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Dan Allender is president and professor of counseling at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, Washington. A frequent speaker on sexual-abuse recovery and other topics, he is the author of The Wounded Heart, The Healing Path, and co-author (with Tremper Longman III) of Intimate Allies, The Cry of the Soul, Bold Love, and Bold Purpose.

What is your spiritual background?

I had no background. The only background I had was Flippo the Clown, who, every now and then at 5 o'clock on channel 4 in Columbus, Ohio, occasionally mentioned something about God. I remember asking my mom, "What's this thing he's talking about: God?" And she'd say, "You don't need to know. It'll only screw you up."

When I was 13, I met a gentleman who changed my life, and that was the co-author of many of the books that we've written, Tremper Longman III. He had a family that had faith, and I was invited to have a sense of what a mother or father or what siblings are like. It was glorious to kind of gain that.

But I was a drug dealer. I was a car stealer. I broke and entered. I was just a bad egg for many, many, many years. But this family graciously received me into their world. And during that period of time, as I continued to be involved in illicit pharmaceutical sales and just a life that was harmful, the gospel continued to come into my life to a point where I knew the Bible fairly well as an unbeliever.

I remember one night [in college] having the opportunity to share the gospel with an unbeliever who was thinking about killing herself.

You shared the gospel with her though you yourself hadn't made a personal claim of faith?

I just figured that the other paths she had tried hadn't worked, so she might as well try Jesus. I remember the moment where I asked her if she wanted to receive Christ as her Lord and Savior. I had taken her through Romans 3:23, 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9, And I said, "Do you want to receive the Lord?" And she said yes. So I said, "Well, close your eyes and pray this prayer after me. And I prayed the prayer …

Because you had heard it through going to church with Tremper?

No. I had never gone to church, but I'd been in groups where I'd heard this happen before. And so I remember when she opened her eyes and she looked at me. And I'm telling you, they were different eyes. Unquestionably different eyes.

She said, "I never knew you were a Christian."

And I said, "I'm not. In fact, you can't do drugs. You can't hang out with me anymore. I'm going to take you to some friends and they're going to help you, but you can't be messing around with me anymore."

Where did this happen this?

Well, I went to college at a place called Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio.

Is that where Tremper went?

Yes. We went because we tried to divide our Doors albums, and it was one of the worst fights we ever got in. And he said, "Why don't you just come to college with me?" So I went to college with him.

This is true.

Absolutely.

So was it at college that you made your decision?

Well, a third of a decision. The decision that there might be a God. I knew there had to be something other than me. At least if there weren't, there wasn't any point to be me.

That point came in the context of the cartel that I worked with putting out a contract on a DEA agent. And all of a sudden I went from being a middle-class drug dealer to being in the big time. I knew that either I was going to jail or I was going to die. I remember saying to Tremper, "I want to go to church." And there was a move in my own heart to say, "All right God, if you're true, you're true, and I guess it's right. And you know, whatever."

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47