Crossing the desert

Former Tory cabinet minister, Jonathan Aitken, made a stand for Christ while in prison, and continues to be a controversial figure.

EN: Jonathan, Colson also said in one of his letters to you that he is sure that God is preparing you for some ministry. Every believer is a minister, but, do you have ideas about that - what you'd like to do?

JA: I presume nothing, because of one of my favourite lines I heard in a sermon some months ago. It was as follows: the sermon began, question - what makes God laugh?, answer - people who have plans. Having been a great schemer and planner for as long as I can remember - and look where it got me - I am now very content to submit humbly and peacefully to God's will and it will become known to me.

Of course, everyone sometimes thinks they see glimmerings of God's will. What I see in the short to medium term is, first of all, I am committed to going off to Wycliffe Hall in Oxford in September. As it happens I have just come back from a week there - a sort of familiarisation - and I know it is the right next move in accordance with God's purposes.

It is a wonderful Christian community. My week of being in their services and prayer groups in addition to the academic work was a joy. I know that is the right step. It seems to be a very logical step, having come to love and trust God as much as I have, to try and get to know him better through study.

Going on from that, I was, of course, deeply affected by my experiences in prison, and in essence my experiences in prison were twofold. One was the growing of my own relationship with Christ because of private prayer. There was the sort of inward swing of meditation, contemplation, prayer and Bible study. But also I found an outward swing of ministry. I hadn't gone into prison intending to minister to anybody, but I was an old man by the standards of prison. The average age of a prisoner is 23 in this country. There was terrific publicity at the time when I was sentenced because one of my talks to Colson's audiences was reprinted in all the newspapers. So it was sort of advertised in big headlines that I was a Christian. People came and talked to me in prison and very, very quickly little prayer groups, and Christian counselling all started and I was very busy in the Lord's service in this way with truly wonderful results. I think back now and I'd say in a life which has been a crowded one and in which many exciting things happened to me, none of them have been so exciting or so fulfilling as bringing young men to Christ in the prison.

Now what that means for the future is that I'm absolutely sure I will go back into prisons (I hope not as a convict of course!). I know something which I didn't know before about how to communicate in the fraternity of the fallen. There is a great line which Colson actually uses in one of his letters to me, but I can use it to any group of people or individual I'm talking to in a prison: 'I have been where you now are and so I know'. Then I can say: 'I know, also, how to open your heart to the glory of God'. So, this is a kind of a ministry but I really can't tell what the future holds. I think that I will do more writing from a Christian viewpoint. This is my sixth book and for all I know there will be a seventh, eighth and ninth books, we'll see. I think often of Augustine's phrase, 'in his will we find our peace', and that's where I am going to continue to find peace by learning and doing his will. Where that takes me I do not know.

EN: Are you being asked to speak everywhere? What are the incentives to do this? What are the dangers?

JA: Well, I have a growing number of invitations. At a rough count I've got 50 or 60 sitting on my desk right now and they come in almost by the day. I am in two or three different frames of mind about them. The first is, I do feel that on the one hand giving Christian witness is a Christian duty and therefore everyone should do his bit in accordance with God's will. But then, I think if I did too much of that, I would be in danger of replacing the demon of political pride, which I think I have slain, by the demon of spiritual pride. The point of giving Christian witness is to give the glory to God and not to me, and therefore I must be very careful what the primacy of the purpose is. I pray about this a lot. I am trying to make myself accountable to one or two good Christian friends who say: 'Well, you know, I really think you ought to do that one', or, 'You know, for heaven's sake don't stretch yourself too thinly.' So it is a question of getting the balance right.

EN: What Christian authors have you been reading in the last six months or so, that you have appreciated?

JA: I have been reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones's four books on the Epistles of John. Very profound stuff! I've also been reading a book by Robert Llewellyn. I'm reading Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, and various Philip Yancey books. I am starting to struggle to read the Gospels in the Greek. Having learned Greek in the unfavourable territory of, not just a prison cell, but a prison cell surrounded by two competing and rival sets of reggae music, I'm surprised I can remember how to parse anything. But I am getting rather addicted to commentaries. I am reading C.F. Evans on Luke for example. I've been reading John Stott on Acts. I think if there is one author I would stick with more than anybody else it would be John Stott. I'm a bit of a glutton for reading, but I think Stott and Lloyd-Jones are the greatest influences on me.

EN: Last question, Jonathan. You said at the very beginning of your book that there was a time where you felt that God had let you down. Obviously now you say he hadn't let you down. What would you say to people who are going through their own tough times, who feel that God has let them down?

JA: I think it is very natural when God doesn't seem to be listening and there is a dryness in our prayers, because no water seems to be flowing through in response to them. I think we all have to have our crossings of the desert and we have to learn from them. We have no real understanding of God's mysterious purposes or ways or his timings. I cannot quote the word directly but that wonderful passage in Isaiah 55 which says 'My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts', is a text which, despite my inability to quote it accurately, I'm very familiar with.

On top of that, I think that one of the many lessons that Christians have to learn in a hard way is that of patience. There is nothing new about this.

One of the rather refreshing parts of a Christian journey is when you are making it you suddenly find out how many other people had exactly the same problems and difficulties ten years ago, or even centuries ago. Waiting for the Lord is a very difficult experience. As the psalmist puts it: 'my soul waits for the Lord, more than the watchman waits for the morning, more than the watchman waits for the morning'. In primitive times there was a scary nature to the night and an intense longing for the dawn to come. Those verses, you know, sum up so well what many of us feel when we are waiting.

All I was really doing when I was thinking God had let me down was being impatient with God which is a rather impertinent thing to do. We have no idea of God's timescales. Being creatures of time we have no concept of eternity. I think my message, therefore, would be: although it is beyond the horizons of human understanding to try and grasp that this is a God whose plans and thoughts and ways and timing is beyond our comprehension, be sure in your faith that he actually has a time, a plan, a thought and above all an abounding love for us even though we can't feel it and see it at certain times.

The conclusion of an interview with Jonathan Aitken - the former Conservative minister who was sent to prison (Part 2)

EN: Are you being asked to speak everywhere? What are the incentives to do this? What are the dangers?

EN: What Christian authors have you been reading in the last six months or so, that you have appreciated?

Gareth Lewis

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