Many would say they grew up in Christian families, many would say they converted as adults, with me it was neither.
My mother had a bit too much respect for other family members, a husband (if not in a valid marriage, my stepfather), a mother and father, who weren't currently Christian. All of them had been Christian, none of them had been a Jew before that, in my families, Judaism was further back than that.
So, as long as she shared responsibility with them for raising me, she respected their view of not explicitly raising me as a Christian, with some exceptions, like telling me God was Creator when I was three or giving me a book about St. Paul's journeys and one about the Exodus when I was five or maybe six:
Iva Hoth
Iva L. Hoth was the original author of The Picture Bible, which has been published in more than 140 languages. Iva, who passed away in 2007, edited Christian education materials at David C Cook for over forty years.
That was after my stepfather had divorced her. A few years later, my grandfather died, my mother went back to study medicine in Vienna, and for the first time since I was a toddler or earlier, was the sole caretaker in practise. The summer before the term started, we already had a room agreed, and we made a trip to the US. On the plane, she gave me a Bible (NT and Psalms) and told me "this is the truth" ...
I was a little before age nine, had my ninth birthday in the States, and started to learn about the life of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew and parallel Gospels. I had never to my best memory caught her being wrong about anything, so I trusted her. Most children do. But most children with Christian mothers, by age nine, already know the stuff very well, whether they know it the correct way (Roman Catholic), a deficient way (Evangelical), or the wrong ways (outright Mainstream Protestantism or Modernism). At age nine, it was still a discovery a few months old, as well as relearning what I had already learned in fragments but mostly forgotten.
When I had finished the NT, I was given a Bible from my father's family, I think from my grandmother. I was also given a King James in England, after starting to learn English in the US the previous summer. In the meantime, I had already acquired the Narnia books in English, and some I had already read in Swedish, and the languages have some overlap ... in England, I also acquired books about older clothing (Middle Ages match much in Narnia, Queen Anne match the Spanish Riding school or Mozart, who is ever present in Austria, even on candy* ...
... as fans of pistachio, marzipan, and nougat that is covered with dark chocolate will know). I also bought (or had mother buy me) a book on Medieval music instruments, and was gifted a book on the road hiking from England to Scotland, in Yorkshire, about armies from Sumeria to Byzantium. Somewhat later, I discovered Old High German and Middle High German and the nice world where a short extract is given in an older language and then a translation to the modern language is also given. I discovered all this, and Christianity with it.
And I discovered Christianity was incompatible with Evolution at important junctions of Genesis, so I ditched Evolution. My mother already agreed with that conclusion, but allowed me to reach it independently, only asking when I felt like it.
I was also learning about Denominations. Salvation Army comes from Methodism comes from Anglicanism "founded by Luther" (not quite true) and Luther from Catholicism. Seventh Day Adventists, I discovered later, came from Millerites, came from Baptists, where two strands came from a mixed influence between Presbyterian (Arminian or Calvinist) and Anabaptist. And again, Calvin and Menno and Thomas Müntzer also came from ... Catholicism.
A religion which my mother trusted more than Calvinism, like when I had to chose either Calvinist or Catholic Catechism in school (Lutheran wasn't available), so, perhaps it was not a stretch to predict I would sooner or later become Catholic.
In the Ivan Nazaroff books, I came to hate Communist persecution of Christianity (and have seen some of it done by Social Democrats in Sweden too), and I came to hate the Russian, the French, even the American Revolutions, a real monarchist I was. Between Evangelical and Catholic, I was some time Lutheran. I came to see the Reformations of Sweden and of England (on which mother had been sketchy) were pretty like the Russian or French terror. So, I decided to become Catholic. Some people in Sweden still can't deal with it.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
I Lord's Day of Passiontide
22.III.2026
* Picture is Public Domain:
Unknown author - www.holzermayr.at
Salzburg specialty Mozartkugeln - confectioner Rudolf Baumann 1880
