Brought up by loving Christian parents, I accepted everything I learned in church without really questioning it.
I became a Christian as a young child, and was baptised as a teenager, I moved ‘up north’ in 1977 to go to university.
Independent for the first time, I needed to work out not just what I believed, but why I believed it. I got involved in the University Christian Union and began attending a local church. This was a fun and exciting time, but on reflection did little to prepare my relatively sheltered upbringing for the harsher realities of the world of work, marriage, raising children etc.
In 1980 I became a Police Officer with West Yorkshire Police. I spent much of a 30-year career learning that despite my high ideals, I was unable to make any meaningful difference to the state of what seemed to me to be a society in decline.
I’ve witnessed mankind’s depravity close up…personal tragedies, violent and serious crime, victims scarred for life etc. My conclusion? the world is in a mess of its own making.
The answer? For me the answer is best summed up in two Bible verses (John Chapter 3 verses 16-17):
