Madness centered on God

Radicalism: Fighting communism, and my own impetuousness. Part six of a pilgrim’s slow progress | Marvin Olasky

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

I've written previously about joining the Communist Party when I was 22 and then, through God's grace, leaving it and finally joining a California church at age 26. Two months later, toward the end of 1976, God continued to show love in undramatic yet significant ways. A middle-aged couple, the Inskeeps, led my wife Susan and myself through a weekly Bible study highlighted—how embarrassing to say—by Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies. We kept attending the First Conservative Baptist Church of La Mesa.

How did Christ immediately change our lives? In one sense, by changing our attitude toward life. Both of us had welcomed in 1973 the Supreme Court's pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision. If either of us had been confronted with an unexpected pregnancy in 1974 or 1975, we might have chosen abortion. Yet in fall 1976, when we learned that Susan was pregnant, we celebrated with ice cream and a trip to a drive-in theater to watch Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales, one of the best Westerns ever.