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Malcolm Gladwell is an award winning author, famous for books like Outliers, The Tipping Point, and What the Dog Saw, all novels that use analytical models of social research to peer deeper into the world around us. While his success and achievements are remarkable, his own story is one you might recognize.
Raised in a devote Mennonite home of active believers, Malcolm choose a different path. While his brothers went on to seminary or to serve as lay pastors while pursuing other careers, Malcolm went to college and later into a career in journalism. His faith was never a core part of his personality, and as the years went by, he drifted further and further away the Church until eventually he could no longer consider himself a Christian.
By all accounts, Malcolm was just another recitation of a story we hear all too often these days. Christian youths gradually drifting away from God not because of some disaster, some scandal, or any kind of major incident that made them lose faith – just the erosion of time and the distance of culture. Like so many others, old fashion traditions and perspectives on the divine no longer squared with the world Malcolm lived in. He didn't bear the Church any animosity, but it wasn't something he saw a place for in his life anymore.
By all surface accounts, you'd be tempted to write Malcolm off as another coastal elite. An intellectual who wrote for the Washington Post and the New Yorker and lost touch with his roots. The son who goes off the college and comes back to mutter through a dinner prayer at Christmas. The high school friend you lost touch with and now has a Darwin-fish bumper sticker. The type you'd suspect would treat the Christians with the kind of perfunctory, condescending respect that's reserved only for children trying very hard to learn the piano and the self-identifying religious. "That's very good for you.”
But, that changed. While researching for his latest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm took on matters of faith. In particular, he looked at two cases that dramatically changed how he saw the world, surprising no one more than himself, led him back to Christ.
The first case was Huguenots Protestants of Chambon France during WWII. During the height of Nazi persecution and cowardly collaboration of the Vichy regime, Protestants of this sleepy French town undertook a "conspiracy of good” to shelter Jewish families and children. Stirred by their sincere beliefs, they defied Nazi orders at unfathomable risk to themselves and their families to take in, feed, and clothe Jewish refugees while also manufacturing false passports and an underground railroad to take them into Switzerland. There are only two towns honored at Yad Vashem (the official holocaust memorial in Jerusalem) and Chambon is one of them.
The other case was the tragic story of the Derksen family of Manitoba. One cold day in November 1984, the worst fear of any parent happened to Wilma and Cliff Derksen, their 13 year-old daughter Candace went missing. A six-week manhunt swept the town, turning over every stone, hoping against hope that Candace was still alive and well somewhere. She was eventually found dead in a small shack, tragically close to her own home, her hands and legs tied.
When asked by reporters how she felt, Cliff replied "We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.” After the loss of their daughter under the most horrific of circumstances, Cliff and Wilma met the world with their Christian love and forgiveness in their hearts.
While researching these stories, Malcolm was moved in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. There was something missing from his life, something that these people had. He wanted to understand it, to have that same kind of resolve and conviction in his own life. Much like his distancing of faith, there was no big moment, no lightning strike that suddenly changed his view. Over the course of his research, these stories brought him back to God.
There are lots of sermons out there. People preaching about the gospel, spreading the good word. But it wasn't a speech that brought Malcolm back, it was action. The Protestants of Chambon, the Derksen family, they didn't just preach about their beliefs, they lived them. They walked the walk.
Never forget, the most powerful tool we have as Christians to minister to others is our own walk. When people see the difference it makes to have Christ at the core of your being, when they see real faith in action, even the most typical "lost lamb” or disbeliever can't help but be swayed. It isn't flashy, it isn't glamorous, you might not even know what wheels your personal faith set in motion – but it works.
There is power when you really live in Christ. Make sure others can see it in your life.
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