How John Lennox’s Faith Was Shaped
The following article is a short summary of a conversation about John Lennox’s life and faith story, in his own words. For the full conversation watch this video:
His Parents Were The Foundation
The main influences in my childhood were my parents – both of them devoted Christians. Not particularly public Christians, but deeply serious ones. My mother was a quiet, extraordinarily devoted lover of Scripture and of prayer. My father occasionally preached, but what shaped me most wasn’t what he said from a platform. It was the way they both lived. If I had to sum it up, I would say it was the way in which they lived out the Christian faith, both morally and spiritually. And the moral side, I think, is very important, because it was a difficult period of time to be growing up in Northern Ireland.
His Father’s Shop Was A Lesson In Human Dignity
My father ran a store in the middle of the city of Armagh. And in that store, he employed both Catholics and Protestants. Now, in Northern Ireland at that time, that was a genuinely risky business. I asked him once why he did it, because it seemed too dangerous. And I never forget his answer. He said, look, Scripture teaches us that people of all worldviews, beliefs and backgrounds are made in the image of God, and I intend to treat them like that.
That went very deep in my life. It set a compass bearing for me that I have never lost. They lived their belief. Even towards people they might not have particularly warmed to personally, they were concerned to show God’s attitude towards them. And as you grow older, you begin to understand what that really means — if you believe people have value to God, then why wouldn’t they have value to you?
They Gave Him Room To Think
The second thing from which I profited enormously was this: although my parents were deeply committed Christians, they loved me enough to allow me to think. And not only that, they guided that thinking. My father had to give up school to run the business, though he was a frustrated academic all his life. In a way, he lived through me. He put books across my desk — F.F. Bruce’s commentaries, the works of C.S. Lewis — things the local church simply weren’t providing. He knew I needed that intellectual expansion, and he made sure I got it.
He also ran a Bible study on Sunday afternoons, and his attitude to Scripture was mind-expanding. The idea that Scripture was narrow would never have occurred to me at that stage — and that was entirely his doing.
There is a story I often tell. He handed me a book when I was in my mid-teens. I asked what it was. He said, the Communist Manifesto. I said, have you read it, Dad? He said no. I said, well, why should I read it? And I never forget the response: you need to know what people think. That instinct — to engage seriously with the world rather than retreat from it — has never left me.
David Gooding: The Great Influence
The other great influence came through a preacher named David Gooding. My brother Gilbert heard him first, came home, and said, you have to come and listen to this person. I went. And it had an immediate and, I would say, revolutionary effect on me. Here was Scripture being preached with meaning and sense. It was taken seriously as literature as well as spiritual food. It was the beginning of my deep, deep interest in Bible study. The combination of a home that taught me to think and a preacher who showed me what serious engagement with Scripture looked like – that did its work in me, and it has never stopped.
Learning More
OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics was established in 2004 to raise up the next generation of evangelist-apologists. By 2021, around 350 emerging evangelists from around the world had studied on the OCCA one-year programme. This course equipped each of them to share and defend the gospel message and to come alongside others to help them with their intellectual objections and heartfelt concerns about the Christian faith. Subscribe to our weekly newsletters to see our latest articles from our team of speakers.
John Lennox