and repulsion to my own sin. There of course have been plenty of steps backward as well as forward. Old triggers fire up jealousy, lust, irritability and a judgmental spirit - besetting sins in my life. This could be totally discouraging, but even Paul knew this well. “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:21-25. There is abundant evidence that I’m a sinner, but the simple fact that I even care is evidence of God’s Spirit working in mine, moving me forward. The change may not be apparent on a day-to-day basis, but when I look back five years, ten years, thirty years, I’m encouraged – progress is unmistakable.
A concept that was popular in previous centuries was that of Providence – the guiding, sovereign hand of God working in the physical and spiritual lives of His people. It was understood that those providences could be bitter or sweet. I have drunk deeply of both. It was also understood that all of God’s providences were for the good of His people. This theme is seen through out the Bible, but most famously in the story of Joseph starting in Genesis 37 and Paul’s letter to the Romans. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for the good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28.
And so I can see the guiding and protecting hand of Providence in my own life – over and over again.
- For starters, placing me in a family that respected the Scriptures, attending a Lutheran church where I learned the basics regarding the history of redemption.
- Giving me friends who were moved to invite me to Young Life. Giving me ears to hear and eyes to see the truth that was in front of me.
- Protecting my life in miraculous ways on multitudes of occasions.
- Preventing me from making shipwreck of my life when my own self was choosing to do so.
- The miraculous encounter with a first-year medical student at Duke who provided me with a free opportunity to study for the MCAT exam. (I subsequently knocked that exam out of the park despite being seven years out on some of the subjects. This singular event opened the door to medical school.)
- In college, providentially providing me the friendship of Rick Bombaci who drew me to northeast Oregon where my career in medicine was directed under the influence of an outstanding family physician, Lowell Euhus. In that very same office Mike Driver guided me to and helped open the door to my life-changing family-practice residency in California.
- The provision of a loving, steadfast, creative and hard-working wife through a “chance” meeting in a Pittsburgh church pew. My wife and I have mutually sharpened and benefited each other in ways that could never have happened outside of marriage.
- Children who bring me joy and who exhibit the fruits of the Spirit.
- The theological and psychological preparation for Sarah’s disabled life. For giving me two out of three of my prayers regarding Sarah – that she would experience joy and that we could communicate. (The third will only be clear at the time of either one of our deaths.)
- Most recently, my poorly explained recovery from a poorly explained illness that I was sure was taking me to the grave.
These are some of the big events, milestones that I look back upon and see God at work directly in my life. I have no idea about the little things, those small, routine, daily events and how Providence has worked through them.
I’m a creature, limited by time and space, with only the barest influence on my direction. My deepest desires are for the spiritual and physical well being of my family, but in the end each of us will stand before God alone. My prayer, my doxology, I learned from Benjamin Britten in his glorious “Festival Te Deum”, a 1934 score written for a Christian prayer from the 4th century.
O Lord, save thy people and bless thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up forever.
Day by day we magnify thee
And we worship thy Name, ever, world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in Thee.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted,
Let me never be confounded!
