Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
At home my dad would often tell us a story about big and little wolves—a kind of crude Darwinian myth in which the big wolves always ruled the smaller wolves. The moral was clear: If you’re a big wolf, you call the shots. If you’re a little wolf, know your place and don’t cross the big wolf. Clearly, the social Darwinism of the time was exercising a powerful if unacknowledged influence on our home life.
The fact that my mother took exception to this ruthless vision didn’t stop us from internalizing it as a family. In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre shows us why these kinds of stories are much more than family anecdotes:
Through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine, children learn or mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of characters may be in the drama they have been born into and what the ways of the world are.1
For better or for worse my dad had introduced me to a meager cast in a savage drama, and though he didn’t know it at the time, the consequences would soon be spelled out in my young adult life.
I was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1957. At that time Glasgow was an industrial city that had flourished largely because of its access to the sea and a labor force working in coal mining, steel production, and shipbuilding. I was born in the east end of the city, in Shettleston, which was a working-class district facing the challenges of the post‒World War II era. In those years Britain was wrestling with its national identity in the face of its imperial decline and ongoing austerity measures imposed by the war years.
I grew up in a home that was shaped by my mother’s defection from the faith of her childhood, which she viewed as narrow and repressive, as well as my dad’s experiences as a WWII veteran from a broken household with radical leftist leanings. He had dreams of the new possibilities opened up by the promises of a welfare state and was excited to build a new life with his bride.
My early childhood memories were quite happy. I had many friends and lots of time and space to play and have adventures. This was a time well before the smartphone hegemony, and we would roam far and wide until the end of each day. Things at home were not so easy. Though socially outgoing, I was a moody and impetuous child prone to registering my displeasure with loud fits and temper tantrums. Consequently, I often found myself on the wrong side of my parents and my father in particular. Indeed, his low estimation of me seemed to be growing more pronounced every day.
From an early age I hated bullies, and once I was in school I found myself defending the “smaller wolves” with my fists. On one occasion the class bully was picking on a younger boy. I intervened and told the bully to leave him alone. He then tried to fight me, which turned into a real scrap, but I got the upper hand. To my surprise the boy I’d rescued wasn’t grateful for my intervention; he simply feared me now instead of the bully. It seems I was now the big wolf.
As I was excelling in the world of physical combat, my dad was doing well in his job as a sales executive in a large retail business, and our lifestyle soon reflected his professional success. Concerned with the increasing gang violence in our neighborhood, my parents bought a house in a more affluent district on the outskirts of Glasgow called Milngavie (pronounced Mulguy: don’t ask), and we made the move when I was thirteen. I hated it from day one.
This was the early 1970s, and I was just awakening to music and the world of teenage rebellion. I soaked up music from bands like T-Rex, David Bowie, and The Who—whose infamous “My Generation” remains an anthem for disaffected youth. I quickly made new friends and found those who also hated school, wrestled with authority, and wanted to party. The world around us was changing, and we felt it. The world seemed on the verge of some kind of major cataclysm. There was less respect for authority and many inducements to pursue our own pleasures and freedom. The shadow of the cold war hung over us, and nuclear apocalypse was always a threat.
According to MacIntyre, “There is no way to give us an understanding of any society, including our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute its initial dramatic resources.”2 Movies were my key dramatic resources. I reveled in stories of WWII and loved films like The Great Escape, 633 Squadron, and The Guns of Navarone. In a major departure from my dad’s Darwinian script, I developed a love for the struggle between good and evil and these heroic characters who faced danger and took on the bad guys. It all added to my dream to somehow be like that! They fed into my emerging vision of good and evil and some kind of moral framework of the universe. Around the mid-1970s, however, I was drawn to a very different kind of movie. In watching Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson in Death Wish the vision of vigilante justice first gripped me. These tough, fearless loners who took on evil, bucked the system, and fought for justice were compelling to me. In contrast to the lone wolf, maybe it was the image of the hero that began to attract me. They stood apart and stood up for what they felt was right—outlaw and hero. They were not accepted in the normal places of life but were clearly opposed to the criminals and became agents of justice. So, in some ways they stood out from the crowd, ready to defend or act where needed. But in the vigilante hero, I encountered a figure that wed my poor man’s Darwinism to my sense of justice. On some level, in some way, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to do what they did. I think that some of my fights at school, some of the situations I jumped into, were fueled by this subconscious motivation. This is what cultural catechesis looks like on the ground.
Part of life in Scotland for young people, then as well as now, is the pull of drinking at an early age. I began drinking with my friends when I was thirteen years old and soon became adept at procuring alcohol whenever we wanted it. The trick was to keep the wool pulled over my parents’ eyes. Though I had blown it on several occasions, one incident in particular marked a turning point in my life. A friend and I ditched school to get drunk, but we decided to make an appearance as class was in session. Both of us were belligerent and disruptive, and I ended up brandishing a knife. Fortunately, no one was physically hurt, but this foolish outburst marked the official end of my high school career. I was summoned on the following day with my dad to see the headmaster, and he was willing to let me stay under strict conditions. When I made it clear that I was not interested, leaving became the only option. Understandably, my parents were at their wits’ end, but all I could think of was how to escape from their oppressive clutches and my deep unhappiness. I had tried running away once already but got caught and was deeply frustrated.
It all came to a head a few weeks later when I came home one night from drinking with my friends and smelled strongly of alcohol. My dad flew into a rage and we ended up in a fistfight. My seething anger caught him by surprise. I was also quite big at this point and no stranger to fights. I am saddened when I think back on this time, but I see it as a culmination of built-up resentment, nonexistent communication, and deep anger. Dad and I were constantly at odds, which was exhausting. We argued incessantly, and when he drank things got even worse. Dad was used to giving commands, lecturing, or making threats, but he was unprepared for any serious resistance. I increasingly rejected it all and doubted anything he had to say. I just wanted to get away and be free. Thanks to this vicious fight, I got my wish—a few days later I moved into a cheap flat in the west end of the city. Hard to believe: I was fifteen and on my own. Much to his chagrin, my dad discovered that I had internalized his little Darwinist script. He had raised a big wolf.
Several influences were shaping me at this time. First was the music of Alice Cooper. His voice, the Grand Guignol style, the brooding chaos—it all gripped me. I also was introduced to the world of kung fu movies and a new star—Bruce Lee! I had never seen anything like him. This small powerhouse of a man who subdued all his opponents when he was consistently outnumbered, outgunned, and outsized was an inspiration! I wanted this. I enrolled in karate classes and took it all very seriously. My flatmate shared similar passions, and we decorated all the walls of our flat with posters and huge images from Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, and many others. This was our iconography. I woke up to Lee’s fighting stances or combat scenes as a daily feature of my world. It all contributed to my ideal of the archetypal tough guy.
I worked for a couple of years in menswear stores as a salesperson. I did quite well at this and as a result was recruited for a new store owned by a male model and popular TV star in Scotland. For a season I entered the world of men’s fashion and may have stayed in that space permanently except for a chance meeting one afternoon in the new store opened by my bosses in Sauchiehall Street, one of Glasgow’s main shopping centers. One afternoon a customer asked if I was interested in being a bouncer. I asked what was involved and what it paid. He told me that he managed a large disco that was next door to our shop and that they needed security guards to patrol the dance floors, protect the doors, and help stop fights or troublemakers. It would bring extra cash, and of course there were lots of girls as an added incentive.
I took the job, complete with the compulsory white shirt, bow tie, and dinner jacket as the uniform to make us stand out. The task was clear. Look out for troublemakers, stop any fights, and be on the lookout for weapons or gang activities. We were to be ready to jump into any situation and subdue those who were causing trouble and expel them. I now found myself in a world that somewhat matched my fantasies about rugged heroes and vigilante justice. The disco itself was a large venue with two main dance floors and multiple bars. It was open on the weekends and drew a large, young crowd. I loved it from day one.
I also made friends quickly and was amazed by a man I met by the name of Robbie. I had never seen anyone like him. He was not tall but easily one of the broadest men I had ever seen, with huge muscles bulging from his jacket. He came from the south side of Glasgow, an area notorious for its thug culture and ensuing gang violence. We were in the changing room one night, and I was in my jeans and T-shirt. Robbie came over, pulled on my shirt, and said to me with disdain, “Nice shirt. How come you didn’t buy one with muscles in it?” Naturally, my embarrassment was only intensified by the fact that this jab at my stature was coming from a mini–Arnold Schwarzenegger! Just to be clear, this man had a chest as deep as a barrel and arms and muscles like nothing I had ever seen. By contrast I had no muscles, no physique to speak of. In the world of the disco, looking like an amateur wrestler gave you cachet and respect. It set me thinking. I also met at that time another Stuart, a man much bigger and wilder than me. We became instant friends. It wasn’t long before we garnered a reputation and earned the nickname “the two Stuarts.”
Meanwhile, Robbie took a break from his insults and invited me to the gym, where he trained in weightlifting and powerlifting. It was a slow start, but I was consistent and eventually excelled in this arena. I was looking more and more like a big wolf or the big thug, depending on how you look at it: I put on weight, lifted larger loads, and felt more and more aggressive as I got bigger and stronger. Going to the gym, being with these tough men, training hard, and seeing the results of this hard work in my body and my look increased my self-assurance and strengthened my resolve to be a man as ruthless as he was relentless.
In a maneuver not unlike Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, I remember one night planning for a way to meet some thugs and surprise them with my version of swift justice. I was at that time driving a very high-end Toyota, which was aqua blue and metallic. It was a big luxury vehicle and stood out in any setting. I drove to a particularly rough spot in a district called Maryhill. With two shotguns in my trunk, I parked half on the sidewalk and sat on the hood of the car and waited. I felt sure the car would attract attention and that sitting there might draw some angry young men to pick a fight. I was dressed in my leather jacket and inwardly daring some lowlife to try and steal my car.
Even though I knew many others who had received honest muggings on this same street, nothing happened to me. I sat there brooding. I watched. I waited. I glared, all to no end. My plans to show off my vigilante skills were thwarted by the confounding indifference of this shady spot. Looking back, this whole episode is equal parts horrifying and pathetic. What would’ve happened if someone had approached me? Sadly, we’re in a cultural moment where we see the catastrophic results of crossing juvenile fantasies with real violence on a near-daily basis. In this case the Lord in his mercy spared me from shedding any blood. Eventually, I retreated to my flat for an infuriatingly quiet night bereft of any vigilante antics.
Occasionally, I would visit my parents and flaunt these new developments in my life. Despite his earlier stories about big and small wolves, my dad disapproved of my appearance as I had bulked up, consumed huge amounts of food and supplements, and courted the look of a hard man. It was all a performance in many respects, but I can only imagine what my parents were thinking or feeling during this time.
I’m tempted to speculate that my dad may have seen some of his handiwork in my appearance. Years later I would be utterly captivated by Tim Burton’s spin on Batman. Yes, I know that Christopher Nolan’s films have relegated Burton’s 1989 version to the dustbin, but I’m still impressed by its psychological depth. One scene in particular depicts a remarkable exchange between Batman and the Joker. The Joker, played with gleeful abandon by Jack Nicholson, argues, “You made me. Remember? You dropped me into that vat of chemicals!” Batman responds, “You killed my parents. . . . You made me first.”3 These lines always haunted me. In many ways it’s the kind of existential response I could have leveled at my dad during those years. He may have disapproved of my particular path, but I had followed his script to the letter.
I now saw the world in simple terms. I lived for myself, my wants, and my needs. Nothing else mattered. I said goodbye to the sedate world of menswear. As a result of my connections in the dance hall, I met one of the better-known heavies in the Glasgow underworld. We’ll call him Morris. He owned a car business and had club connections in the city. He needed drivers to help pick up used cars for resale and to do odd jobs for him, and I took up his offer. He liked me from the start, and over time I took on more and more tasks from him. He then asked me to manage one of his car show rooms, which I did. This meant more money, driving any car I chose, and connections with the kind of people I felt were significant. It was a world of big wolves. These were not people interested in anything much but their own pleasure, prosperity, and success. If they had a philosophy, it was survival of the smartest, toughest, or wiliest! It’s important to stress that I never knew at that time how aligned my thinking was with crude expressions of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest or the most aggressive, rampant hedonism, the law of the jungle—these were simply our tacit assumptions. We weren’t reading or writing books on the subject; we were simply living it.
At this time I was asked by an old friend to help a woman he knew, called Clare, to recover her stuff from her ex-boyfriend. Despite her many attempts to get it back, he had steadfastly refused. The two Stuarts were promptly summoned and the ex-boyfriend was quickly persuaded to return his former girlfriend’s possessions. Shortly after her rescue, we began a relationship. Things were looking good for me. I had my own place, drove nice cars, earned good money, and had an attractive live-in girlfriend. What more could I ask for? Little did I know that I just reached another crucial turning point in my life.
One day Clare asked me what I thought of Jesus. The short answer was nothing. I had seldom given it any thought and believed Christianity didn’t even rise to the dignity of critique; it was simply an irrelevance. I had no interest in or any desire for God, the gods, or anything of that nature. The conversation did not go far, and I assumed it was just a passing fancy. How wrong I was. My girlfriend was on a spiritual quest. She was hungry for answers and needed to know if God existed and if Christianity had something to say. Unbeknownst to me, she had been talking to a Christian colleague at work and then finally in desperation went into a church and asked the pastor how she could come to know God. He happily obliged, and she gave her life to Christ. It was a real encounter, one she could not deny and was eager to share.
When she told me of this encounter, I was dumbfounded. At first I thought, so what? As long as it did not change anything in my life, in our lives, then whatever! But the transformation in her was real, and it became clear that we had to separate. I was angry and confused. What was this? Who were these people who had messed with her thinking and our life? I knew nothing about religion and almost nothing about Christianity. Like so many modern people outside of the church, I assumed it was something people chose as a lifestyle preference and nothing more. From what I could see, the church seemed to be a haven for people who were too scared to face reality. Whatever it was, it was certainly not the place for me!
After a couple of weeks apart, Clare called and invited me to meet the colleague and the colleague’s husband who had influenced her. Though it pains me to say it, I went to their home firmly resolved to physically assault them. But I was surprised by the serenity of their home and by their manner and comportment. An ineffable quality permeated the atmosphere in this home. Something was different.
Nevertheless, I sought to undermine all that was shared by them. I contested the idea of a God and the relevance of any of it for our daily lives. Slowly, steadily, and surely they shared Scripture, answered questions, covered objections, and laid out the gospel. There were no clever methodologies, slick gimmicks, or cutting-edge techniques. Simply two faithful witnesses sharing the treasure of Christ’s gospel in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). In a word, Christ’s sheep shared his words of life with the big wolf. And, as the apostle Paul says so well, the Lord’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8-10). I entered their home an unbeliever, and while there I began to have a creeping sense that there may be some truth in it all—and then began to fear it was true! There was a God, and I needed a savior.
I went upstairs to their bathroom and knelt and prayed. I asked God to save me and to forgive my sins and all the damage I had done thus far. When I came down the stairs and shared, they all hugged me and prayed with me. A new life had begun. The wolf had become one of Christ’s sheep. I had no idea what had happened and the impact it would all have. The young couple who led me to the Lord subsequently opened their home to me and introduced me to the church. I began to attend this small congregation and was encouraged to read the Bible daily and to pray. I was given the basic orientation for an ongoing walk with Christ, which had to include Scripture, prayer, and good fellowship. The foundations were being laid.
It’s impossible to overstate the significance of this lovely couple opening their hearts and home to me. I was a spiritual infant, woefully unprepared to face the manifold challenges of abandoning my former life alone. I shared countless meals with these people, said many prayers with them, and searched the Scriptures with their guidance. We quickly identified a destructive pattern that unfolded on Saturday nights and often kept me from church. Sunday was a very special time for me, and our worship service centered on prayer and the Lord’s Supper, which was profoundly moving for me. But old habits were hard to shake, and my former life kept beckoning in the form of bouts of aggression and ensuing brawls. Seeing this, my friends invited me to stay at their home on Saturday nights. I could come when I wanted, as late as needed, and it gave me a sanctuary, a place where I could be quiet and prepare for worship. They were my spiritual parents and made it clear they were there for me, and they demonstrated this by their constant availability to me.
It wasn’t long before my newfound faith met with serious consequences as I shared it in my workplace and as I tried to work out my complicated relationship with Clare and my own past. I quickly came to see the hostility to the gospel and the cost of commitment as each day passed. My old friends thought I had lost my mind and worked tirelessly to deconvert me in the early stages, even going so far as to plaster the walls of my office with hard-core pornography. I was discovering firsthand what it meant to embody what Martin Luther called “the way of the cross”—a manner of life that looks like lunacy to those who haven’t bowed the knee to Christ. For my part I wanted to deepen my understanding of the faith and was hungry to grow and to serve. A few weeks after my conversion I attended a summer camp where I heard some deep teaching about the needs on the mission field. I was convinced that I needed to follow and serve Christ more fully, and I felt called to go, no matter where he sent. Soon, I was recruited by Operation Mobilization (OM) to work with a team serving the communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe. Our base of operations was in Vienna, Austria.
A stark reversal was taking place in my life. Whereas before I had been captivated by the enticements of hedonism and vigilante justice, now I was called to forsake everything, take up my cross, and follow Christ. I sold possessions, paid for outfitting a coffee bar in my church, bought some household appliances for my mother, donated the rest of my savings to missions, and left home—and all that was familiar—for an unknown world and life. From now on I would trust in the Lord’s provision rather than in my own strength and ingenuity. If I had wanted wealth and power before, all I wanted now was to serve Christ.
My years in Vienna would play a central role in my Christian formation. For one thing, I met the woman who would become my wife in this beautiful city. Mary was an American, and like me she was a convert and had a deep passion for the gospel and mission. Our romance bloomed amid the welter of vigorous travel, Bible smuggling, and brief stints in prison for distributing “Christian propaganda” in communist nations. We were eventually married in the United States. Both of us tried to envision what a Christian home would look like, but it was difficult to imagine in the context of this strange life we were jointly called to.
Soon the speculation would end. Our son, Cameron, was born in 1984 and our daughter, Katherine, followed in 1986. Though we were thrilled with the gift of two kids, the circumstances of our missionary life remained challenging. This was still before the advent of smartphones, and I traveled extensively. To make matters worse, my trips were often to parts of the world where communication was limited or nonexistent. I was often off the grid. Mary carried a huge load not only because we were far from both of our respective families but also because she was managing the daily chaos of two small children in a foreign country. Fortunately, she had several close friends who were also navigating the struggles of being young mothers. There were also older women with kids a bit more mature who could offer advice and support in managing the ups and downs of family life in a strange land.
Like so many young Christian families, we read books, observed others, and talked incessantly about how to raise our kids. Mary did a great job of making our family meals a time and place for good food and rich conversations. At her insistence we shared all of our meals, and the kitchen table became a key symbol of the communal ethos of our household. Because she spent more time with the kids than I did, she was able to see subtleties that I missed. We discussed attitudes and behaviors and tried to aim for ways to keep the discipline to a minimum. Our primary aim was to cultivate discernment and well-ordered love—not to gain total control. We wanted to cultivate genuine hunger for Christ in our kids. I had a brooding concern that being born in a Christian home might somehow inoculate them against the faith. Would our inconsistencies undermine our testimony and send mixed signals about our life in Christ to these young souls? I still ask myself this question.
Why was this anxiety about hypocrisy such a dominant concern for me? I was aware that my upbringing had given me a jaded picture of parenting, and I was deeply conscious of the person I had been before I met the Lord. As Pascal exhorts us, “Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.”4 But even with the best of intentions I knew that I was still human—that I was selfish and could not live consistently all the time. I feared that my kids would see this frailty, interpret it as hypocrisy, and reject the faith because we didn’t make it attractive. We determined as a couple that perfection was not an option (nor a possibility), but honesty and humility would be. We would model the broken authority that characterizes those who have taken up their cross.
In the late 1990s Mary and I sensed a change coming in our lives and were delighted by an offer to join Ravi Zacharias’s team in Atlanta. We had never imagined living in the United States, and though Mary was born there she had lived for many years outside of the country, so in many respects it was a new place for her as well. We were all caught up initially in the excitement of the move, of a new country, new experiences, and so many new opportunities.
We bought our first home in the Greater Atlanta area and settled into a new kind of ministry: apologetics. The kids made friends but began to show some signs of struggle. They were growing, entering the teen years, and facing the usual challenges of figuring out who they were and what they wanted. Katherine struggled with the strongly expressed sense of American exceptionalism so dominant in the South. Cameron was attracted to the cultural fringes, carving out space within the black metal subculture.
During these first years in the United States, both kids had issues. Katherine began skipping school, and we saw a brooding resentment against all authority increasingly characterizing her behavior. Cameron continued his voyage into the nihilistic seas of black metal. We talked and continued to try to encourage them to be active in church, to meet other Christian friends, but they both had their share of stories of “Christian” kids having sex, getting drunk, and keeping up appearances while living the party life. They were not persuaded by or attracted to what they saw.
This was the very thing I dreaded. We were facing a form of nominal Christianity that simply wasn’t an option in the predominantly secular world of Europe. Here, many kids were adept at performing for their parents and pastors. In effect, they were functional atheists: they professed Christ but lived as though he didn’t exist.
Authenticity was a vital concern for us. I did not want my kids to perform the American cultural spin on the gospel. At the same time I was also concerned that they would fool themselves into thinking that God turned a blind eye to their lack of commitment. Though we were careful to allow them room to work through these issues on their own, we steadfastly refused to allow them to hide from their inconsistencies. Mary and I were determined to press the kids to seriously wrestle with God. We wanted them to have a living faith. If it was real, it would bear fruit. We knew that only God could conquer the heart, but we also knew that our primary responsibility as their parents was to be faithful witnesses, even when that meant challenging their moral lethargy and spiritual apathy.
I felt a particular burden for my kids because I had not felt approval or much acceptance from my dad. Cameron struggled with how he perceived I felt about him. It was a classic Catch-22. I wanted to show acceptance, approval, and love, but I also wanted to see change and to see him (and Katherine) flourish!
After several encounters in which I attempted to raise the questions of character and of consistent living in light of a faith profession, our communication became seriously strained. Mary and I were praying, and we were worried. We knew of destructive influences in Cameron’s life that would carry a cost. Cameron was increasingly withdrawn, agitated, and spiritually apathetic. One morning, after much thinking and prayer on my part, Cameron sauntered into the kitchen. He grunted some casual greeting, and I asked a question: “Son, why do you call yourself a Christian?” My hope was once again to cause some reflection on what being a Christian really meant.
As it turns out this simple question would play a pivotal role in Cameron’s spiritual recovery. At the time, however, he was less than thrilled with this early morning invitation for a moral inventory of his spiritual life: “It’s six in the morning, Dad,” he said. “Do you think we could talk about this later?”
As you can imagine, this was not the response I’d hoped for. “Oh, that’s just perfect, isn’t it?” I blurted out and headed for my library in the basement. The conversation may have ended abruptly, but my question was just the beginning. I’ll let Cameron tell you the rest in his story.