Bill Edgar is both a professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and an extremely talented jazz musician who has spent a lot of his life in France. He is not only very intelligent and cosmopolitan, but uses his gifts to share the gospel in various ways. EN took the opportunity to interview him while he was in Britain earlier this year.
EN: Bill, tell us about your background?
BE: My parents met in North Carolina during the war, while Dad was in the army. That is where I was born. Shortly after, we moved to Paris, France, and I grew up there. Then we spent seven years in New York. But after that, the rest of Dad's professional career until he retired in 1983, was in Geneva. It was not a Christian home, but it was a wonderful home.
Later, I was sent to an English-style boarding school in Newport, Rhode Island. Though I was not a Christian by any means I had quite a keen interest in spiritual things. I read many of the French existentialists. We were required to attend chapel every day, and sitting in the pews (with a stone face because it would not be cool to show any interest), I was nevertheless drawn by many of the things I heard, including the music.
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