IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE ARE
MANY MANSIONS
Although I would certainly not call myself devout, religion
has always played an important, often central, part in my life, sometimes on an
intellectual level, more often as a spiritual need. My journey to my current
(and almost certainly final) location in the Orthodox Church has taken me along
many paths. It has also introduced me to many good Christian men and women of
all persuasions, who have had a profound effect on my spiritual
development.
I was christened an Anglican but, when I was still very
young, my mum and dad left the Church of England because the vicar had become
too ‘High Church’. Apparently, he was using incense too much and hearing
confessions, which didn't go down well with my Protestant parents so they moved
to the Baptist Church. (The irony of where their youngest son ended up is not
lost on me.) In the Chapel, the Baptists
I grew up with were kind and generous souls, more concerned with the love of
God and love for their neighbour than with Hellfire and the damnation of
sinners. My mother seemed to combine a deep and powerful faith with a common
sense approach to life and a genuine love of other people which often overrode
her impatience with cant and hypocrisy. She was perhaps the first person I met
who demonstrated that it was possible to be a Christian with a sense of humour.
Perhaps this story might have been different had I been introduced to Dr. Ian
Paisley at an impressionable age!
