Knocker Men.

During the Months at St Jude's Anglican, Brixton.

I attended St Jude's Church in Dulwich Road, Brixton, mainly between late 1973 and 1975. This, as I emphasised, occurred due to coming across a magazine, Buzz, while searching for a Children of God colony that was recently set up, so I was directed to Railton Road in South London, where I came across, by chance, St Jude's Infant/Junior School.

At St Jude's, I allowed myself to be "deprogrammed" from the beliefs and teachings of the COG cult, and I felt loved and accepted at St Jude's. They described themselves as a "live" church, as opposed to a "dead" church, the latter of which stuck rigidly to its Anglican liturgy in its services, including praying for the Queen, offering virtually no fellowship, and having congregants return home soon after the service ended. I felt discouraged from attending such a church. Especially with the doctrines of David Brandt Berg, whose "Revolution for Jesus" is still fresh on my mind.

Although St Jude's (and most other churches) failed to "rightly divide the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15), I could see their sincere love and belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Dividing the Word means "cutting straight" like a knife through a cake, cleanly separating the whole into two or more parts. Hence, by failing to understand that the Bible has portions written for different people, at different times, and even at different places, meant that I found the "peace which passes all understanding" virtually impossible to attain. Instead, there were times when I had doubts about my salvation, I was prone to worry, and I suffered from an inferiority complex. Having lost my girlfriend in 1972, I wondered whether I would ever marry and raise a family.

So, what do I mean by "cutting straight"? Simply recognising that the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, was given exclusively to Israel. Furthermore, the Decalogue was given to reveal the ten segments of the sinful nature that lies in every human heart, and the need for a Saviour. In the New Testament, the words spoken by both John the Baptist and Jesus himself are, Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. This Kingdom, addressed only to Israel, was meant to be an earthly Kingdom, with Jesus Christ reigning from the throne of his father David in Jerusalem, if Israel accepted him as their King. Instead, the nation rejected him and nailed him to a cross. 

The crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ from the dead ushered in what Paul called "the Mystery", which is the Gospel of free grace of eternal life. This is a free gift from God given to everyone who truly believes, and once received, the believer will never be lost again, for he is sealed with the Holy Spirit and kept by God until the day of redemption. This is the present Church Age, which is mostly for the Gentile world (non-Jews).

This wonderful knowledge was kept from me for many years, actually decades, and no doubt, there were always Christians who, over the centuries, lived and died without fully knowing this truth. But that doesn't mean that they were never saved. I, for one, was an example. I was saved in a pub in December 1972, but the knowledge of "cutting straight" didn't come until 2025. That is a wait of over half a century!

I attended St Jude's until 1975. But to show up at each service, I had to board a train at my hometown of Bracknell for London Waterloo, then travel by tube to Brixton. This became a burden, especially if there are many other churches in between. Those at St Jude's also realised this. 

Then, in 1974, some of those at St Jude's spent a week at the first Bible Week festival held in the Midlands, the Greenbelt Christian Festival. This was the forerunner of the Dales Bible Week, based in the Yorkshire Dales, and later, the Downs Bible Week, based in the South Downs in Sussex. The two I attended were Stoneleigh Bible Week near Coventry, and Spring Harvest, the latter a festival held at the Butlin's Holiday Camp, Minehead in Somerset. All the others required camping.

Greenbelt 1974 was the initial festival held near Ketley, Shropshire. Apparently, my friends at St Jude's camped near some young people from Bracknell Baptist Church, another "live" church, this one in my home town. Although I wasn't there myself, I became the key subject of the discussion that took place between the two groups.

Greenbelt Bible Festival, 1974.

However, despite the "nuisance" train journeys, St Jude's became my home church, and as I have already said, I was treated kindly. In addition to the Sunday services, I also attended Saturday Bible study and their fellowship meals. This was the advantage in those days of living with my parents. Each week, I paid Mum 50% of my wages for food and keep. The rest was mine for both saving up and pocket. Hence, these train trips were within affordability. In 1973, I saved up enough for a backpacking trip to Italy, where I stood on the rim of the crater of Mt Vesuvius and walked the streets of Pompeii.

I also bought myself a HI-FI unit with its two speakers. With it, I began to purchase Gospel music. In those days, they came either on vinyl or on cassette tape. Since I didn't have a record player in those days, I settled for the cassette tape. One cassette was the one I liked most of all. It was Come Together, by Jimmy & Carol Owens, and released in 1972. I also had other cassettes by the same singers, Tell the World, Show Me, and If My People. These recordings featured the singer Pat Boone. Another cassette I had was Scripture in Song, by David and Gale Garratt, and Praise the Name of Jesus, a music album also by David and Gale Garratt, with bird tweets in the background. These cassettes I still have to this day, but long in disuse.

The original album of Come Together.

Knocker Men.

One afternoon in 1974, I had just completed my morning shift, and I was at home with my father, who was already annoyed with my new faith. Himself a self-confessed agnostic, he still believed that the Roman Catholic church was the place to be for any religious veneration. His biggest headache I created for him was my abandonment of Darwinian Evolution and all the science and university graduations that went with it, to embrace Divine Creation with the worldview that the heavens and the earth, and all life on it, were created in just six literal days, as recent as 6,000 years ago. This alone has created a chasm between Dad and me. Especially with any hint that the Dinosaur and Mankind co-existed.

That afternoon, there was an unexpected knock on our front door, and when Dad answered it, he saw two young, smartly dressed men, of about my age, standing at the door. They identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses. For my father, this wasn't his first encounter with them. When I was little, Dad had a discussion with a couple of Witnesses while we lived in Pimlico. From them, he was given a King James Bible, complete with cross-references and even the date on which the events took place, dating back to 4,004 BC.

But Mum shouted angrily at him, If you have these two in again, I swear, I will divorce you! Mum was nominal rather than devoted; she still had an unwavering loyalty to her Catholic faith, a promise she made to her mother shortly before emigrating to England from Italy in 1950.

However, during our discussion, I became friendly with one of them, Paul. We were both of the same age, and we had much in common. We both wanted to get to know God better. And so, he invited me to his parents' home, less than a couple of hundred metres from our home. Here, Paul had his mate with him, and they led me to a Bible study.

The Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses is another cult, like the COG. However, their chief heresy was their denial of the Trinity, and Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and not God the Son. That is, Jesus was a created creature, inferior to the Father, who has begotten him without a mother, and was given the name Michael before his incarnation. Hence, their use of the term, the only begotten Son. If Jesus wasn't God incarnate, then his role of Saviour was reduced to the point that salvation is earned by hard work. That is, door-to-door evangelism, separating the "sheep" from the "goats". Also, once saved, always saved is denied, and one's endurance is required to be saved. With the deity of Christ denied and reduced to an archangel who was impaled on an upright pole, and not crucified, man is left to be his own saviour.

During the discussion, I instinctively stood up for the Trinity, and without any training or tutelage, I managed to defend the Trinity. Neither side was convinced, and the argument ended in a tie. They would not accept the truth of the Trinity, and I refused to accept Christ as a mere archangel. That is, until Paul's father arrived home. He didn't throw me out. Instead, he completely demolished me in his attempt to convince me of his denial of the Trinity, and our discussion ended.

But I took home a couple of Watchtower books. One of them was The Truth which Leads to Eternal Life. This was the book used in initial Bible studies for conversion. As I read it while alone in my bedroom, Dad came in with a strong rebuke, saying that in no time, I'll be converted to a Jehovah's Witness. With that in mind, he took the Bible I was reading, the very Bible given to him by a Jehovah's Witness when I was little, and in front of me, he tore it to shreds and binned it.

I was almost paralysed with shock! But I said nothing. Instead, I bought a new Bible for myself, a Revised Standard Version for easier reading and understanding. I also bought a beautiful black leather-bound King James Bible, and with this, I could compare text in different versions. The leather-bound Bible had a central cross-reference, an Index to the Bible at the back, along with a Concordance. Finally, a series of maps completed the book. To me, it was a treasure.

Another book I felt compelled to buy was Nestle's Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. The discussions I had with the JW included John 1:1, which in the KJV, reads, 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The Watchtower Society had its own version of the Bible, The New World Translation. In it, John 1:1 reads, ...and the Word was a god.

Also, with their denial of the Holy Spirit as the third Person of the Trinity, and depersonalised as a mere active force, he was written without capitals in the NWT. Thus, I felt that the need for the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament was a necessity, and with it, I managed to learn how to read basic Greek.

The study made an impact on my life, and furthermore, on my colleagues at work. In the spring of 1973, I terminated my employment at A.G. Clarke's furniture factory to take on employment as a lifeguard at the Central Pool in Reading. However, by autumn, I switched to the Barden Corporation, a factory specialising in precision engineering. On the shop floor, I began to make an impact on my work colleagues, and the office staff did not escape, either.

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Next Week, how my testimony made an impact at work.