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Meera Atkinson
 Roy Williams came from the “secular left intelligentsia” — and yet he managed to come to faith. His first book, God, Actually, which deals with “cutting-edge religious issues”, was published this month by ABC Books.
Unpack the issues...
Having practiced law for 19 years, Roy seemed to have it all: a wife, children and high powered career. Then in 2004 Roy quit his job after being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. It was a move that proved to be the catalyst for both personal and professional change. By forcing him to slow down, Roy’s illness led him to contemplate faith in a different way, ultimately changing the way he saw God. “I felt a more personal need for him than I had before, a greater sense of dependence and humility,” he says. “God and religion became less theoretical to me, more real. “I think people can come to faith in two ways: through personal experience — strong love or suffering or both — or through a process of reasoning. I began doing it the rational way because I was intrigued with it, but to take that personal step it’s got to be more than that, so my illness was one of the vital stages of my life.” While convalescing and with plenty of time on his hands, Roy began reading about religion and writing down his own thoughts. His only aim was to try and make sense of them. But as he read the atheist manifestos of people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, he found himself engaging with them in his writing. “Increasingly people were asking me why I’d become religious because I wasn’t raised in a religious family. My background was relentlessly secular,” he says. “It was about the time all the atheist books started coming out. I read them all and found them rather shallow, extremely one-sided and in some respects just ignorant of a lot of theology and history.” During this exploration Roy found it hard to source books on religion that were Australian, contemporary, moderate and written from outside the church.  “There were books by atheists and fundamentalists but I didn’t think they spoke to Australians well in tone or language,” he says. So God, Actually came into being, in part to fill this gap as well in response to the hugely popular anti-religion polemics. Roy is now thankful for the illness that revolutionised his life. “It forced me to re-think my priorities and to face up to my strengths and weaknesses. I look at it as a gift.” Suffering, he says, is necessary for life to be meaningful. “It’s one of God’s ways of speaking to you, just like your conscience. Suffering is what leads people directly to God. The more trouble you’re in the more likely you are to turn to him.” Roy admits he still harbours the old fashioned image of God as a wise, greying old man — the one ingrained in him in Sunday school. But, he adds, he’s never found that vision of God particularly helpful. “What has been helpful is to imagine Jesus. To try and reason your way to God by concepts of creation and an all-powerful being is impossible. One would expect that if there is a God the best way to reveal himself is to send a man who can be a concrete example. Everyone on earth can understand the idea of a perfect man.”
Unpack the issues... Discussion Points - What are your top three reasons for being a Christian?
- What are the three issues which cause you the most difficulty?
(The things that prevent you from believing at all, or cause you to question your faith.)
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