It was the meeting of the former atheist who became a Christian, the former Roman Catholic who became a psychic and the man born a Jew who went to an Anglican school and became an atheist.
City Bible Forum brought the Revd Ian Powell, Mr Greg Riley and Mr Dick Gross together recently for a lunchtime panel discussion on the topic, “Angels and Demons: Is There A Spiritual Dimension?” The discussion, at the Telstra Conference Centre in Exhibition Street, was chaired by the forum’s Melbourne director, Mr Robert Martin.
Mr Riley spoke of giving up Catholicism and moving into the world of the psychic, including astral travel (when your consciousness moves out of your body and you look down on your body and you move around in another dimension).
“There are things I suppose I do on a daily basis that confirm to me that there is something else out there, another dimension, a spiritual plane,” he said.
“I still believe in God, I believe in Jesus.”
Mr Gross, whose “Godless Gross” column appears in The Age, said he was born Jewish and was educated in an Anglican school and sang in a cathedral choir but had emerged from that unable to believe in things that were not credible.
“I would like to believe in a god who cares, I would like to believe in a god who loves, I would like to believe in a god who intervenes, particularly on my behalf,” he said.
“Having said that, I am a pretty crap atheist because I say that atheism does fail to serve the human being in a number of ways.
“The bottom line is that there are beliefs that are very close to my unbelief.”
Mr Powell, a former rector of the prominent Sydney city parish of St Barnabas’ Broadway, said he was persuaded about the Devil because Jesus had died “and I was persuaded that He (Jesus) was not a liar when He spoke about being the Light of the World”.
“I got persuaded about Jesus, having been a very happy atheist, on the basis of evidence,” Mr Powell said.
“If I am not willing to change, I am dishonouring the God who asks us to honour the truth.”
The Revd Ian Powell, Mr Dick Gross and Mr Greg Riley at the forum.