While I am now a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I was once an Anglican Christian, then an atheist, then a deist, and finally a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. It came about like this.
My parents were both good moral people and had attended Protestant churches in their childhood and youth, but they were non-church attendees all the time I knew them. Nonetheless, they believed that as a child I should have some Christian instruction. So they sent me to Anglican (Church of England) Sunday School from about the age of 9 to 13. Up until the age of 13, I believed in God.
From Atheism to Deism
At about that time I became interested in science and radio. I became friends with the local radio "ham" in our village, and he taught me how to build radios and amplifiers. Like many science-minded people of that era, he was atheist and some of that rubbed off on me. In addition, a science teacher in high school gave, what was to me at the time, a convincing lecture on why God was just a psychological prop that humans needed in the early stages of their development, but that men and women had now reached the point where this wasn’t needed. Life in the early 1960s seemed to fit that model.
I had greatly experienced the cruelty of other children in primary school, but in my late high school years, when this teacher gave his talk, a lot of that had dropped off and his optimistic view of humanity seemed to fit. I thought that as people grew up, they outgrew cruelty and other disreputable behaviors.
However, as I grew up I began to see big holes in that theory. For one thing, particularly since the mid 1960s, I saw that people were getting less and less moral. In my work life, I began to experience again the cruelty from others that I had felt in primary school. My rosy view of humanity began to fade.
In addition, I began to question the mathematical probability of evolution. A chapter on statistical probability in a book called Mathematics for the Millions by Lancelot Hogbin, convinced me that evolution was mathematically impossible. My new view of evolution was reinforced by the magnificent scenery I experienced when making extensive cross-country flights in a small aircraft I owned while working in the South Island of New Zealand during those years. I became convinced this scenery was the result of creation and not evolution. At that stage, now in my 20s, I became a deist. (For those unfamiliar with this concept, deism is essentially the belief that while there is in fact a God, He is generally unconcerned with the affairs of His creatures.)
Meeting My First Adventist
I mention the aircraft and the South Island because it is here that the story of my conversion from deist to Seventh-day Adventist Christianity begins. While it is a rather long story, I need to give the details in order to show the remarkable acts of providence God did to bring me to a knowledge of Himself
In the 1970s I was working in Auckland, New Zealand, for Dalhoff and King, who at that time held the agencies for Cessna aircraft and Hughes Helicopters, as an Avionics Engineer. In 1977 they sent me to their Dunedin branch to open an Avionics shop for the South Island. However, they didn’t purchase any Avionic test equipment for the shop. As a result, I found I could not do much Avionics work while down there. Initially, while waiting for them to purchase the test equipment, I went into the hangar and worked with the airframe engineers, doing 50 and 100 hour airworthiness checks on the aircraft.
I soon become close friends with Dave, one of the airframe engineers, who happened to be a Seventh day Adventist. We did not discuss religion at the time, but I was impressed with how he stayed with his wife in what was known to be a less-than-ideal marriage, when all my worldly friends would have rapidly "traded her in on a better model.”
Moving to Australia
After about six months of working in the hangar, I began to realize the firm was never going to buy the test equipment, and that the South Island Avionics shop was doomed to failure. I returned to their main Avionics shop in Auckland. By this time, I was getting very bitter about this firm, and after another incident in the Auckland shop I left and decided to move to Australia and see what I could find over there.
In Australia, I found that Avionics engineers were paid much less than in New Zealand, so I decided to look at other electronics jobs. However, there were none. Australia at that time had no electronics industry whatsoever. I travelled around Australia looking for jobs without any luck, and finally arrived in Brisbane. Just as I was about to give up on Australia and return to New Zealand, I spotted a situations vacant advertisement in a Brisbane newspaper for a broadcasting radio technician in an outback town called Mt. Isa. I decided to have one last go at a job in Australia, and telephoned them. They said the position was still vacant and invited me to apply for it.
It turned out I didn’t have any qualifications that were recognized by the Australian authority, which was in charge of radio station licensing at the time (the equivalent of the American FCC). But somehow I was put in touch with this authority and invited by them to an interview. At the interview, they told me they were keen to get a technician up to the Mt. Isa radio station, and while I had no recognized qualifications, they could under special circumstances give me what was called a "letter of exemption" if they considered I had the equivalent knowledge. I told them I had trained with the NZBC (a government-owned New Zealand broadcasting network) and had worked for them for 4 years.
They then gave me a very thorough oral examination on radio broadcasting engineering knowledge, at the end of which they declared their satisfaction with my level of knowledge and offered to give me the "letter of exemption". I then contacted the radio station again and after another interview with an engineer at a radio station in Brisbane, I was on my way to my new job at commercial radio station 4LM at Mt. Isa
Seeking for Truth
I go into all this detail to make it clear that when my plans were to return to New Zealand, that God obviously wanted me elsewhere.
I really enjoyed the job at 4LM. The money was good, and being in the media gave you certain perks and advantages in life. I also decided to be more social and began attending parties with the announcers (DJs) at the radio station. However, after sampling the "good life,” I found two things happening.
First, I became aware that my "good life" was working without visible means of support. I began to suspect that as fast as things had become good, they could just as easily go bad. For example, I enjoyed a very good relationship with the manager of the station, but become aware that with time he could leave and I could end up suffering under a manager that didn’t like me. I became aware that human behaviour was still as immoral and undependable as ever, and that these "good times" were not guaranteed to last. In addition, I began to feel that money, power and parties were not bringing the happiness I sought
Secondly, I found my mind turning more and more to religious thoughts and a seeking after truth. Having concluded some years ago, as a deist, that the world must have been created, I began to wonder, what is this creator like? Is he, she or it good or bad? Since creating calls for perfection, why is the creation so imperfect?
These thoughts began to run through my head often in the morning in my shower. In addition to seeking light, even in such unlikely places as an occult book, I found my mind being led into dark places by another force.
Dave Again
This process went on for some months. Then suddenly, in late 1979, remarkable things happened in the following sequence.
One morning, in my shower, I came to the conclusion that I would never know the answers to the deep questions with which I had wrestled over the preceding months. Within a short time (about a few weeks or less) of that conclusion, I took a toll call in my office at the radio station. The toll call was from Dave, my Seventh-day Adventist aircraft engineer-friend. We had written to each often since I had gone to Australia, and he had my contact details.
Dave was of Scottish descent, and in those days a toll call from New Zealand to Australia cost probably something in the order of $100 a minute in today's money. Therefore this toll call was in itself an unusual event. However, the content of the toll call was even more unusual.
Please bear with me as I go into some background in order to show the remarkable workings of God. I knew from previous correspondence that Dave wanted to move to Australia and was looking for work there as an aircraft engineer. Out of interest, I had kept an eye on the situations vacant advertisements in the various Australian newspapers for such positions, so I could give Dave some idea of the job market. I had noted that at that time, there was in Australia a desperate shortage of airframe specialists with Dave's experience and qualifications. However, I had not got around to communicating that to Dave by the time he called me.
He had called to tell me that he had applied for jobs with something like 20 to 30 aircraft engineering firms in Australia. Most of the applications were to advertisements, but some were unsolicited.
Amazingly, none of the firms he wrote to had even replied to his letters except for a small airline in Mt Isa, where I was. He was calling to see what I knew about that airline. I asked him “who did you write to” He reeled off a list of names. Some of them I knew had been advertising for engineers for some time and were therefore unlikely to have had an oversupply of applicants. Right then, I began to suspect there was more than just chance behind the lack of replies to his letters. Today, I am convinced it was an act of providence.
The gist of the additional conversation was that he had been invited to come and work for them for a two-week trial period, and if it worked out, they would help him move him over from New Zealand. I invited him to stay with me for that two weeks.
The Great Controversy
In due course he arrived on a Friday night. That night there was a big outside broadcast that I had to be at, so I did not see much of Dave. But the following night (Saturday) I told the announcers I wouldn’t be at any parties that evening,, as I wanted to spend time with my friend from New Zealand.
That night, Dave and I talked about the gospel. That night, it clicked. I became convinced as he affirmed that Jesus Christ was real. He mentioned that Jesus died for me while I was sinning against Him (Romans 5:8). I thought of the times I had told blasphemous jokes in the "pub" (hotel bar) about Him, and was appalled. I told Dave that I had told these blasphemous jokes and asked if God could forgive me. Dave said Yes.
At the end of the 2 weeks, the airline had asked Dave to come back and work for them permanently. Dave was going to return to New Zealand for about 3 months and then move to Mt. Isa to work for them. On the last Saturday night he was in Mt Isa, Dave invited me to a book sale at the local Seventh-day Adventist church.
Here is yet another remarkable act of providence. Seventh-day Adventist churches in the outback did not have easy access to Seventh-day Adventist books. The nearest ABC (Adventist Book Center) to Mt. Isa was 700 miles away in Townsville. The ABC, in those days, used to visit the outback churches with a
travelling book sale. Each church would get visited about once a year. It so happened that the ABC sale in Mt. Isa church fell on the last Saturday night Dave was there.
At the book sale, Dave bought me a copy of a book called The Great Controversy. He asked me to read it while he was away in New Zealand, and we could discuss it when he returned. I promised to read the book, though I didn’t mean to at the time.
However, after he had departed, the announcers had some real "cool" parties to attend and I did not get around to reading the book. After a few of these parties, something more remarkable began to happen.
Prior to all these events, the AM broadcasting transmitter that I looked after gave very little trouble, I used to routinely do the meter readings, write up the logs, test run the emergency generator, tend to the generator's oil, fuel and batteries. However not long after Dave left, it began to develop intermittent problems during the day. Broadcast transmitters of that era tended to be less reliable than today, but were still more reliable than other electronic equipment of that era. They had special design features that allowed them to "self heal" many glitches while operating, but a technician would have to do diagnostic work to find the cause of the fault to keep it from recurring.
This diagnostic work could only be done when the station was off air. In the case of 4LM, in those days, that was from midnight to 6:00 am. In addition, to do this diagnostic work the technician had to work on live parts of the transmitter which had up to 3,000 volts in it, so It was not safe to do this on your own. I needed another technician with me to do this work.
It so happened that I knew an ex broadcasting technician in Mt. Isa who could help. But he was only available on Saturday nights. Saturday nights were also party nights, so I told the announcers I wouldn't be partying for a while till we could get to the bottom of these issues. Little did I know, at the time, that party nights were over for me for good.
My assistant for this work was Richard, a projectionist at the local cinema. For some time he had worked underground as a machine operator in the Mt. Isa mines. When he was younger he had been an assistant technician at a radio station in Perth, Australia. The first Saturday night that Richard and I worked on the transmitter, we finished about 3:00 am. Richard went home and went to sleep for eight hours.
Richard was accustomed to shift work. I was not. I went home, and at exactly 7:00 a.m. I woke up and was unable to get off to sleep again. However I was too "groggy" from lack of sleep, to do anything else. So I decided to read until I could drop off to sleep. I decided now was the time to read the book The Great Controversy, that Dave had given me.
As I read this book, I found it answered every deep question I had asked in my shower, including the very questions I had previously concluded I would never know the answers to. For those who haven’t read it, the book is very thick book and takes the average reader quite a while to finish. For about a month, while I read it from cover to cover, our transmitter continued to suffer these intermittent faults throughout the week, which needed fixing every Saturday night.
When I got to the end of the book, I was convicted that God was real and that Jesus was my Savior. But I hadn’t started attending any church or made any particular commitments to the Christian life. I did however spend a lot of time thinking about what I had read in the book.
The Final Battle
The context of this testimony and the reason for its considerable detail, is to show God's part in the spiritual battle for my salvation. So far you have seen the many little acts of providence which brought me to a place of knowing Him. You have also seen Satan's attempts to nullify what God was doing. You will recall from earlier in the testimony that while I had been wondering in my shower about God, that Satan had tried occult books and had tried to put dark thoughts into my head.
The full content of those thoughts I cannot reveal here, but I will mention that one area of them was violence. I had not been a violent person or even a fighter at school or as a young person, but the area of these thoughts had been along the line of "you are most likely in this world to be assaulted sometime and this is what you must do...."
Now we come to the key event in the battle mentioned above. One day, the young people in the flat next door to mine invited me in to share a beer or two with them. Although I was having doubts about alcohol at that stage, not wishing to be churlish I said I would join them for just a couple drinks. Part way through sharing a drink and talking with them, I noticed one of them was staring at me. Not being a scrapper, I didn’t read the signs and did not know what was coming next.
He then threw a "haymaker" aimed right at my face. To understand what happened next, you need to know that: (1) I was not an experienced scrapper and my reactions in that area were very slow. (2) He was an experienced scrapper and the punch was thrown very fast. (3) He was very close to me when he threw it. To this day, I am convinced an angel deflected his punch. It was impossible for him to miss and not to do great damage, as he was reasonably well-built and a lot of strength went into that punch.
Yet it lightly brushed down the side of my head. He was stunned that his punch had missed and just stood there staring. The others at the table decided this was no way to treat their guest, and took him outside for a beating. I returned to my flat.
I went to lay down to get over the shock of it, and here the most remarkable thing happened. Far from the symptoms of shock setting in, an incredible feeling of peace and calm came upon me. I realised there had been divine intervention to deflect the punch. Then almost like an audible voice but not quite, the impression came on me that I was to forgive the guy who threw the punch. I knew it was God speaking. After about 20 to 30 minutes the feeling of God's presence went away and everything become normal. Sometime later, I told some friends about it, and they suggested we go and sort this guy out. I remembered the powerful experience I had had and told them, “no, just forget it; no damage was done”.
From then on, I knew God wanted me to join the church to worship and work for Him. I bought a Bible and commenced reading it. When Dave returned to Mt. Isa to take up his job with the airline, I contacted him and began attending church with him. This was about August or October of 1979. In April of 1980, I was baptized into the Mt. Isa Seventh-day Adventist Church, and have been rejoicing in the Lord ever since.
Tony Rigden, a former atheist/deist, came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980 as the result of a miraculous conversion and the reading of the book The Great Controversy by Ellen G White. He has since been a regular Sabbath School teacher, very part-time lay preacher, elder and briefly head elder. Formerly an electronics technician and computer programmer, Tony is currently still part-time programming but mostly retired. Former hobbies included diving and private flying. Currently he is a volunteer guard (train conductor) for one of New Zealand's leading vintage railways.