From terrorist to pastor

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Tuesday, November 19th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A change of heart.

Nearly three decades ago, Northern Ireland’s 30 years of conflict came to an end with the Good Friday Agreements. But that country still grapples with the need for reconciliation as change comes about through Brexit and demographics.

MAST: In all that turmoil, God brought about some miraculous change and transformation.

WORLD’s Europe Reporter Jenny Lind Schmitt brings us the story now of a man from Belfast who is still working to reconcile.

DAVID HAMILTON: See the two cell windows?...My cell was that second one…

JENNY LIND SCHMITT: David Hamilton is deaf in one ear, and he walks with a limp. Those are leftover marks of a very different, very violent life long ago when his white hair was jet black. At the gates of Crumlin Road Prison, Hamilton points over the wall to the prison cell where God saved him.

HAMILTON: So that’s the start of going into the Protestant area. Then you drive over this Bridge, and from here up then, it’s Republican.

Hamilton grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. When he was 14, a bunch of his buddies told him they couldn’t be friends anymore because he was a Protestant and they were Catholic. They beat him up and threw him in the river.

HAMILTON: See them railings and fences? All that was because people would come across and throw petrol bombs into these houses.

Hamilton joined a gang terrorizing Catholics in his neighborhood, smashing windows and setting schools on fire. At 19, after a few stints in jail, he joined the most feared paramilitary group: the Ulster Volunteer Force— the UVF.

HAMILTON: And I thought if I'm going to do this terrorism I'm going to do it right. So I asked to join that group.

With the UVF Hamilton robbed banks, set churches on fire, and built bombs. Eventually, after a bank heist, police raided his house … arrested him … and sentenced him to ten years.

Several years into his prison sentence, he found a Bible tract on his bunk one night. Hamilton threw it away. But as he made a cup of tea, something unusual happened.

HAMILTON: And I'm sitting on the bed drinking my tea, and it was as suddenly as that. I heard a voice said to me, “David, it's time to change. Become a Christian.”

He tried to brush off the thought, but it kept returning. He started thinking of all the close calls he’d had. Once, a bomb that he’d planted detonated early. It blasted him out into the street, covered with broken glass, but he’d walked away unscathed. Another time, an IRA-man tried to assassinate him.

HAMILTON: But as he got up to me, he just went like this. And he pulled out a gun and he put it up to my head. So I immediately grabbed his arm, pulled his arm down, but he shot me three times and I was lying on the ground when he leaned over to me, and he put the gun down to my head like this. And when he pulled the trigger, the gun jammed.

He had always credited his good luck. Now he wondered if it was God who’d protected him.

HAMILTON: Was that God? I was overwhelmed by it all because I thought nobody could explain that? Why would God be interested in a terrorist? And spare my life. I'm still overwhelmed by it.

He tried reading the Bible in his cell. Prisoners kept them because the thin paper was good for rolling cigarettes. He couldn’t understand it. His cellmate made fun of him and told him that he couldn’t become a Christian because he was too bad of a person.

HAMILTON: But that night in jail I said to myself, “If God has kept me alive. He could change me. He could change me.” And I wanted to change more than anything. That was the desire in my heart at that moment. I says, “God, you've kept me alive. Will you change me and take away all this evil and bitterness that I have in my heart?”

He waited until his cellmate was asleep.

HAMILTON: …and I knelt down on my bed and prayed and asked the Lord Jesus to come into my life.

The next morning, he told his cellmate who in turn told the other prisoners on the block. They all mocked him.

HAMILTON: Have you joined the God Squad? And here's me, “Yes, I have.” And then. “Are you a Christian?” I says, “I am.” “Who was Cain's wife?” I said, “Mrs. Cain. What does that mean?” I knew nothing about the Bible. But you know what? I did know I had a joy and a peace in my heart.

That was January 19-80. Hamilton learned later that on the day of his sentencing years before, his despairing mother poured out her heart to an older relative, saying her son was a hopeless case.

The woman, Mrs. Beggs, said that God has no hopeless cases and promised to pray for him everyday.

HAMILTON: And the old woman said, “Mrs. Hamilton, don't cry. I'm going to pray and ask God to change your son…” So I tell people, “It's not my fault I'm a Christian. That old woman's to blame! She put me on her wanted list and started praying for me.”

Hamilton spent the rest of his sentence studying theology. He was filled with love for the Catholics on the other side of the conflict, and he became friends with ex-IRA men who had also been saved.

When Mrs. Beggs heard of Hamilton’s conversion, she started praying for his future ministry. After his release, Hamilton became a pastor. He and other ex-paramilitary men began touring Northern Ireland to preach the gospel. But not everyone was happy about this reconciliation work. Paramilitary groups made several attempts on his life.

HAMILTON: But that's when they said to me, "You're on a hit list. You're going to get it if you don't stop all of this."

He moved his family to England and pastored there for decades.

Recently he retired back to Northern Ireland. It’s a different time, and the old troubles and tensions are not what they once were. But Hamilton says there is still too much separation between communities. So he tells his story whenever he can.

HAMILTON: Well, there’s still walls on the heart, you know what I mean? That need to be removed.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Lind Schmitt in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.