All testimonies with exerpts, click
on name for detail. Click
here for original web site with
list arranged in categories.
Marilyn
Adamson: "I studied the philosophies of
Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Nietsche, Socrates and others -
looking for an overriding, motivating purpose to my
life. Every few weeks I would 'try out' a new
philosophy to see if it could work. But I found these
philosophies didn't make sense or they simply weren't
useful in actual life situations."
John
Bakas: "I was convinced that there was no
God in the first place. I didn't stay awake at night
pondering these matters. At least not until I was 35
years old."
Paul
Bird: "I concluded that if there was a God,
He would have to love (and care), but since I wasn't
aware of any evidence of God's love, there really
could not be a God after all. So I became an
atheist."
Greg
Bond: "An atheist until 1990, I came to a
belief in God because I am an alcoholic, and one
traumatic night He removed the obsession to drink
from me. I prayed to the God that I didn't even
believe in (and told Him so, too!) because I had
nowhere else to turn, and He immediately answered my
prayer."
J.
Budziszewski: "This practical nihilism was
linked with a practical atheism...The upshot was that
although God might exist, He would be irrelevant. I
couldn't quite rule out the existence of God, but I
thought I could rule out the existence of a God that
mattered."
John
N. Clayton: "What was happening to me was
the same thing that Lord Kelvin, a very famous
British scientist, described in his writings when he
made the statement, 'If you study science deep enough
and long enough it will force you to believe in
God.'"
John
Culp: "The cardiologist and neurologist came
on the double. An agnostic and a Hindu, they both
said, 'It's a miracle! I can't explain it
otherwise.'"
Daz:
"When I came to adolescence I decided that life
would be easier to bear if I cut out all feelings and
contact with other people...I had achieved my goal:
my life was empty of any emotions or meaningful
contact with others. It sucked."
Ian
Dale: "I became obsessed with winning awards
and fame through my art, hoping one day even to rival
Michelangelo or Picasso in importance. That would be
my immortality, and I thought it would solve all my
problems. Yet with all the success I had had already,
I was never happy."
B.
Hearn: "For the first time in my life I
decided to look outside of myself for hope, knowing
that nothing in this world could really help me, I
turned to God. There's no doubt that one could
formulate a reasonable earthly explanation for my
actions. But what happens after your assent is the
amazing part - and that must be experienced."
G.
Zeinelde Jordan: "Christianity repulsed me.
I was so repulsed I chose to battle it...
"LaHaye did not convince me a God existed, but
he clearly depicted I believed what I believed merely
because I had been indoctrinated."
A.S.A.
Jones: "If my mind was capable of accepting
interpretations that allowed the [Bible] to make
sense, then what was it in me that wanted it not to
make sense? This book was reading me as surely as I
was reading it."
Eric
Knickerbocker: "Would I have chosen
Christianity? No. It went against my every instinct,
against my every grain. But I have nonetheless been
transformed."
Ralph
Martin: "'Okay, okay, okay,' I said in
exasperation. 'I'll go. But I warn you: I am not
going to pretend to have a religious experience just
to make you happy. I know what's going to happen.
You're all going to sit around and sing songs and be
nice to each other, and you're going to call it God.
Well, I'm not going to call it God. I'm going to call
it clever group dynamics. I'll go, Phil, but I won't
sacrifice my intellectual integrity.'"
Josh
McDowell: "I thought most Christians were
walking idiots...But these people challenged me over
and over. Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did
it out of pride to refute them, thinking there were
no facts. I assumed there wasn't any evidence a
person could evaluate."
Arnold
Neumaier: "I still had the idea of God as a
human construction; but Jesus' construction must have
been particularly powerful, and I set out to discover
what it was, strip it from its religious
superstitions, and integrate the essence into my
life. At least that was my plan."
Rev.
R. G. Rindfuss: "I...stepped outside just in
time to see my youngest son toddle across the grass
and sit down on top of the biggest fire ant mound I
have ever seen. Randy is highly allergic to fire ant
bites...If he gets bitten enough times, he'll
die."
Tucker
Russell: "This new worldview...allowed me to
believe in a god that was near to me and
ever-present, yet it also allowed me to adhere to
this world and its pleasures, with no real
accountability. It seemed like everything you could
want, and I followed religiously (and excelled among
my contemporaries) for the next three years. But deep
down I was always dissatisfied. I know now that I did
not actually want something that would make me feel
good, I wanted what I knew to be actual truth."
Paul
Smith: "Many things permanently changed
inside me that morning, and so I never became able to
rationalize my experience away as anything but a
genuine encounter with the Creator of the
universe."
Joni
Eareckson Tada: "I believed in God, but I
was angry with Him...How can permanent, lifelong
paralysis be a part of His loving plan for me? Unless
I found answers, I didn't see how this God could be
worthy of my trust."
Webmaster
of BibleDesk.com:
"My idea was to find out if the Bible was really
true. Indeed, if I could find one contradiction, one
error, or anything in the Bible that was not true,
then that would be all that was needed to disregard
it...Finally, I had to admit after spending almost
countless hours of research - I was wrong."
Heather
Williams: "I believed in the power within me
to make a significant difference in the world....Yet,
the more I tried to change the world, the more
frustrated I became. I confronted bureaucracy,
apathy, and...sin."
Thanks to "Why Christians Believe"
for these exerpts, click
here for the complete web site.
Duane Gilchrist