Episode 002 – T’s conversion story
16 March 2021
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
B: Ok, so welcome to Episode 2 of I was a Teenage Fundamentalist. For those of you who may not have turned into Episode 1, we don’t come to this space with any agenda. We don’t come here trying to convince atheists they should be more spiritual, or Christians that they should be less spiritual. I guess we’re trying to unpack and constantly explore our experience that we had as teenage fundamentalists.
T: It could even be a type of therapy really, we might be sitting here sort of unpacking this shit and going oh, didn’t that mess us up.
B: Yeah absolutely, and as we go further on with these if people are interested enough to listen we can start to talk more about where we’re in the context of now, and looking back on what we did go through and how we’ve been able to have that shape us, because I think there’s a lot of positives in it as well.
T: And we discussed that we want this to be episodic – that it’s not necessarily going to be in any sort of order, but it’s going to be story based. You and I telling stories and then we interact with each other on those stories and unpack things in purpose and meaning, but always trying to at least hopefully find some sort of positive spin, if not a neutral spin so it doesn’t just become a slag off.
B: Yeah. That would be easy to get into, and it’d be a bit of fun.
T: It would be fun, but I don’t now how good it is for us, or how much people want to listen to that.
B: Look, there’s good in everything, and I think you’ve got to find it and pull it forward into the present. So in Episode 1 I talked a little bit about my journey and conversion story, but in this episode we want to focus a bit on T, and how he got to the place he is almost 40 years ago, when he experienced his conversion story.
T: Yes well, taking it back even further 50 years ago was the fact that I was born into a family that I guess was called nominally religious. We would have a label which was Anglican and the kids were all baptised – myself and my brothers, but there was no confirmation, there was no church attendance, there was nothing. I can remember my brother had a children’s bible and I as a kid said I wanted one. I think at a very young age I was drawn to things religious, without getting into the whole idea of reincarnation and coming back again, I was right into this stuff the minute I appeared on the planet. Even from a little tucker I was like, tell me about God, so it was something that was ingrained in me from a very early age but not because of my parents. I know people could argue with that and say well actually no we can trace it back, and I’m open to that too. But I’m just saying it wasn’t from my family, but at 3 and 4 I was wanting to know about God and this kind of thing from my parents.
B: It’s interesting isn’t it. I was similar, I think I was born into a spiritual place but I would quite often read stuff around reincarnation and other unexplained things like spontaneous combustion – that sort of stuff, because I was drawn to the mysterious.
T: Yeah, the supernatural and paranormal. I was right into that as well. But my mother had a friend who was involved in Catholic Charismatic Renewal which is that Pentecostalism speaking in tongues, healing and prophecy and all that kind of thing. If you don’t know what that is, just Google Pentecostalism. That was very much my mother’s friend’s experience and she was telling my mum. I was often times on one side of a phone conversation so I could hear my mum talking to her friend, talking about this experience, then I could hear my mother at other times talking to other friends of hers. So she would be telling my aunties and these kinds of people what this other woman had experienced in her Catholic Charismatic thing. Mum was very taken by it. So I know that planted the seeds in me of an openness to speaking in tongues, of God and Jesus interfering or stepping into this existence.
B: At what age was this?
T: Oh gosh that would have been 6 or 7 that I’d heard all this. I say that because I was primed – as much as I want to say I was born with this wanting to know about spiritual things, there was definitely a real priming that had happened unintentionally from my parent’s perspective, but it had happened. So I was in the school production, I was in Year 7. I was in the school rock band which I had started – my brother came home one day and said he was in a band, and in true sibling fashion I was like well, I’m going to be in a band too, and went and started a band at school. It was great, it was one of the highlights of my teenage life, we would travel from school to school, we would go to youth clubs, we would even play RSL clubs, rugby league clubs, things like that. So this Christian band came to school one day – I didn’t even know they were a Christian band, whatever that meant, they were just a band. The whole tuck shop area – lunch area, for those coming in outside of Australia – the whole lunch area was just packed with kids. I came in at the last half hour of it, maybe only 15 minutes, and everyone was right into them. It was the 80s right, so they were in white shirts and white pants with sequinned vests.
B: Wow. Was that ever fashionable?
T: Well, obviously it was if you were in a Christian band, so probably not. But I don’t know if they were YWAM – Youth with a Mission – or brought in from some other Christian thing. They weren’t allowed to do an altar call give your life to Jesus thing at school, so what they were trying to do was invite everyone to the Saturday night youth group that they were going to be playing at. Which is what they do – basically they go round scalping tickets. So they left, the concert happened on the Saturday which I didn’t go to. I was in the school production, and there was a group of girls that had gone to this Christian concert and they turned up on the Monday telling this amazing story. Basically what it was, was this full on emotionally charged saga, of the band was there, the music they played and then they would have gone into – I’m speculating now – but they would have gone into a heavy strings sound, come down and give your life to Jesus. They were American by the way. So these girls had done that, and they came back telling stories of how their lives had been changed, one of them was howling and crying that Jesus had come into her life, and all this sort of stuff. I was just like huh, this sounds interesting. I guess it tweaked an interest in me and I started listening to their stories. One of the other girls who had gone, she said yeah I went down and gave my life to Jesus as well but when I got home my mother told me about when she was young and she had done the same thing. And this girl, even though she’d gone through it and gone on this big emotional ride and got carried along with all the other girls, when she got home and her mother said actually darl, this is what happened to me, she was able to just put it down. She was the one in the group that said that was great, what an emotional experience then she gets home and her mum, like your dad, said well that’s just bullshit and she went ok that’s just bullshit and put it down. So even when the girls were telling the stories she was coming in afterwards and saying actually then this happened, like a postscript or a whisper, like she didn’t want to be seen to be against the other girls. The other girls were telling stories about Jesus coming into their lives, and tears, emotions, electricity shooting through their body – as I said, I was really excited about that.
What happened after that was the ISCF – Inter-School Christian Fellowship, which was run by the Baptist Union, Scripture Union back in the 80s – it was run by our woodwork teacher who I will call Mr C. We used to hear announcements during announcement time every day in school, in Year 7 in High School, that the ISCF were meeting today at 12:15 in the woodwork room. So I started going along to that, to see where’s this electric charge that’s going to make me cry, and it’s going to be amazing. So I took my mate along, I’ll call him J. He didn’t know why we were there, he just followed along with me. I remember Mr C was talking to the kids in the group about how do we get more kids to come. So he’s obviously wanting to boost the numbers of his ISCF group – and again, looking back from having been a fundamentalist, I knew exactly what he was doing. But the irony was that two new guys were there, and instead of actually stopping and talking to these two new kids, he just carried on and had this meeting about how we’re going to get more kids to come. So we sat there and thought what the hell’s this, this isn’t interesting at all. That probably would have been it, but at the very end he said oh by the way, the camp’s coming up. He threw down these photocopied leaflets with hand drawn pictures on them about this Scripture Union camp he was running, and my friend and I had just started Scouts and we were like camp – cool! It was actually my friend J who said to me let’s go to this, it looks like a lot of fun. The brochure said hiking, surfing, and we said yeah that sounds awesome! So we went home, talked to our parents and our parents said yes. There may have been an argument, there may have been a push, there may have been tears, why not, I hate you, you’re not the boss of me, I can’t remember. But we went on this camp, and my God. Talk about a drag.
B: Really? Didn’t live up to those expectations.
T: In fairness to them it did rain, so I guess maybe that put an end to their surfing, hiking and all this kind of stuff, but I didn’t see any surf boards or back packs. Basically it was like home group bible studies. We’d have bible studies and activities then we’d have a meal, then we’d have bible studies and activities and a meal, and at night we’d have these mini concert-y things where people would sing – it was Baptist, right.
B: So no dancing.
T: There was no dancing, there was no raising of hands. But was like two days of intense bible studies. My mate J and I, after the first day we were like nope, so day two which was the Sunday, we started disappearing. We went down to the beach and they’d come looking for us, what are you doing come back guys and we’re like aaagh so we’d have to go back and sit there. I remember them talking with us and sharing these bible studies. J and I were right into heavy metal and music and all that kind of thing, so we’re quoting The Police (the band), we’re quoting song lyrics back to them. They were quoting bible verses to us, and we go yeah really. They were talking about Jesus being the servant teacher or the servant master, and there’s a line I think it’s from Synchronicity where it says the you’ll find your servant is your master. They were like yeah, that’s exactly right, you’re getting it. I wasn’t getting it, I was just quoting The Police.
B: Sting is a very spiritual man!
T: Maybe. Mephistopheles is not your name, but I know what you’re up to just the same – same song. Anyway, so we went home and that was it. It was a three day camp, so there was a Monday as well. We finally got out of there and it was like, well that’s Christianity. Great, tick no. Vote no. Put it at the bottom of the list – done. That was that for the longest time, I kept going with my early 80s heavy metal Van Halen, Ozzy Osborne, scared myself to death with all that sort of devil stuff, backwards masking.
B: Did you play your records backwards?
T: Yeah played my records backwards. We’d sit there and it would go natas natas natas, and you play it backwards and it’s satan satan satan and I remember saying to my friend it says Satan! And my friend goes no it’s a type of cloth, it’s satin! Or it’s a planet. You read into this shit, especially when you’re a kid. Later on I made friends with another kid, his name was G. First of all he had a Commodore 64 so I’d go to his place after school and play computer games. I had an Atari, his mother wasn’t home so we basically had full run of his place and we could play video games, and it was great. He’d also started a business where he was selling lollies. He’d go and buy lollies in bulk and then come to school and sell them onto other kids. Smart little bugger. But he said to me hey I’m going on this church camp in the school holidays want to come? And I said nope, been there done that. He’s like why not?, so I told him why and he said no this one’s not like that, we’ll do fun things, surfing and hiking and all that kind of thing, there’ll be a little bit of God stuff but not a whole lot.
So I went along on this camp with him. This was a group that was then called Revival Centres of Australia. They were somewhat different from the Assemblies of God that you and I ended up in although they had come from the same pot years before in the 1940s, when they broke away. I was waiting for the meeting, as they called it. This group didn’t call it services or sermons, they called it meetings and talks. This is why they weren’t religious – we don’t have services, we have meetings. We don’t have sermons, we have talks, because we’re not religious. They’re totally religious, right. This guy sat down with me and started showing me in the bible – probably much like what happened to you when people start talking to you about stuff and you really don’t get it, but he started talking about speaking in tongues, and he said you can become a Christian and speak in tongues. That got me interested again, because I thought maybe I’m not going to cry and have emotional electric jolts and stuff, but I can get this thing called speaking in tongues. So I played along, at the end of the meeting like yours – this is all kids, the leaders were all adults – so I went up at the end of the meeting and they told me to say Hallelujah over and over, really fast. I’m standing in a row of kids, everyone’s going Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah and they’re going come on God fill them with the Holy Spirit and all this stuff, and I hear these people speaking in tongues and I’m like what? Nothing happened to me, and that was the end of the service, but that was it.
B: You were hooked.
T: Yeah, because there was this spiritual thing – unlike the other one where you pray a prayer and ask Jesus into your life but you don’t feel anything, this was like no no, being a Christian you get something. Later on in that week – this was a week long camp – and I was really starting to connect and feel a part, it was very exciting and they were all talking about the love of God and God in your life and speaking in tongues. Funny enough not a lot about Jesus, it was a lot more about speaking in tongues and the Holy Spirit.
B: As a product.
T: Yeah, and there was a girl there I started to develop a crush on, and it was just really cool. Towards the end of the week I realised if I don’t get this tongues thing, I might miss my chance. So I went to one of the leaders and said how do I get it? He said get what? I said get what you’ve got. He said oh you want to speak in tongues? And I said yes, so he said let’s go and see the pastor. So we went to see the pastor who himself was in his 20s. He wasn’t a youth pastor, he was the pastor of this smaller town where the camp was held and he was sort of visiting. He said come on, and he took me into his cabin – nowadays you wouldn’t get away with it, taking a young boy into your cabin with you and speaking in tongues, but this was the 80s. So I got on my knees and started praying, and he was getting me to say hallelujah over and over, and all this stuff, and I was doing it over and over, and he was going let your tongue change, don’t worry – totally coached. Nothing spontaneous. There was no just asking for it and being struck by lightning, it was just saying hallelujah over and over, and eventually it was just yanda yanda babababa whatever and he said that’s it, you’ve got it. But after half an hour of just constantly going hallelujah to all of a sudden have this quietness and an oh you’ve got it, it was tangible. It was tangible – not saying he was doing it on purpose, but it was manipulated. I don’t know if you remember the Rajneesh’s, the orange people, they jump up and down for half an hour going ah ah ah ah and then they just stop and feel – of course you’re going to feel something. It’s a complete change in mood. So at the end of that he said that’s it you’ve got it. So I sort of convinced myself that I could feel something because I didn’t want to miss out, and then I was able to speak in tongues now. I was able to turn it on and turn it off. That was it. I had it. I went home, and much like you told the story of your brothers, I went home and said hi mum and dad, I’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit, I speak in tongues and by the way, you’re going to hell.
B: That would have been taken quite well, I imagine.
T: Oh yeah that was received really well, as you could imagine. I think at that moment they probably thought oh my god, what’s happened to our son. So that was my conversion – I can talk about it a little bit later on as we do this in an episodic sense, and tell some of the things that happened in that group, because they were a hard core cult. Certainly the groups you and I were involved in, you can say cultish things about them, but this group was a hard and fast cult, and had nothing to do with any other groups or church.
B: Do they still exist?
T: Yeah, yeah they still exist. They’ve had multiple splits, which is what happens with cults. The original group call themselves The Revival Centre Church, not Revival Centres of Australia anymore, there’s another group called Revival Fellowships International. Actually, the one I was brought into in the city I was in, they went off with the Revival Fellowships International – not that this matters. And there’s another one called Christian Assemblies International, and they had a whole expose done by Four Corners and all kinds of stuff, because they took the whole cult thing to an even further extreme. But that was my conversion into calling myself a Christian, and attending church, I got baptised in that group.
B: Similar to my one?
T: No we had to wear white robes, and it was in the building. But you know what was interesting about that – when I got dunked, and I was baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they dunked me and I got back up, I got out of that feeling like electricity was buzzing all over me. Whether that was because I had tapped into something spiritual, or whether it was because I had sat there in a bath tub in front of a whole auditorium full of people, and there was music and all that sort of stuff – probably the latter – but I definitely felt something getting out of that experience.
B: So the question begs – did the white robe have sequins or rhinestones like the Christian rock star?
T: No, it was just a white robe. I can’t remember whether it buttoned at the front or the back, but it was definitely a white robe. Interestingly when I was talking to the other people that were baptised afterwards, because there was a few of us that day, one of the other guys said I just feel light, and I feel this buzzing around me, which is what I felt. So that was the beginning of 3, 4, 5 years in a religious cult, but that can be stories for another time.
B: You were saying it was the moment you became a Christian – what did that mean for you at that time?
T: For me at that moment it meant I belonged to this group. I’d had this whole week with these people, and they’d love bombed me. What I mean by that is they’d been very accepting, very welcoming, you could do no wrong. Everything you did they were like great, praise God. So I belonged to that group in that week, and speaking in tongues on that camp meant that I really belonged. I was always the sort of kid that was happy to speak publicly which was always encouraged in that sort of group, so I was an extravert and they loved me for that. But yeah, I belonged to that group, I was not going to hell – not that I ever thought I was. They had built that into me, it’s like oh if you don’t do this you’re going to hell, by the way here’s this. Oh great, I’ll get this, now I’m not going to hell. But I never thought I was going to hell before that. So talk about primed – primed by the group in that week, and then it went on for a number of years.
B: Certainly a tale that we need to explore more. I’m sure that bundled within that there’s plenty of stories and experiences which people would relate to, but I look at the similarity between what was the bits that hooked both of us independently in different situations – it was the acceptance. It was the love, it was you have been accepted as part of us.
T: Talking about that, my father was military at that stage so we moved every few years. I had just come back from America and had just been transplanted into this Australian city with an American accent, which wasn’t hugely popular in Australia in the 80s, especially in this town where I was. So I was really craving that acceptance as well. And these people accepted me right from the start.
B: Did they accept you for who you were, do you think? Or were they accepting you for who they wanted you to be?
T: Well, remembering that they’re a cult, right, so at the time I thought they were just accepting me, but of course not. I was a scalp or a notch on a belt, a number they could report. As a matter of fact, on the day of my baptism which we went back to the mother church back in the town where we lived, not the camp, they were reporting about the number of children that had been filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and were saved, and I was one of that number. So their agenda was certainly to bring people in. They do think that they’re doing the right thing, saving you from hell. They wouldn’t have called it hell, but from eternal damnation, but the feeling I had was acceptance of me as a person – but of course not.
B: No. The numbers game is very real – I’m sure we’ll talk about this another time, but as I got more and more involved in the scene, quite often behind the scenes when you’re part of the leadership group the language I would hear is oh we got eight saved tonight.
T: How many souls.
B: How many souls – that’s right. Some nights there was a rally there or something and you’d get a bunch of newbies in and it was like we have 38 saved tonight, what a cracking night! It was a numbers game, whether it was just how people measured success I don’t know, but certainly numbers bounced around a lot.
T: Totally. So let’s unpack a lot of this as we go – we talked before about jumping backwards and forwards in the story is fine. We’re going to do it in an episodic sense, and doing what we did today – trying to see what it looked like when you were there, and what does it look like looking back, because that can be contradictory and eye opening.
B: That sounds good. I’ve certainly got some stories about others in my life, my parents, my dad with his famous catch cry of this is bullshit actually coming into the bullshit.
T: My mum too, albeit briefly. Just to whet people’s appetite, I think it would be really cool to talk about the time you were involved in working out and promoting DC Talk touring Australia.
B: Ah yes!
T: That’s going to be really cool – well I’m not going to say whether I call myself a Christian now or not, let’s forget about that, but I still love that music, it was so much a part of who I was then, but it would be interesting to hear your stories about that.
B: Yes, that was fun.
T: So let’s wrap there, and we’ll see how we go with episode 3. We plan to release this weekly, so keep an eye out on your favourite podcast platform and we’ll see you next week.