Paul Kingsnorth. Here is a man speaking for Christ compellingly for all seasons, especially for this one.
He explained the journey he had taken to find his faith in Christ; “I began as a Dawkins-esque atheist, and finding my way to being an environmental activist, protesting against the scarring of the environment. And then signed up to be a pantheistic pagan, after which I developed into a Zen Buddhist and finally a Wiccan.”
Kingsnorth’s spiritual and intellectual journey took him through the whole range of popular and populist alternatives to Christ that are constantly presented as cool, essential, real, true and better than Christianity.
He explained: “In 2021 I became a Christian – what I was looking for was not to be found in politics, activism, or culture or novels – I found I was on a search for God. I was disturbed to find that He was what I wanted, but He was.
“I searched through a lot of places, and found Christ came to me.
I felt pursued – and I was wanting to run away for a while, but then I gave up, and he found me.”
He had since found himself reading the Orthodox Monk, Fr Seraphim Rose: “I discovered through him the important realisation that the Truth was not an idea, but a Person.”
He continues, “When I was a student I believed we were in the middle of an environmental, economic, political crisis, and whilst that may be true, at the heart of it is the deeper analysis that we are living through a spiritual crisis.
“It is almost like God is our jilted lover, and we have decided to run off with his enemy. Modern people are trying to replace God with our own ego and becoming gods in his place.
“Christianity is the answer to everything. God takes human form and intervenes in history and gives us another chance, sacrificing himself rather than sacrificing anyone else.”
But as is so often the case, it wasn’t just what he said, but the way he said it.
Intentional Faith 