"I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life."
Interview with Peter McCahon

How would you describe what you do?

I'm a comedian, I'm a magician, I do some escapes. I do almost anything that will grab people's attention – that will grab them by the scruff of the neck so I can tell them about the gospel afterwards.

How did you start out?

I started when I was working in schools. I discovered that headmasters have a particular voice when they're introducing religious people. First of all they scream at the children for walking in the corridors, or something, just to get them into the right mood for Christianity, and then they say, "And now we have a religious person in today," in a voice that puts everyone to sleep.

So I find that if I walk in with a straitjacket in my hand and a big bright shirt, and say, "Hi! My name's Peter McCahon, I've come to do a straitjacket sketch this morning!" they go, "Hmm, that's a bit unusual..." And they stop and have a little look. So, anything that grabs people's attention.

Have you always been a Christian?

I grew up in a Christian home. Because of that, and because everyone I knew was a Christian, it never occurred to me that God wasn't there. It was just a natural part of life. That doesn't mean I didn't question it, but it was just an accepted part of life.

As a teenager, you start to think about things more than you did before. Stuff that you always took for granted, you start to question why. Well, I questioned why my parents believed, and what did it mean to me if my parents believed. If my parents were talking to this God, and they were praying, they were talking to an empty room, what did that mean? Did it mean that my parents were insane, because they were talking to an empty room, or did it mean that it was real? That there was something there worth looking at for myself.

It was make or break, really, and I decided I would find out for myself. And the choice that I made as a teenager was that it was real, and that I would follow. And also, because of that teenage passion, I decided that it was all or nothing – that you couldn't play at it. So I threw myself into it wholeheartedly and decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

How does someone – how did you – become a Christian?

I did a lot of talking and reading and asking questions. One of the big fallacies about Christianity is that it's something that happens to you – that someone can make you into a Christian. When I'm talking to people, they're often very wary that they're somehow going to be tricked into becoming a Christian. That it's something that can creep up on you without you being aware of it.

Or they think that it's something that will happen overnight. That – wham! – it will suddenly happen. And although that has happened to some people, it's far more likely, I think, that it will be a process. Like any good relationship, it takes time.

If you wander across the playground to that girl you really fancy, and say, "Hi, I'd like to marry you and have your children and we can live happy lives and retire together," she'll probably be a bit freaked out, because that's too much, too soon. So you start by asking, "What's your name? Where do you like to dance?" and stuff like that. It's a process. And like any relationship, that's what Christianity is about. It's about a relationship with God.

Do you think the miracles of Jesus had anything in common with the magic tricks you do?

No, I think there's absolutely no connection whatsoever between magic tricks and the miracles of Jesus. There's no comparison. What we are doing is blatantly a magic trick and is nothing more than that.

From the moment we begin to the moment we finish, we're deceiving people, but deceiving them honestly. The magician, I think, is the most honest of people. The magician says, "Sit there, watch carefully, I'm about to trick you." And then he does. I mean, no one does that!

If you get conned in the street in some con game, they don't warn you what they're going to do, they just do it. If someone comes to your house and tries to sneak in and steal from you, he doesn't tell you he's coming. But the magician says, "Sit there. Are you comfortable? Are you watching properly? Now I'm going to do something that you're not going to believe." And then tricks you. So he's the most honest of all.

So what were the miracles of Jesus about, then?

When Jesus performed miracles and healed people, he wasn't entertaining the crowd or trying to up his publicity level. He wasn't looking for headlines. He healed people because they needed healing. He responded to people's needs. When the woman touched the hem of his garment and was healed, it was more than she could ever have hoped for. When he healed someone's blindness, he was doing something more – he said, "Your sins are forgiven, too!"

The miracles and healings were about making whole people. They were an illustration of his whole reason for being. I believe Jesus came into the world to heal it, to create whole human beings.

Is there any connection between faith and magic?

Most magic tricks, when you find out how they're done, are really simple. And you just go, "Oh my goodness, how could I not know that?" And it changes the way you look at them for ever. Because now you know the answer. But when you don't know the answer, you sit there saying, "That's amazing!"

With Christianity, people look at it from the outside and they say, "I don't get it. It's impossible to understand. How can I ever understand that? How can I ever get to grips with understanding God, or being in a relationship with God? It's just too much for my brain to cope with."

But the reality is, it's so simple. God says, "All you have to do is ask."

You don't have to be in some special place. You don't have to be in some special clothes or using some special words. There are no secret symbols or anything like that – there are no codes – it's just you and God.

Of course, magicians are meant to keep the secret of how they do their magic tricks, aren't they? How does that relate to faith?

Whereas magic is about keeping the secret, Christianity is about telling everybody. It's about getting out there and sharing it with everybody you possibly can. Not because you want everyone to be like you, not because you want to force other people to do what you do, but because you have this great news. You tell people because you want them to know.

Someone once described it to me as two beggars and one beggar's got bread and is telling the other beggar where he can find it. It's as simple and straightforward as that. He has something which he knows the other one needs, and says, "Hey, here's where I found it."