French atheist hated God, visited church as one visits a zoo – to see exotic animals
By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (ANS - April 22, 2016)
-- Guillaume Bignon grew up in a nominal Catholic family outside Paris,
but stopped going to church when he recognized he didn’t believe “any
of it.”
“I
hated God and I hated religion,” he told CBN. He had succumbed to the
“default position” in France that there is no God. “Nobody spends much
time thinking about these issues and neither did I. I was pursuing my
happiness and pleasure in life.”
Bignon
excelled in school and graduated from a respected engineering school,
securing a position as a computer scientist in finance. On the weekends,
he travelled the country playing volleyball as part of a national
league.
“One
of the French ideals of my age is to have feminine conquests,” he told
CBN. He felt no guilt about his unrestrained sexuality.
But in the midst of his carefree lifestyle, God unexpectedly broke into his life through an unplanned encounter.
On vacation with his brother on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean, they decided to hitchhike home from the beach.
“A
car pulled over. Two young women visiting from America were lost and
needed directions to their hotel. Incidentally, it was right next to our
house, so they gave us a ride,” Bignon told Christianity Today.
“They
were attractive enough that my radar went off immediately, and we
started flirting. The one I was interested in happened to mention she
believed in God—by my standards an intellectual suicide. She also said
she believed that sex belongs in marriage—an even more problematic
belief than theism, if that were possible. Nevertheless, once the
vacation ended, I returned to Paris, she to New York, and we started
dating.”
Finding
himself in a long distance relationship, his first priority was to
convince his new girlfriend “out of her stupid beliefs about God” so
they could be happy together.
To
criticize Christianity, Bignon found a Bible and started to read the
New Testament. For an atheist, he did something even more unusual – he
prayed.
“OK
God, I’m here,” he said. “And I’m looking into this Christianity thing.
If you’re real, why don’t you reveal yourself to me?”
Photo captions: 1) Guillaume Bignon speaking on CBN. 2) With his family. 3) Mark Ellis.
About the writer: Mark Ellis is senior correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also founder of www.GodReports.com, a
website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from the church
around the world. He is also co-host for the TV show, "Widows on the
World," with ANS Founder, Dan Wooding, which is carried on the Holy
Spirit Broadcasting Network (http://hsbn.tv).
** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASISST News Service (www.assistnews.net).
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