My story: 1. Faith and culture

I went to school in four different towns and experienced the culture of each intensely. The first three were Afrikaans and the last one German. The three universities at which I studied also had widely divergent cultures. The values I "caught" from my parents, teachers and friends were not always reconcilable.

After a few weeks in my very first school I discovered that some of the kids also went to school on Sundays. I figured that Sunday School was at a different venue, namely a church and asked my parents why I didn't go to Sunday School. They told me that they did not send me there because at Sunday School I would hear about scary stuff such as hell and the devil. We often visited uncle Charlie and auntie Vi (Violet) on a Sunday. He was a recovering alcoholic. My father helped start a branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in Bloemfontein. He was a magistrate and noticed that alcohol played a role in many court cases. He even brought some of the AA patients home to help them.

My first fist fight took place before I was school-going age. A boy in the neighbourhood and I played with scotch carts and had a difference of opinion. I remember walking home with swollen cheeks, a bloody nose and bust lip. He was not any better off. My father sent me back to go and shake his hand and make up which we did. In grade 2 we moved to Warrenton. There I got into a few fist fights at school (won some, lost some) and also learnt to smoke at the age of 9. My brother and I were given enough money for a movie and sweets every Saturday night and imbibed a good dose of Hollywood culture that way. My money was usually spent on cigarettes rather than sweets.

We also visited the public swimming pool regularly. Some of the friends I made in Warrenton did not have a good influence on me. Nevertheless my father taught us good values. I remember getting a severe hiding for swearing at the gardener, notwithstanding the fact that he had called me names as well. It was a good thing that we moved to Philipstown when I was 10 years old. Our new environment was more conducive to good morals. It was a small town with a small town mentality. My brother and I were labelled "duck tails" because we wore jeans. At school we were called cave men. We soon realised that we should attend Sunday School if we were to be accepted as normal. My parents did not make it easy for us. They often took us on picnics on a Sunday which affected our attendance records negatively. 

Despite the religious veneer, many inhabitants of Philipstown practised blatant racism and others condoned or tolerated it. Almost half of the children in the school lived in the hostel because their parents owned sheep farms miles out of town. Some exchanged stories of how their fathers disciplined farm workers. I remember an occasion where it brought tears to my eyes and I wished (or did I pray?) that the labourers would revolt and repay their bosses for their cruelty.

Sport was an important part of Philipstown's culture. Rugby and cricket were most important but I liked tennis and golf. We also listened to "soap operas" on the radio. I had started reading story books at the age of 9 and continued to find them an escape mechanism whenever life became heavy-going. There were no movies and my only source of cigarettes was my father's butts. He caught me out one day and said I was welcome to smoke, but publicly. He promised me a hiding if I was ever to smoke secretly again. Since I dreaded his hidings I gave up smoking at the age of 11. I did start the habit again at university.

At this young age I was also sent on a train journey to visit my cousin in Cape Town over the Christmas holidays. We camped with his parents at Kleinmond. Line fishing was prominent in the lives of his father and our other uncle who also camped at Kleinmond. I did not particularly enjoy it and the sun burned me severely on many an outing. There were also games organised by a Christian youth society. A slide show by missionaries to an Nyassaland must have made an impression on me because I still remember it.

Since my father thought I might follow in his footsteps and study law one day, he persuaded the principal of the school to give me lessons in Latin. This started in grade 8 during the period in which the other kids received religious instruction. My first challenge to excel academically also came in that year. My father promised me one pound (it was before the days of rands) if I got the best marks in my class. I managed it by starting to study at home in the afternoons. My Latin classes came to an end the next year when we moved to Luderitz where there was no Afrikaans or English high school.

The Deutsche Schule Lüderitzbucht was supposed to be "triple medium". How this worked was that everything was taught in German but textbooks in Mathematics and Science were in Afrikaans while Biology, History and Geography books were in English. Needless to say I had to learn to understand German to survive. Actually speaking the new language was more difficult than merely understanding but that did not become a necessity. I remember deciding not to adopt the German culture. Germans regarded Afrikanerdom as backward and Afrikaans as a second-rate language. However, I was by far the best student of Mathematics and Science in my class. That gave me the confidence that my language and culture could not be so inferior.

Sport was not that important in Luderitz. I played some golf, went to Boy Scouts on Saturday afternoons and attended the movies on Saturday evenings where I was an usher. I also took dancing lessons at the German school. The first teacher to give us religious instruction was Afrikaans. She seemed a little out of her depth, not knowing how to approach the subject with Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Dutch Reformed children. She asked each one of us which church we attended. Since my parents never set foot in church I had decided my Sunday School days were going to be over when we moved to Luderitz. When the teacher asked me about my church and what we were learning there I was too embarrassed to be the only one not in a church. My answer to her was that I had not yet started going there since our move. I decided to go to Sunday School in the Dutch Reformed Church. For my age group it consisted of Catechism lessons. After two years of Catechism one was supposed to get confirmed but I told them I was "not ready". The truth was that I had become an atheist during that time.

My first year at Stellenbosch University got me immersed into a culture which could be regarded the opposite to that of Luderitz. I had finished high school in 1964, a year early, and was only 17 while most other first year males were 19, having spent a year in compulsory military training. Nevertheless, we were all subjected to strict rules regarding dress and free time. On a Sunday no-one was to be seen entering or leaving the university hostel wearing anything else than a suit. We had to be indoors by 19h40 on weekdays. We were allowed out till 23h00 on either Friday or Saturday. One could be out both nights if one went away for the weekend. Where we went to on Friday, Saturday or the weekend had to be reported to our "section leader", a senior student, who wrote it in a book.

In the early 1960's student life at Stellenbosch University was dominated by the Dutch Reformed Church. On the first Sunday of our orientation week we were marched to church. The challenge of the sermon was "Is Jesus Christ your personal saviour?" I remember my father telling me that life would be awkward if I remained unchurched. Where would I get married, for instance? The minister was saying that if Jesus was my personal saviour, I could get confirmed. I had already decided that there was no teacher of morality more worthy of my allegiance than Jesus. In the first place, he and many of his followers paid with their lives for their beliefs. Secondly, I had seen the civilising effect of his teaching on ferocious tribes. My own ancestors had been civilised by the Christian religion. Therefore I could regard him as my personal saviour from barbarism, though in an indirect way. As for a deity, Jesus believed in God and I would accept his judgement in that regard. A few weeks later I officially accepted Christianity as my religion by getting confirmed. My church attendance over the next few years was sporadic although I was generous when it came to offerings.

I did not expect to find happiness in religion but looked for it in my studies, sport (mainly surfing) and parties. I was looking for a life partner but my relationships with girls all ended before becoming really serious. In 1970 I started to work as a junior lecturer at the University of the Western Cape. There I was introduced to yet another culture, that of the "Cape Coloureds", as they were labelled by the government of the day. My work was very satisfying but I had hardly any social life and felt unfulfilled. Enjoying music took up quite a bit of my time and I took up guitar playing. I met someone who had written a few songs and was wanting to start a band. Since I had also written songs I offered to join him as a singer. One day he told me he had given up the idea of a band since he had been converted. Instead of band practice a prayer meeting was held in his house every week. 

Around that time the following article appeared in Time Magazine: Religion: The New Rebel Cry: Jesus Is Coming! I was profoundly affected by the idea that Jesus had become popular among "drop-outs". One needed quite a bit of self-discipline to finish school a year early and earn an Honours degree in Physics but in spite of that I found it impossible to give up smoking. I concluded that the hippies who came off drugs must have had help from above. I became persuaded of the possibility of having a personal relationship with the unseen God. I met some "Jesus People" and their simple faith in the Bible helped me to believe verses I had learned in Catechism. For example, one did not have to "feel saved". John 1:12 said that whosoever accepted Jesus was saved. I did experience the love of God in a way I had not before when he baptised me in his Holy Spirit.

When some of those people who had been on drugs attended Harfield Road Assembly of God they were accepted, even welcomed. The Assemblies of God were opening their doors to needy people and had an emphasis on helping those who wanted peace with God. This was a culture I could fully identify with. The fact that meetings were conducted in English was not a stumbling block to me. After six months of deliberations with new converts and a professor at the Seminary in Stellenbosch I decided to get baptised in water. The Dutch Reformed Church had adopted the policy that anyone who got "re-baptised" was severing ties with them by that act. The most obvious church for me to be affiliated to was the Assemblies of God. My father was highly upset when I told him of my intention to get baptised. In his mind I was betraying my church and my people. He refused to attend the ceremony but did get over it later and started attending church himself. For the last few years of his life he was even an elder in the Dutch Reformed Church. Our relationship was restored despite our differences in theology, church membership and home language.

My wife Ann and I lived in the United States for 17 months when I studied at the University of Illinois during 1982 and 1983 when I turned 36. The North American culture did not have a direct influence on our faith. However, it gave us perspective on that culture whose influence is felt worldwide in every sphere of life. My aim in relating my journey to faith is to demonstrate how culture played a role in shaping my beliefs. Having experienced different cultures did broaden my outlook on life. 

(As a European African I feel a little embarrassed that I have not yet learned an indigenous African language.)

However, my conversion cannot be attributed to culture and upbringing alone. I was confronted with the most influential man who ever lived, the one who referred to himself as the Son of Man. He required me to decide for him or against him. He did not leave an alternative. To ignore his invitation would have been to decide against him. My reasoning was something like this:

I knew what it was to have a hard time. My pain was mostly due to my own bad decisions and behaviour. But Jesus did nothing wrong. Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? If I believed that, my anxiety levels would rise to levels I would find hard to endure. If it happened to him, the same could happen to me. But if the universe is to be reasonable and things happen for good reasons, why did Jesus die such a horrible death? The only reason that makes any sense is the reason he gave namely that he did it for me and everyone who would accept his gift of eternal life.