Colin Hart did as much to proclaim the relevance of biblical truth to every area of life as any leading UK evangelical of the last 50 years. He devoted his life to persuading Christians that their beliefs had to go further than personal piety, church life, and evangelism – they should influence our families, our work, our local communities, and our nation.
He wanted believers to grasp that following Jesus transforms all aspects of our lives, so that we might be better prepared to live out the Christian faith in public as well as in private. This desire was encouraged and strengthened by his great friend and mentor, John Burn. It was a friendship that would shape Colin’s thoughts and actions for the rest of his life.
Driven by this sense of calling to equip Christians for action, on 21 March 1990, together with a group of close Christian friends and professionals, they launched The Christian Institute. John Burn became Chairman; Colin its first Director. It was a position he would hold until his death.
Starting out
Born in West Sussex on 18 August 1963, Colin moved north in 1981 to study Mathematics at the University of Newcastle. He had come to faith in Christ in his teens and confessed to being more fervent about evangelism than his studies. Regular door-knocking in the halls of residence led him to consider entering the mission field, and he attended as many conferences as he could, exploring God’s call on his life.
This never materialised, at least not in the way he was expecting, and instead he became a maths teacher in a local secondary school.
Years later he would admit, somewhat sheepishly, that a faulty understanding of what it meant to be in ‘ministry’ left him feeling like he would be on ‘Track B’ for the rest of his life.
Then in 1988 the government proposed major changes to the school curriculum for England and Wales. John and Colin noticed that religious education played no part in the plans – still less did Christianity. Seeking to combat this, they teamed up with Baroness Caroline Cox, and so at the tender age of 24 Colin had begun his journey of political campaigning.
