BBC TV antiques presenter David Harper (Photo: David Harper)
Television personality David Harper considered himself agnostic when he started investigating Christianity after his daughter became a Christian and overcame debilitating depression.
Raised in a non-religious household, Harper was born into a family he describes as having “high morals” rooted in secularism and shaped by a culture that often portrayed faith as intellectually weak.
“God never played a part,” Harper told The Christian Post about his early life.
What started as a research project examining the evidence for God culminated in Harper falling to his knees one day and fully accepting Jesus.
Best known for his work as an antiques presenter for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Harper became a Christian last year, and his new book, The God Conundrum, chronicles his 11-month investigation into the historical and scientific evidence for God’s existence.
“In the beginning, I wasn’t intending to write a book at all,” Harper stated. “But then, about three or four months into my private research project, I realized I was writing a book.”
‘There’s nothing we can do for you’
Harper’s spiritual journey began after his daughter, Hetti, embraced Christianity and underwent a dramatic spiritual transformation. Hetti, who is now 30, became “exceptionally depressed,” particularly after she left home around the age of 20 and moved to London.
For years, Harper said his daughter struggled with mental health and self-harm. And although she tried taking antidepressants and attending therapy sessions, she continued to sink into despair.
“Nothing worked for her,” Harper recalled. “And she was effectively told, not in so many words, ‘There’s nothing we can do for you.’ And it was advised that she look for something spiritual.”
The father felt uncertain about how to help his daughter, but he was encouraged when Hetti told him she was going to church and was considering becoming a Christian.
While Harper did not consider himself a believer at the time, he was glad to see his daughter pursue a path that seemed to make her happy.
“And I watched and monitored her for 15 months, and the changes in that girl were mind-boggling,” the author said. “I heard her laugh and giggle, and I remember thinking, ‘I didn’t think I’d ever hear that again in my life.’”
‘Leaning towards Jesus’
After she accepted Christ, the father said he noticed a joy burning brightly in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Her physical health improved, and her chronic pain gradually subsided.
“And for the 15 months that I was watching her, I now know I was leaning towards Jesus myself,” the author said. “I think He was knocking. Things were happening.”
During the 2024 Christmas season, the observant father decided to investigate his questions about Christianity after a visit with his daughter, in which they attended church and discussed Jesus. Something had sparked a change within his daughter, the father reasoned, and he wanted to learn more.
Harper said he sat down one afternoon intending to spend a few hours researching what he initially thought was a simple query: “What is it about Christianity that transforms people?”
“I thought I’d find the answer in a few hours before tea time. Then I was just engrossed,” he said. “This journey began then and continued without stopping, seven days a week, for 11 months.”
For months, Harper studied arguments for the existence of God, scrutinized evolutionary theory and examined historical claims surrounding the resurrection of Jesus.
Writing the section of the book about Jesus and the resurrection took him six weeks, the author recalled. In working on this part of the book, Harper came to what he described as an “academic” and “intellectual” decision to accept the existence of a creator and the truth of the resurrection.
“If the resurrection was true, then everything is true. And I thought, if the resurrection is true, then Jesus is God,” he reasoned. “And so, I looked at all of the investigations and 2,000 years’ worth of the best claims against it, and nobody has been able to debunk it.”
Even after he accepted the intellectual arguments for Christianity and acknowledged the resurrection of Jesus as a historical fact, Harper sensed that something was still missing.
Gradually becoming a Christian
“I didn’t have what I would later describe as the 18-inch drop — the thought process in your brain that something is right, that something is true,” he said. “I didn’t feel it in my body, in my soul, in my heart.”
As he started experiencing intense emotions — sometimes feeling waves of joy or anguish that he couldn’t explain — Harper realized that he was gradually becoming a Christian. The idea caused him to suffer panic attacks, as he feared ridicule from his colleagues or family members.
Despite his doubts, the author found that he couldn’t erase Jesus from his mind. A turning point came when he recalled a video of Christian apologist John Lennox discussing a formerly depressed student whose life was changed by Christ. The story about Lennox’s student reminded Harper of his daughter and the way Christianity had impacted her life.
“The memory of that video hit me like a steam train,” the born-again Christian said. “Because I realized, even though I had amassed all of this evidence, the real evidence that Christianity is true is the transformation in the soul of a person.”
He realized that the answer had been “staring him in the face” for months, years even, but he had just overlooked it.
“It was at that moment that I realized: It was Jesus Christ who had literally saved my daughter’s life,” the Christian author stated. “I just fell to my knees and realized, at that moment, it was Him — it was Jesus.”
Harper said his wife, who had always identified as a Christian but wasn’t super devout, has grown closer to God since her husband’s conversion. But not all reactions to the author’s conversion have been warm.
Some of his colleagues will refuse to engage with him on the topic, while others have accused him of “Bible-bashing” when he’s attempted to discuss the evidence for a creator. Harper said that his newfound faith doesn’t appear to have resulted in any major professional consequences, but twice, he has had directors advise him to “calm down” references to Christianity during television appearances.
Still, he insists he would rather endure pushback than return to the person he was before, who did not truly know God.
“I had to pretend to be confident most of the time with my TV work when, under the surface, I was not feeling so confident and not feeling very happy,” the BBC TV antiques presenter explained.
Faith, he says, has smoothed his life. He now looks at nature and sees an intentional design rather than an accident. He also no longer fears death, as he believes in the promise of an afterlife.
“It’s not that I want to die. I want to live as long as I can,” Harper said. “So I think I’ve been given a job. I really feel that my job now is to tell people about the truth that is there, and it’s very simple to understand, but I’m not afraid of the day that we will all face.
“Because I really believe that day is something which is wonderful,” he added. “And so that fills you with joy.”
As for the book’s target audience, Harper hopes that fellow believers will find it useful and learn things they didn’t know about the life of Jesus and other topics.
“But I suppose initially, when I realized I was writing a book, it was for people like me — confused, distressed about life generally, not knowing what the purpose and the meaning of life was, always searching for answers,” Harper said.
© The Christian Post
