Ex-Satanist church leader meets Jesus!

Reflection

A dramatic change of direction, from leading in satanism to leading in a church, sounds almost too neat to be real, and it is fair to approach such accounts with some caution rather than simple sensation. What matters more than the drama is the underlying claim at the heart of Christian testimony throughout history, that no one is beyond the reach of grace. Paul, who described himself as the foremost of sinners for his earlier persecution of Christians, became one of the faith's greatest advocates (1 Timothy 1:15-16). The consistent biblical picture is not that some people are too far gone and others naturally good, but that everyone needs the same mercy, however different their starting points look from the outside. Extreme testimonies can distract from that ordinary truth if we are not careful, treating them as spectacle rather than as one more example of a mercy that is, in the end, available to anybody.

Questions to sit with

• Do you believe anyone is genuinely beyond the reach of change?
• What assumptions do you make about people whose past looks very different from yours?
• How do you distinguish a dramatic story from the ordinary work of grace in a life?

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