Bruwer Swanepoel is a retired engineer and businessman (BSc Eng, MBA) and author of Faith: Full Circle – The Religious Journey of a Baby-boomer Afrikaner. It is a memoir of life, religion, science and philosophy.
The story begins in 1951 under the African sun, expands, intensifies and reaches a climax before it changes course, slowly and reluctantly at first, but then with a growing conviction that mushrooms to this day.
It is a story to help people break free from religious indoctrination and wishful thinking – a source of consolation to those feeling guilty when questioning the eternal truths proclaimed in ancient scriptures.
A story to help people break free from apathy and take the risk to start thinking for themselves – and then discover that our existence, on our “pale blue dot”, is filled with majestic awe and incredible wonder.
I wrote Faith: Full Circle during the lockdown years of 2020/2021. My life’s journey confirms the words of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875 – 1961) when he says:
“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.”
What is FAITH: FULL CIRCLE?
FAITH: FULL CIRCLE describes the exceedingly honest and real-life journey of a man searching for, finding and worshipping his God for the best part of a lifetime – but gradually and hesitantly losing his God again. The autobiographic storyline probes and evaluates God’s promises in the Bible, the Bible’s content and the church’s doctrines. It then explores history, evolution and an expanding universe which vindicates the author’s conviction that GOD is a made-made phenomenon and not the other way around.
A man (every person) is born an agnostic, knowing about and believing in nothing. He then takes on board and believes in the gods his parents and environment reveal. His life journey may take him to different settings and lead him to search, explore and ask questions, and if he is brave enough, he may make amendments to his beliefs. He may discover that religious belief is a fictional story helping people make sense of unanswered questions. He may eventually lose faith in a supernatural being when he finds that he had created his God in his image and return to his unbelieving self.