Martin Shaw's visionary conversion might just blow your mind

There’s something going on. I keep bumping into more and more people who are unlikely candidates for adult conversion to Christian faith.

I recently interviewed Dr Martin Shaw for the Maybe God Podcast. Having grown up in a Christian family, Martin left any childhood beliefs behind after embarking on a journey into an esoteric form of personal spirituality. He became a noted mythologist and storyteller, running the Westcountry School Of Myth, and publishing many notable books of poetry and story.

Martin has always been a deep thinker and spiritual searcher. While he valued his parent’s faith, he saw Christianity as too tame and domestic to be able to speak to his own soul. He assumed it was not for him.

But in the winter of early 2020, on the final night of a 101 day forest vigil, he experienced ‘a profound, shatteringly beautiful encounter’ that changed everything. Martin told me what happened:

“On the last night of the vigil I went into the very centre of the woods and I was glad it was over. In my own way I prayed ‘If there is anything you need me to see or absorb at this moment, please announce it’. I was looking out at the night sky. We all know what stars look like, but suddenly my eye caught one that had a different set of colours to it, and I thought ‘ooh, it’s getting bigger’. This only took 15 to 20 seconds.

I realised ‘it’s coming out of the sky and going to land’. This strange, beautiful painted arrow, like a set of colours flew out of the darkness and landed about ten feet away from me.

I don’t know what it was. On the one level it could be a completely natural phenomenon. But on the other, the conditions in which it occurred are significant. The fact that it was after 101 days. It was the end. I asked for a sign and I received something that I could never have anticipated.”

After this ‘baffling and beautiful’ encounter, Martin went to bed that night and as he closed his eyes to go to sleep, nine words came into his mind:

‘Inhabit The Genesis And Time Of Your Original Home’.

Martin had always resisted Christianity, but this encounter and these words, along with a set of very specific dreams about Christ, led him to the point of embracing Christianity. You can hear the full story at my interview with him for the Maybe God podcast.

His story overlaps with another recent interviewee, author and poet Paul Kingsnorth, as both Martin and Paul have entered the Eastern Orthodox Church after their adult conversions.

They aren’t the only ones. I feel like I’m seeing more and more interesting artists, writers and thinkers coming to faith (or something very close to it!) in recent years - Nick Cave, Andrew Klavan, Molly Worthen and AN Wilson to name just a few.

Combine these with a range of secular thinkers such as Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Louise Perry, and Douglas Murray who are reminding their secular peers why Christianity remains such an important part of our cultural heritage and you have the makings of what I’ve termed ‘The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God’ in my soon-to-be-released book. (And you can get hold of a signed copy now at this link!)

I’ve been speaking recently on some of the various people I see included this phenomenon, such as this talk at the Confident Christianity Conference in Cowplain, Portsmouth:

Thanks for reading this far. If you’d like to support my new ministry bringing Thinking Faith to the secular and Christian world, feel free to support me on Patreon or via PayPal. It makes a huge difference!

USA Tour (pt 1)

It’s been great fun to embark on a mini-book tour in the last 2 weeks in Minneapolis and South Dakota.

You can watch one the talks I’ve given below, and if you happen to be in Sioux Falls this Sunday 3 Sep, I’ll be speaking at Embrace Church.

I’m also looking forward to being in Texas from 22-26 Sep at Lanier Theological Library, speaking at The Story Church and then part of the Biblical Worldview Conference in Dallas. Come along if you can!

Thanks again for reading and supporting!