The Road to Christian Relaunch
I am Vid Auty, the founder, current editor and (as at 2024) sole author of Christian Relaunch. I reside in England. This is not a rounded account of my life, just one facet of it.
In 1953 I was born.
In 1971 I became a Christian after discussing the Bible with some souls who seemed keen on it. I adopted their stance (which I took to be an expression of the Good News declared in the Bible), assumed that they had been reborn into the new humanity the Bible describes, and associated with them. (If you want a label you might call them "Evangelicals", but let's try to look behind the labels!)
Their stance involved the assumption that Humanity's true life and task lie at least partly in a separate "spiritual" world with no intrinsic connection to the familiar world. Some of them articulate this as an explicit belief, others just act on it unthinkingly and may even deny it, but their actions speak louder than their words.
I gradually came to understand that this "Otherworldalism" was a fatal flaw in their stance, a contradiction of the Good News declared in the Bible. I shifted my own stance accordingly, and tried to persuade my associates to do likewise, but their leaders clung to Otherworldalism and they still followed those leaders.
Later I realised that just as their creed (kerugma) was fatally flawed by Otherworldalism, so also their ethos (didache) was fatally flawed by their practical (and sometimes explicit) rejection of Androcracy and Propertarianism. The substance of all these issues is addressed in their proper order in our Stancebook, and I mention their ethos here only to indicate that my journey from the Evangellymould was longer than I anticipated.
In 1979 I concluded that few if any of my Otherworldalist associates had really been reborn, and came to see promoting the real Good News as my chief vocation in life. My early attempts to do this met only resistance, from both Christians and others, and I concluded that before continuing my campaign I needed some serious preparation.
I accumulated relevant expertise, by studying.
I accumulated means, by earning and saving money.
I accumulated relevant materials, by writing.
In 1994 I concluded that the time I was spending among Otherworldalists could be better spent, so I ceased regular association with them. Meanwhile my preparations continued, interspersed with occasional fruitless forays such as an earlier website.
In 2018, thinking I was about ready, I founded Christian Relaunch as a focus for the campaign, but then kept finding reasons (or excuses) for further preparations instead of campaigning actively. Hindsight (when it's finished laughing at such a prime prevaricator) says I have done too much preparation and too little promotion. C. S. Lewis's quip about Tolkien also fits me: "His standard of self-criticism was high and the mere suggestion of publication usually set him upon a revision."
In 2024 after revamping the site I think I'm now ready, or as ready as I'm ever likely to be! No more excuses for delay! But am I too old now? I must do my best.