Conversion To Christianity
As Rookmaaker was a naval officer, he was interned as a prisoner of war in Stanislau, now Ukraine and later on in Neubrandenburg in northern Germany. In Stanislau he met the Christian philosopher J.P.A. Mekkes who would have a lasting impact on his life. He returned home as a Christian, but was severely tested as his bride-to-be was nowhere to be found. His study of the Old Testament, dedicated to her during the camp years, never reached her. It has been established that Sophia Henriëtte Spetter died in Auschwitz on September 30, 1942. Rookmaaker changed his career and took up a doctoral study in art history. In 1948, through his fiancé and bride-to-be Anky Huitker, he met Francis Schaeffer. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with a very fruitful exchange of ideas. Rookmaaker had a dominant influence on Schaeffer's ideas on art and culture and also introduced Schaeffer to Reformational philosophy.
Rookmaaker's famous saying "Jesus didn't come to make us Christian. Jesus came to make us fully human" formed the central theme of Dick Staub's 2010 book About You.
Read more about this topic: Hans Rookmaaker
Famous quotes containing the words conversion and/or christianity:
“The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Wherever there are walls I shall inscribe this eternal accusation against Christianity upon them—I can write in letters which make even the blind see ... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind....”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)