The Conversion of St. Paul

[In 1955 Mrs Margaret Knight, a humanist, caused a sensation by her broadcasts on BBC radio attacking Christianity. This was composed in reply to her arguments, and it was published in The Listener of February 10, 1955]

Now is the time when we recall

The sharp Conversion of St. Paul.

Converted! Turned the wrong way round—

A man who seemed till then quite sound,

Keen on religion—very keen—

No-one, it seems, had ever been

So keen on persecuting those

Who said that Christ was God and chose

To die for this absurd belief

As Christ had died beside the thief.

Then in a sudden blinding light

Paul knew that Christ was God all right—

And very promptly lost his sight.

Poor Paul! They led him by the hand

He who had been so high and grand

A helpless blunderer, fasting, waiting,

Three days inside himself debating

In physical blindness: ‘As it’s true

That Christ is God and died for you,

Remember all the things you did

To keep His gospel message hid.

Remember how you helped them even

To throw the stones that murdered Stephen.

And do you think that you are strong

Enough to own that you were wrong?’

They must have been an awful time,

Those three long days repenting crime

Till Ananias came and Paul

Received his sight, and more than all

His former strength, and was baptised.

Saint Paul is often criticised

By modern people who’re annoyed

At his conversion, saying Freud

Explains it all. But they omit

The really vital point of it,

Which isn’t how it was achieved

But what it was that Paul believed.

He knew as certainly as we

Know you are you and I am me

That Christ was all He claimed to be.

What is conversion? Turning round

From chaos to a love profound.

And chaos too is an abyss

In which the only life is this.

Such a belief is quite all right

If you are sure like Mrs. Knight

And think morality will do

For all the ills we’re subject to.

But raise your eyes and see with Paul

An explanation of it all.

Injustice, cancer’s cruel pain,

All suffering that seems in vain,

The vastness of the universe,

Creatures like centipedes and worse—

All part of an enormous plan

Which mortal eyes can never scan

And out of it came God to man.

Jesus is God and came to show

The world we live in here below

Is just an antechamber where

We for His Father’s house prepare.

What is conversion? Not at all

For me the experience of St. Paul,

No blinding light, a fitful glow

Is all the light of faith I know

Which sometimes goes completely out

And leaves me plunging round in doubt

Until I will myself to go

And worship in God’s house below—

My parish Church—and even there

I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round

To gaze upon a love profound.

For some of us see Jesus plain

And never once look back again,

And some of us have seen and known

And turned and gone away alone,

But most of us turn slow to see

The figure hanging on a tree

And stumble on and blindly grope

Upheld by intermittent hope.

God grant before we die we all

May see the light as did St. Paul.