VICTOR: Well, thanks for being our guest today, Mr. Aitken. It’s a pleasure having you on the program.
JONATHAN: Thank you for having me. It’s good to be here.
VICTOR: Now you once had an illustrious political career. You were a member of the British Parliament, a member of Cabinet, and you had been touted as one of the potential successors to John Major. But in 1999 something went horribly wrong in your life. Your life basically began to unravel. What happened? What went wrong?
JONATHAN: Well, I think what went wrong in terms of, first of all cause, was really that my pride made me very foolish and very stupid. And, yes, I was a high-flying politician, cabinet minister and so on. And yes, I was tipped to be a future prime minister, which is probably always the kiss of death when that happens to a politician.
And I got into a rather silly row with the newspaper, and was fighting my way out of that row. But in the middle of it all, I told a stupid lie on oath in a libel case. And when I was caught telling that lie, which was all about a hotel bill and who paid it, I was therefore trapped and exposed, and from that moment onwards my life was in ruins. I I was the subject of, as you can imagine, the most punishing newspaper and media coverage. There was huge pressure from the press to have me prosecuted for perjury, which happened, and I pleaded guilty to that, and I went to prison for seven months.
VICTOR: Now, how did you feel? I mean, how were you dealing with all of that emotionally at the time? I mean, you knew the implications of your sentence.
JONATHAN: Well I was on the whole, dealing with it emotionally pretty badly. And I was going through defeat, divorce, disgrace, bankruptcy and jail, which is a pretty good run of financial crises by anybody’s standards. And I think the only positive side of that pretty gloomy and terrible picture, was that I did have the common sense and perhaps spiritual sense, to sit down and say to myself, “Well, if you go through all that, you know, you are to blame for it.” I was, really, the author of my own misfortunes.
Where did I fundamentally go wrong? And it didn’t take me too long uh to work that out.
I was helped by some wonderful Christian friends who came alongside me. But, basically, what went wrong was the word “pride.” That I thought I could walk on water. I thought I could get away with things. I thought I could call the shots, that I was in charge of my life’s account, and Jesus wasn’t really in there at all much.
VICTOR: He wasn’t very impressed with your credentials. (LAUGHS)
JONATHAN: Yeah, and He certainly wouldn’t have been impressed by my credentials, but nor was I myself doing anything other than playing sort of lip service to Him. I was what’s sometimes called a Sunday Christian, or a half Christian, which I now know is about as useful as being half pregnant. At the time I thought it was perfectly all right just say the right things in my lip service often, and be a sort of uncommitted Christian. And the one thing that the crises and catastrophes that hit me sort of made me do was to sort of go back to my spiritual roots and really try and find out whether a real, committed, repentant believing relationship with Jesus was something that really was meaningful. And it did turn out to be so, but that wasn’t an easy journey.
VICTOR: When you arrived at Belmarsh Prison, which I believe that was where you were sentenced.
JONATHAN: Yes.
VICTOR: What kind of reception did you get from your fellow prisoners?
JONATHAN: A pretty rough reception- that I was a tall poppy. I represented the ruling governing classes, I always remember my first night in prison, after the cell door slammed shut and I thought to myself, well, at last I’ve got a cell to myself, I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep. No such luck. The whole jail set up a chant, and I – on a television program I can’t repeat the chant, but the gist of it was, “That expletive Aitken has now arrived in Belmarsh on landing number 321B. Tomorrow morning, lads, let’s show him.” And then flowed a stream of highly anatomical, highly vicious suggestions about what they would do various parts of my anatomy, to show me what they thought of Torrey cabinet ministers.
And I was really scared. I was very scared. And I did the only thing that I thought could be the faintest use to me in this awfully vulnerable, hopeless situation, which was I knelt down on that prison cell flagstone floor and said a prayer. And it was also a prayer that was answered.
VICTOR: What did you pray?
JONATHAN: Well, as a matter of fact, I exaggerate when I say I prayed. I tried to pray, would be the right answer. I couldn’t even get the words of the Lord’s Prayer out, I was so scared.
And then I felt a little bulge in my prison uniform trousers, and I remembered what it was. It was a little leaflet some well-wisher had pushed into my hands as I was going into court that day. And the leaflet had the title, “Praying the Psalms.” And it was calendar-type booklet but it said, Tuesday, the 8th of June, the day of my sentencing, read Psalm 130. And that’s a beautiful Psalm perfect for anything in dire trouble, which begins with the words, “Out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. O Lord, be attentive to my cry for mercy.”
And as I read the seven or eight verses of that Psalm, which end up, “And you will find God’s unfailing love and full redemption.”
I suddenly thought to myself, you know, “This is written for me. It’s really speaking to me. This Psalmist has been in some terrible trouble himself.” So I read it and reread it and sort of prayed over it, and suddenly I did feel better and fell into a deep and peaceful sleep and prison turned out to be not nearly as bad as it sounded that first night.
VICTOR: If you hadn’t gone to prison, where do you think you’d be today?
JONATHAN: Oh, probably in the House of Lords, sitting on boards, oh, I might be in the shadow cabinet of David Cameron, I don’t know. You can’t really second-guess these things.
What I can say is that although, of course, I was full of remorse and disappointment, the fact that my political career did crash into ruins. That was a chapter. The new chapter that I’m in, which is Christian ministry, Christian writing, I have a secular life as a writer, too. But I am just a much, much happier, more peaceful, I hope a bit more humble, person. And I hope I’ve learned some lessons, but I have a really wonderful relationship with the Lord now, and that’s what my life is all about. I think the Christian journey at the end of the day, is from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. I’d like to think I’m traveling on that road and it’s brought me joy and peace.
VICTOR: You’ve published a fascinating, absolutely delightful book here titled, “John Newton, from Disgrace to Amazing Grace.”Before we talk about the book are there any parallels between John Newton’s life and yours?
JONATHAN: Well, there are a few parallels, but I should begin by saying John Newton is a thousand times better man than I am. That said, he probably had a worse early life. He was a slave trader, a real nasty young man. Flogged by the Royal Navy for desertion, and almost certainly involved in the worst aspects of the slave trade, such as raping African women and so on. So he led a pretty terrible, disgraceful life in his early years.
He then did find God, and he found Him really as a result of a disaster too. He thought his ship was going down, and against all his blasphemy and atheistic instincts, he started to pray. He found his prayers were answered and then thought, God really meant something. So he started to search and he found God. And then he became a Church of England Vicar, and we might never have heard of him but for two amazing achievements. One was his hymn writing: “Amazing Grace” is his greatest hymn, but other hymns like “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken.” He was a wonderful hymn writer and writer of prayers. And then he became the best friend, spiritual mentor and fellow campaigner of William Wilberforce for the abolition of slavery. So John Newton, as a repentant sinner, played a great contribution to English history.
But what I like most about John Newton are his dying words, because they sum up really his whole life. When he was on his last legs, a friend came to see him and said, “I hear your memory is not very good these days, Mr. Newton.” And he nodded and said in his little stumbling voice, “No, it’s not very good, but I can remember two things; that I am a great sinner, but Christ is a great Savior.”
VICTOR: Amen.
JONATHAN: And I can’t think of a better exit line from this world, because it’s all in the story of John Newton’s life.
VICTOR: Amen. Well, we certainly want to wish you all the very best. And thank you very much for being our guest today on Turning Point. The name of the book is “John Newton, From Disgrace to Amazing Grace.” And you can find that online at the address on your screen. Once again, we want to say thank you very much, Jonathan Aitken, for being our guest.
JONATHAN: Thank you.
VICTOR: And wish you all the very best.
