My Christian faith is very important in my life; although I rarely live up to the ideal that Christ should be Lord of the whole of my life, the reality of the faith I have is almost always at least a small part of the way I choose to live in the various parts of my life. I want to take this opportunity to explain how I became a Christian, the various ways in which my faith has developed over the years and why I'm still a disciple of Christ.
I was introduced to the Christian faith through a Crusader group in Watford when I was about 11. Crusaders is a broadly evangelical organisation, with groups for young people throughout the country. Initially I joined the local group because my younger brother was already going and having lots of fun, and I didn't want to miss out. However, it fairly rapidly became clear to me that there was something special about this group of people; they not only knew how to have fun and help others have fun, but they also clearly held their faith in God and Jesus to be very important spending a lot of time reading the Bible and discussing what was written there.
By the time I was about 15, I had learnt a good deal about the Christian faith, and had seen how that faith was lived out among the Crusader group I was very much a part of. I had, by this time, also started to attend the youth fellowship of the local Methodist church, which gave me a different and complementary perspective on the Christian faith. I had come to appreciate that, although founded on ultimately unprovable axioms such as the actual existance of God, on the basis of these axioms the Christian faith was intellectually consistant and provided, at least in the broadest terms, a sensible description of the world I lived in and explained many details of that world. It became clear to me that the Christian faith I'd been learning about demanded some form of response to make it my own faith; I could no longer remain sitting on the fence, and if I was to be true to who I was (by this time clearly a scientist) then I had either to totally reject this faith or accept it fully as my own. There was no instant at which I can say that I had made the decision to choose Christ, but somewhere within the next year it became clear to me that I had chosen to follow Christ. At the age of 16 I became a member of the Methodist Church, thereby confirming that I had accepted Christ.
It was also around this time that I first went to the Greenbelt Festival, a Christian arts festival featuring broadly Christian music and other art along with a broad teaching and discussion programme, with the church youth group. The Greenbelt Festival has come to be a treasured part of my life, I've attended every year since that first time in 1986, since it has been an opportunity for me to experience and learn from a broad cross section of the Christian church. It helped to open my eyes to issues relating to justice, spirituality and Christian thought I might not have experienced otherwise; particularly through the seminar and worship programmes, but also through the music and other art forms.
When I went to Liverpool University to study physics I was still a relatively new Christian, although I had a great deal of knowledge about the Christian faith, primarily from a more evangelical perspective. I was in Liverpool for almost seven years, doing a PhD in Nuclear Structure Physics after finishing my first degree. During that time I was actively involved in a number of the Christian groups in the University; the Christian Union, the Methodist Society, Joint Christian Chaplaincy and "Icthus, the Christian Magazine to the University", in addition to Elm Hall Drive Methodist Church. The fellowship and friendship of these diverse groups allowed my faith to grow and deepen through formal and informal discussion, prayer and worship; I led and prepared small group Bible studies, wrote several articles for Icthus, and was part of several committees.
After leaving University I spent 18 months in Watford where I continued my involvement with the local Methodist church, before starting work in East Kilbride, where I'm now active in Righead United Reformed Church (formerly East Kilbride Congregational Church). I recently discovered the Ship of Fools website, where I've found a community of Christians with whom I can discuss a range of issues, both serious and trivial, through bulletin boards and chat room. I have through this community a forum for debate where I can discuss the Christian faith with people from a range of traditions and backgrounds in a manner that I have not been able to do since leaving University.
The principle driving force behind the way my faith has grown and deepened over the years has been an intellectual desire to learn and understand more about God, the Church and the faith that was becoming increasingly more important to me. It was important when I became a Christian, and is still important, that the faith I was accepting and growing into is intellectually tenable; particularly in relation to the teaching of science. This desire for learning has been fed largely by reading a large number of books, study of Scripture and discussion with other Christians of all traditions. Nevertheless, despite this strong intellectual element in my faith, there is a large component of my faith which is more than just intellectual; I have in a way that can not readily be expressed in words a real and vital personal relationship with God. It is the combination of the intellectual credability and personal experience of God that has maintained my Christian faith through the years.