What happens when your search for truth leads beyond philosophy and into the unexpected?
Mark Schneider is a former skeptic whose life was marked by profound questions about meaning, purpose, and reality itself. Though raised in a nominal Catholic home, faith became irrelevant to Mark early in life. As a young man, he embraced a materialistic worldview and searched desperately for answers through philosophy, psychology, and human wisdom.
But after years of wrestling with despair and searching for what he called "the one truth," Mark encountered something he never expected - not merely an idea or a system of thought, but the person of Jesus Christ.
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Mark Schneider is a former Silicon Valley executive and patent litigator who explores the intersection of law, technology, and Christian thought. He is the author of Ransomed: One Man’s Journey out of Darkness into the Light of Truth. With degrees in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic University and law from Trinity Law School, he brings a sharp analytical lens to questions of truth and belief. Mark also founded a Salt & Light ministry at his church and continues to engage cultural and moral issues with clarity and conviction.
eX-skeptic Guides: https://exskeptic.org/bookstore/
• Mark R. Schneider, Esq. Website: https://markrschneider.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@protectourkids2393
Ransomed: One Man's Journey Out of Darkness into the Light of Truth — Mark Schneider Ministry
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Chapters
00:02:12 — Meet Mark
00:04:48 — From Nominal Faith to No Belief
00:08:12 — When Faith Seemed Unnecessary
00:10:09 — Uprooted and Angry
00:14:18 — The Sudden Descent into Darkness
00:17:04 — Searching for an Anchor
00:21:48 — When Philosophy Offered No Answers
00:26:59 — An Encounter with the Spiritual Unknown
00:28:56 — Returning to Fresno, Finding Temporary Relief
00:32:15 — When the Darkness Returned
00:36:47 — The Search for “The One Truth”
00:39:28 — A Failed Search for Peace
00:42:59 — “Smile, Jesus Loves You”
00:46:41 — Discovering That Truth Is a Person
00:52:34 — The Peace That Remained
00:53:41 — Grounding Faith in Objective Truth
00:55:15 — What Should a Seeker Do?
00:59:58 — Where to Start Reading the Bible
01:02:36 — Who Do You Say That I Am?
Intro
MARK SCHNEIDER: I felt just incredible love and I didn't hear it with audible ears but with spiritual ears. I heard this voice said, “I am the truth that you've been searching for.”
Jesus, the source of all that ever existed, had suddenly entered into me and it was powerful I can't even describe it how powerful it was.
JANA HARMON: Hello and welcome to eX-skeptic, where we explore unlikely stories of belief. We feature former atheists and skeptics who came to question their assumptions and consider the truth of Christianity. I'm your host, Janna Harmon, and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're someone who's curious, questioning, or deeply exploring what you believe and why. Thank you for joining us.
What if the truth you've been searching for can't be reduced to an argument, a philosophy, or a system of thought. What if truth is more than a principle to discover? What if truth is personal?
My guest today is Mark Schneider, a former skeptic who spent years wrestling with darkness, meaning in the deep question of whether life had any objective grounding at all.
He went searching for what he calls the one truth, something solid enough to explain reality and strong enough to hold the weight of his life. But what he found was much more unexpected than a new idea, a worldview. In this conversation, Marc shares how his search for truth led him beyond materialism, beyond abstract answers, and ultimately to the person of Jesus Christ.
And if you're someone who has questions about God, meaning, or whether Christianity is actually true, you'll find curated playlists on our YouTube channels around big questions like, “Is there more to life than this?” And “Is it rational to believe in God?” And if you'd like to talk personally with a former guest about your own questions or doubts. Reach out to us at [email protected]
Here's my conversation with Mark Schneider
Meet Mark
JANA HARMON: Welcome to eX-skeptic. Mark, it's great to have you with me today.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, Jana, I'm so delighted to be here with you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.
JANA HARMON: Wonderful. I'd love the listeners to know a bit about your background, the things that you love to do, that you have your hands in a little bit about your work. Can you tell us about all of that?
MARK SCHNEIDER: My professional background, I'm an engineer. Electrical engineer by training. I started my career in Silicon Valley for a large technology company that I was with for quite some years. In the middle of my career, I decided to go to law school. And so after that, I joined the legal department of Hewlett-Packard company, who I was with for a long time.
And after that, I went into private practice as a patent litigator for a number of years. But my real, um, passion is for, uh, ministry. And, um, there was a series of laws that had passed in California that were affecting children in our public school system. Um, it was really laws designed to indoctrinate them into a worldview that is completely foreign to the one most Americans grew up with and came to love.
And as a result of that, um, me and some colleagues started a ministry called Protect Our Kids. And that was in April of 2019. So, protect our kids as a ministry to help parents become better advocates for their children in the public school system and actually try to reform public education in California and beyond.
So currently, Jana, that POK is taking most of my time these days.
JANA HARMON: Hmm. Well, if anyone is interested in hearing more about that, especially if they live in California, we'll put that link in the show notes, so they'll be able to find out more about your work there.
Now, I met you about a month ago, and you were so generous to give me a pre-publication release of your new book called Ransomed. The subtitle, One Man's Journey Out of Darkness into the Light of Truth. I can tell you. For again those who are listening. This is a wonderful book. It's a really, really wonderful book. Not only does it tell your story, but it really gives an excellent substantive grounding for the Christian worldview and for the biblical text.
From Nominal Faith to No Belief
Let's talk about your journey and starting with your childhood. What did that look like in terms of a faith background.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, it was very nominal in terms of faith. I was born in Oakland in the sort of the poorest post-World War Two boom years, and as a child my dad worked in local government, and that meant frequent moves. So, we were moving all the time in different homes, and I attended a bunch of different schools. And finally, we ended up in Fresno, of all places.
And, um, as an adolescent, I really came to love it. It was just an incredible place to, uh, to be a young man. Uh, growing up until the wonders of adulthood, um, uh, the Sierra Nevada mountains were, uh, our backyard. So, we spent our winter skiing and our summers backpacking through the mountains. But in terms of faith, um, both my parents were nominal Catholics.
Catholicism was really sort of handed down to them by both sets of grandparents, who followed the church pretty carefully. But I think for my parents it was more of a tradition than a heartfelt, um, a belief in Catholicism. I did, however, spend time in parochial schools, actually a couple of them when finances could afford it.
So, I would say Jana that Catholicism gave me sort of a conceptual idea about God. Um, but it certainly wasn't deep in any way, and it certainly wasn't personal. And when my grandmother Marie died, um, she was sort of the foundation and pretense of my family's faith. And very shortly after that, I noticed that we stopped going to mass and altogether.
So, I was 13 years old at the time, and one day I asked my dad about it. I said, dad, you know, why aren't we going to mass anymore? And he said, very candidly, he said, well, Mark, your mother and I talked about it, and we realized we just didn't believe it. So, we stopped going and that was it. Jana, I didn't give it much thought because I was nominal myself.
And after that, I very quickly forgot all about anything having to do with the spiritual realm, with God. I really knew I'd never read the Bible at all. I had really no interest in spiritual things whatsoever. So certainly, by the time I entered adolescence, spiritual things were a thing of the past for me.
JANA HARMON: So, would you have agreed with your father's statement that you just didn't believe that anymore? Or are you just.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Absolutely.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Yes, I would say so. Certainly, by that time in the public school system. Um, the teaching of evolution and Darwinism was becoming more prominent. And as most people raised in the school system, you go along with what you're taught. And I was part and parcel of that teaching, so I accepted it pretty much at face value.
When Faith Seemed Unnecessary
JANA HARMON: Mhm. Yeah. So, accepting, accepting a belief at face value. You know you didn't believe in God but what kind of did you believe in. Did you. You believed in science I suppose. You believed in rational thought or rational thinking or.
MARK SCHNEIDER: I would like to be able to tell you that I had some deep-seated personal philosophy or worldview that I had worked out, but I'm afraid to say it was much simpler than that. Um, my, um, intellectual life was sort of governed by my appetites at the time. As a young boy growing into adulthood, I was more concerned with having good friends, doing fun things, be an important part of my peer group, and really not having any particular ideas or grounding for any worldview whatsoever.
One thing I did know though, is that I didn't believe in God.
JANA HARMON: What did you think belief in God was, or Christianity or religion at that point when you moved away from it? How would you have described what that is?
MARK SCHNEIDER: It was sort of a crutch for people who needed it. I viewed it sort of abstractly. It had never had any, um, um, really, uh, personal compulsion in my life one way or the other. It wasn't a factor that it wasn't important at all. My family and my friends never, even ever even spoke about spiritual matters, let alone the deep things of, you know what it meant to be a Christian or, you know, believe in an afterlife.
It simply was not discussed. And because of that, it just became completely unimportant.
JANA HARMON: Just irrelevant to your life. You didn't need God, correct? You didn't need that. That's right. Right.
MARK SCHNEIDER: That’s right. It's the furthest, furthest thing from my mind.
Uprooted and Angry
JANA HARMON: So, talk with us about your life. I know that there were. You said you moved a good bit and that that was very pivotal in your life at times. Why don't you kind of walk us through? I know you were happy in Fresno, but then. Then you continued to move and some things happen that that weren't just as good, I think.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Yes. Um, for some reason I was particularly affected by these moves. And there were there were many of them before we finally landed in Fresno. And even when we landed in Fresno, we lived in a number of different places before, um, I landed in the middle school and then the high school that I grew to enjoy so much.
So, I just didn't like these, these moves at all. And one day in the middle of my junior year in Fresno, my dad made a fateful announcement at the dinner table one night. He announced that he'd taken another job in this place called Orange County. That was 300 miles to the south. I'd never been to Southern California, except once to go to Disneyland when I was eight years old.
But the very idea of being uprooted yet again, in the middle of a very important time, of what I considered in my life, where I'd been accepted. I thought I was living the life of American Graffiti. It was just a wonderful time. And now I was being told that we were going to be uprooted from all of that and start all over again in this in, in another city, 300 miles away from everything I knew.
And that set in motion, Jana, a change in psychology for me. It was not imposed upon me. It's one that I chose. And the psychology that I chose to engage was simply, for lack of a better term, a sense of bitterness and anger at, um, at this sudden change now that was being imposed on me. So, we did ultimately end up moving to Orange County. Um, fortunately was over, um, Christmas break. So, we lived in a hotel while the house that was being built for us was finishing, so I wouldn't have to start school for a couple of weeks after we moved.
We lived. We lived in this sort of a squat hotel on this very busy street, uh, called Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton, which is in the heart of Orange County. And I had nothing to do for a couple of weeks. And so, I just sat watching TV. Um, walking up and down the street, just sort of harboring this slow boiling bitterness at, uh, where my life had suddenly landed.
And this increased over time. Um, I did end up going to a wonderful high school. It turns out El Dorado High School and a little town called Placentia, um, in Orange County. And to my surprise, um, my peers were very friendly. Um, they really reached out to me. I don't know whether that was because, uh, there were a lot of people from the outside that had suddenly moved into the area.
It was a new community, and that could have been part of the reason. But it actually stunned me that that people were so friendly, but far from embracing my peers. I rejected them. I wanted nothing to do with them. My one goal was to escape this place and to figure out any way that I could to get back to my old life and my old friends. Up, up in the Central Valley. So, for about six months, um, I sort of nurtured this slow boiling bitterness and internal anger. And until one day, it all came crashing down.
The Sudden Descent into Darkness
JANA HARMON: Hmm. Tell me about that.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, um, the day was like any other. It was a sunny day at El Dorado. I've just been going about my classes, and I was walking down the hallway. Oh, of course, I'll never forget it. Forget it. It's emblazoned in my mind. I was walking down the hallway, just thinking to myself how much I hate this place, and I wish I could get out of here.
When all of a sudden, Janet, um, my mind was sort of besieged by a wave of mental anguish. Um, something actually, um, came in and took over, uh, my psychology where I went from, yes, being bitter, but certainly feeling normal mentally and emotionally and able to experience joy and happiness and look forward to things, to one second later being sort of, uh, tossed into a sea of despondency. Um, all of a sudden, thinking itself was painful.
Um, I felt like something inhabited me, and I had no idea what it was, but it was just a dark, despondent gloom, and it happened in literally a second. In fact, it was so strong that I felt I was going to vomit, and I literally shook my head and sort of a hapless attempt to shake off whatever it was that had just entered into me, but I couldn't. There was no there was no way of escape.
And you can imagine, you know, what happened afterwards? I for several weeks, I just sort of went about in a state of shock, wondering what on earth has happened to me. I went from one day being a normal teenager, a young man who could enjoy life, even though I was bitter about where I was to suddenly not being able to be happy, to experience pleasure, to experience joy.
Um, and my very thoughts being sort of enveloped in a darkness and a pale of darkness, and there was no way to shake it except through sleep.
JANA HARMON: Wow, that. That would be incredibly disturbing. Um, especially for such a sudden change. So, it sounds almost like a clinical depression, but it it, it almost sounds like more than that the way that you're describing it at that point.
Searching for An Anchor
JANA HARMON: Just wondering, as someone who didn't believe in God, did you believe in any kind of spiritual reality at all? Dark or light?
MARK SCHNEIDER: No. And that's the irony. And of course, as I'll continue to share, as we get more into my story, it never, ever occurred to me that there could be a spiritual element to what I was experiencing. Um, never once, which is sort of astonishing looking back. But in time I did start to consider questions that I'd never before thought of and consider them very seriously.
Like, what is joy? Um, where does it come from? Is there any objective value to being happy? Um, why am I here anyway? Um. These questions. You know, I never even thought of them before, but suddenly they, they consumed me. And, um, before the attack, you know, I never had any question to question what philosophers, uh, call materialism.
And now pondering this sort of left me emotionally depleted. But as the months wore on, I had to find some answer to this anguished state that I, I was, and I kept my depressed state from - to myself. I never told anybody about it, not even my parents. I didn't want to be tagged with or, you know, being associated with, I thought at the time were unhelpful labels like mentally ill or clinically depressed. I didn't really even understand what those meant.
But, um, one day I decided to risk a query to my father about happiness. What? What he thought of it. And, um, his answer was true as far as it went. He basically said that happiness comes from setting goals and seeing them through. Happiness is a product of accomplishment, satisfaction in a life well run. And that was true as as far as it went. But my dad viewed happiness as sort of a layer of frosting atop an underlying emotional layer of mental well-being, sort of an inner quiet that, to the undisturbed mind is assumed.
We just take it for granted. But my mind was anything but quiet. Accomplishment and goal setting were, were fine and well, but none of it meant anything until I could discover what difference it made. And I needed an anchor. And unfortunately, my father's recipe for happiness was unable to help me.
So, Jana, with a little over a year now to go before graduation, I tried to make the most of things. I got a job. I bought my first car. I made a few friends. Um, I kept my grades up. Um, I dabbled in campus, uh, politics such that by from outward appearances, you know, I probably appeared as a very normal teenager. Um, albeit a cynical one, but, um, I was fighting a war of attrition against an unseen enemy whose power I had not even begun to grasp.
And this led one night. I'll never forget this. I was alone in my bedroom. It was a warm, starlit Southern California night, and, um, I just sort of. A wave of anguish swept over me, and I literally felt like a little child, isolated and all alone. I didn't know what to do. And this was the one time, in my experience, Jana, that, um, I reached out to, hopefully, someone who would hear me.
And I got down on my knees in my bedroom and I prayed this prayer. I said, God, if you exist, if you're out there, help me. Please help me. Uh, that was it. Um, I didn't expect an answer. And there wasn't one. Um, aside from the hum of the streetlight outside. There was only silence. And so my battle to understand my despondency and to overcome it continued.
When Philosophy Offered No Answers
JANA HARMON: Now, you mentioned that you started asking these big questions that had, prior to that time of, of moving to this place of darkness, had really not even crossed your mind. But then you found yourself engaged in, you know, what are these? What is life, what it is about? What is the purpose of it? What is the meaning of it?
Um, but you also in the same way, when you had dismissed belief in God, um, you mentioned the word materialism and that I guess you were, uh, embracing the worldview that only matter exists and, um, those kinds of things. And you mentioned in your book that there are those who are materialist thinkers, philosophers, that when you looked in that direction to see how they answered those big questions. But what did you find there? Were they satisfying at all?
MARK SCHNEIDER: Uh, far from it. I should probably bring into the story the Ames. Um, this was a family that moved in a few doors up from us, and they were also new to Southern California, and, um, they were from Oklahoma. And, uh, Cameron Ames was about my age. We went to the same high school, and, uh, our personalities were different.
Our temperaments were a little bit different, but our shared sense of isolation and anger at, you know, where we ended up at this time in our lives made for sort of an immediate kinship. And so, Cameron and I became friends, but I even more so. I was attracted to his mom and dad. They were both turned out to be college professors.
His mom was a professor of psychology. His dad taught history, and Mrs. Ames in particular had a fairly prodigious library at her home. And so, I started perusing the books in her library, and before long I discovered, um, B.F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which I asked if I could borrow from her. Of course, Skinner was a famous materialist.
Um, and I read that book, and it's entirely. There were some other philosophers that I had read as well. Um, Abraham Maslow's A Psychology of Being. Um. And none of these books gave me any answers whatsoever. In fact, if anything, uh, their Exposition of materialism and what it meant. Only sort of solidified my belief, my developing belief that life was meaningless, that if there was any meaning to life at all, it was meaning that we gave it. It was completely subjective. There was no objective meaning for our existence or grounding, for happiness or joy.
And so, you can imagine a young man already sort of a fragile mentally and dealing with serious answers to, uh, look to these so-called authority figures for answers and only being let down in a very serious way. It was extremely discouraging. I felt like they were waterless clouds, you know, having a pretense of offering answers.
But in the end, not being able to offer anything at all, and I try to engage adults who I considered wiser than me in sort of serious dialog about the meaning of life and try to get some perspective on, uh, why, you know, anybody should be happy. And it was all unavailing. No one could give me the answers that I was ultimately looking for.
Ironically, the one philosopher that I came to regard, or at least admire was the existential as Jean-Paul Sartre. Of course, he was a materialist as well. He was a French playwright. Playwright. In fact, he even turned down the Nobel Prize in Literature when it was offered to him because he felt like it was sort of it was a waste of time.
And it was he that came up with the expression existence precedes essence, meaning if there's any purpose to life, uh, we have to come up with it. It's up to us individually to give purpose to our lives. Because there's no God at all to give it. And so, you know, with time, um, this became even more depressing to me. Uh, the great sages in the world, uh, couldn't offer me anything at all. Not the direction I was hoping to find by these people.
An Encounter with the Spiritual Unknown
MARK SCHNEIDER: Talking about spiritual matters, one, one day at Carleton's house, we were in a, for lack of a better word, like a den. And he pulled out some cards, and I immediately identified them as tarot. And he asked me if I knew what these were, and I'd seen him before in different, you know, pot shops and New Age bookstores and things like that. And I knew that they had something to do with foretelling the future.
And so, he started to turn these cards over, and they had macabre images on them and read over, you know what they meant. And Jana, immediately I felt this malign presence. You could feel it around you. And it was rising. And I blurted out to Cameron, I said, Cameron, do you do you feel that?
And to my utter shock and surprise, he said, yes. He said, let's get out of here. And he folded up the cards, and we left the room immediately. And that left a very bitter aftertaste in me that hung around for, you know, several days afterwards. But still, despite this, it never occurred to me that the pain in my head could be, have any connection at all with something else besides my own corrupted, you know, brain structure or chemistry or psychology. Still, it never occurred to me.
JANA HARMON: And even that dark sense of presence in the room. Did that cause you to sit back and go, well, maybe there is something more than this material world.
MARK SCHNEIDER: It didn't, strangely, and I still have no explanation for that. I just never put two and two together at that time.
Returning to Fresno, Finding Temporary Relief
MARK SCHNEIDER: But yeah, you were right. Finally, my high school experience came to an end, and my parents had always had academic high hopes for me. And we had some connections. And I had planned actually earlier before this, to attend the Air Force Academy and, uh, joined the military and become a pilot, eventually followed by a plum career in the airline industry, but this whole experience now just completely changed my trajectory in life.
My one goal was to get back to the place where I had last experienced some joy and peace. And of course, that was the Central Valley. So, the decision had been made. I was going to be I was going to move back to Fresno very shortly after, uh, after high school graduation, uh, which I did. Um, I remember the day when I left, I packed up my car with all my earthly possessions.
I'd already made arrangements with friends up in Fresno to have an apartment with a group of buddies of mine. And, uh, looking back at my mom's face who had tears in her eyes, um, as I drove away from home. And, uh, I'll never forget that. But something very, very strange happened on the drive up to Fresno. Um, it's, uh, if you don't know, California.
Um, Orange County and Fresno are about 300 miles apart, so it's like a six hour drive. Um, to get up there. So, you've got plenty of time to think. And, um, I was thinking, well, you know, my life is sort of starting anew. At least I hope it is. Yes, I'm depressed, but, you know, maybe, maybe something will come of this and, um, we'll see.
So, I had some hope, but I think it was about an about an hour outside of Fresno. It was about 9:00 in the evening when all of a sudden, I noticed it. Jana, the spiritual oppression that I'd been experiencing for about 18 months now suddenly lifted. It happened in a moment. It was like this dark cloud that I'd been carrying around for months and months just sort of dissipated, and all of a sudden, I was myself again.
I felt kind of renewed my sense of joy and peace came back. I was looking forward to the future. And on the way up to Fresno to meet with my friends, I thought, wow, maybe this was the reason why I was so depressed that that moved to Southern California. Now that I'm moving back. I found the reason for my despondency, and I hoped that that was a chapter that had ended. But of course, is my story as told. It wasn't.
When the Darkness Returned
JANA HARMON: Well, you had some reprieve. It is interesting. As suddenly as it came on you that darkness and depression, it quickly in a moment left. So, I was, so, you're moving back to Fresno to find life and joy and renewed hope again. What did you find?
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, like most young men my age, I lived according to my appetites. Um, because it had been so expected of me. I didn't roll in a community college, um, only to drop out after the second semester for lack of discipline. Um, I was more concerned with just having fun and being with my friends and exploring youthful passions, which I did with abandon. Um, and I was having a great time. Um, I found a job.
Um, uh, International Harvester. It's not around anymore. Working as a sort of a service department clerk, And I'd hoped that over time, you know, I would join the ranks of the salespeople there, maybe one day even get into management. If I lacked gravitas, gravitas, or a sense of seriousness. It really didn't bother me.
I was just content at that time in my life, just to enjoy life as it was and take life one day at a time. Um, but that it all changed. Um, one night we were out to dinner, and this is probably about, um, a year or a year and a half after I'd moved back to Fresno. So, a good deal of time had passed, and we were out to dinner and just having a discussion about nothing in particular when someone had mentioned something or another.
I can't even remember what it was when all of a sudden, Janna, I was attacked afresh. The same thing that had happened years later at El Dorado came upon me once again at the dinner table with my friends. Just an absolute crushing wave of despair and despondency. It happened immediately. Was this thing. It wasn't slow over time.
It was instantaneous. But unlike before, this seemed much, much worse, much more serious. And I knew instantly that whereas before, a simple move in geography would make a difference between happiness and unhappiness. That was not going to work a second time. So here again, I was. I already moved to Fresno. I was with the people that that I enjoyed.
I was having the time of my life. And yet it suddenly dawned upon me that that had not been the reason for my crushing despair. I didn't know what had brought this on. I'd been perfectly content. But also, as before, I realized that I had to carry on since I didn't have any answers. I had to pretend like everything was okay and try to make the most of things.
If I'd learned anything from my prior experience. It was my best defense against this crushing despair was to not think about it, to sort a will. My thoughts and emotions up and away from it, to not dwell on it at all. Because if I did, um, you know that that would just lead to further and further pain. But. Jana there's no escaping one's own conscious thoughts. They're with you all the time.
So really, the only escape that I had was sleep. And very unusually. Um, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes when you're dreaming, you know you're dreaming. You know it's a dream. And this would happen to me. And in my dreams, I was free from this pain. But always upon awakening, of course, it would immediately return.
And I had no explanation for this whatsoever.
The Search for “The One Truth”
MARK SCHNEIDER: It was extremely disheartening, and I tried my best to once again try to identify, um, you know, what was the cause of this? And I, I forgot to mention earlier on that even back, um, in high school, I, I realized that if ever I was to surmount this despondency. If ever I was to find a reason to go on, it would rely on finding some principle, some objective truth. What I came to refer to as the one truth that even if it didn't deliver me from my depression, at least it would give me the strength to go on, the fortitude to press on.
And so, this search for this principle, this one truth for me, became all consuming. Um, as before I read other philosophers. I tried to figure out, you know, what the proper worldview was. In fact, I even made an appointment with my personal doctor. Um, because by this point, I was desperate for some kind of relief. And I had resisted doing that because I thought, well, as soon as I confess to anybody, you know, the kind of pain that I've been in, uh, they're going to commit me to a sanatorium, and I know that's not going to help me.
So, uh, I resisted. But finally, out of desperation, I did make an appointment with my personal doctor. And I needn't have worried because he just told me that, um, Mark, you know, we modern men, unlike prehistorics, you know, we don't have things that we can do to deal with anxiety and the stress of modern life.
Uh, we can't go out and kill a water buffalo. He actually said that with a smile on his face. He said, we have to rely on more, um, pedestrian means so we can take drugs to help with, with internal anxiety. So, he prescribed, uh, I guess the de jure drug. At the time, it was Valium, a tranquilizer as being the, um, you know, the remedy for my anxiety.
And I knew that that that was not the answer. That the doctor, Doctor Green did not have the answer for my problem. So, he gave me a sample prescription. And when I got home, I emptied the bottles down the toilet and never took them. Never took them.
A Failed Search for Peace
MARK SCHNEIDER: But one day I started noticing these fliers around town and they were for something called Transcendental meditation. And on the picture of the flier was, um, sort of a Hindu guru. He looked like a Hindu Mona Lisa, um, the Maharishi Yogi. And there being offered at this seminar that was going to be held in town, was the one thing in my life that I most desperately a desired simple peace of mind.
And here it was being offered by this smiling guru. Now, at the same time, Jana, I had this instinctive sense of peril. I remembered the tarot card incident years earlier, and I wanted nothing to do with unseen forces. So, I hesitated in going to this seminar when it was being offered. But over time, I realized that, you know, all my own diligence to read the philosophers and to try and come up with some meaning for life and a reason to keep going on despite my despondency, had come up empty.
So, I finally realized I had to take a chance. So, I went. The night that the flier said that the seminar was going to be held. But when I got there, the community center was completely dark. There was no one there. The parking lot was empty, and I looked at the flier again to see. Is this the right place and the right time? And surely it was.
But there was nobody there. And I just figured, you know, one possibility that it got canceled. And, you know, I didn't get the notice. But walking back to my car, I had another sense that something or someone did not want me going there. It only lasted a few minutes.
JANA HARMON: Like, it was the wrong direction. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
MARK SCHNEIDER: It's the wrong direction. You're not to go to this. This isn't. This isn't the truth you've been seeking and, but it passed. And after that, I. I never gave the Maharishi another thought. And the depression and the despondency continued on.
So, by this time, now we're around the holiday season in 1974. And as most towns, Fresno was, you know, lit with the holiday lights and holly and Christmas trees everywhere, and the town was filled with packages and people getting together for parties and to celebrate. But for me personally, I felt completely untethered from those around me, spiritually abandoned and without hope in the world.
But Jana, as you've read my book, um, it was all about to change. And in a manner that that I could never imagine in my in my wildest dreams.
“Smile, Jesus Loves You”
MARK SCHNEIDER: And it was preceded the particularly the, the appointed day, as I call it in my book, was preceded by a day like any other. I was I was at work, and I was laboring quietly at my desk, and I began to ponder sort of the course that my life had taken over the last several years. And it occurred to me that I was kind of both a subject and observer of a living paradox, that inside me were two minds set against each other.
Um, one that I known and abided with my entire life, that that wanted good things for me, that enjoyed life, that looked forward to the future. Another mind that told me that I was a genetic weakling, that I was unfit for this life. That my future was set, that the advancing months and years would only bring deepening despair, and that there was really no hope for me.
Uh, my long search for truth had brought no relief whatsoever, forcing me to perhaps accept the fact that the universe was no more than an endless track of space and dust. That the reason my cosmic plea for help years earlier hadn't been answered was because there was nothing to no one to hear it. And as I began to ponder this thing, these things that at my desk at work, I literally broke out in a cold sweat, and I raced up to the bathroom.
Fortunately, it was uninhabited at the time, and I looked at myself in the mirror, reflecting on the fact that, um, here I was, a young man, only 21 years old, but that already, um, it seemed that my life was over, but it was not over. Far from it.
JANA HARMON: Yes. Tell us, tell us what happened.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, I was able to get through the rest of that day, and I drove my customary route home. Um, to my apartment, and I it was down this road called Van Ness, which is a central thoroughfare that goes through Fresno. And at one point in my drive, I pulled up behind this pickup truck, and on the pickup truck there was a bumper sticker.
And I'd seen these bumper stickers before. Never really noticed them. But as my eyes read the caption on the bumper sticker that said, almost comically, smile, Jesus loves you. That's when it happened.
All of a sudden, like liquid love, this heavenly power literally swept in starting from the top of my head. Slowly working its way through. Down through my chest and into my arms and body throughout. Just waves of heavenly love and peace pouring over me. And the despair of all the past years was suddenly in a moment.
Swept away I felt just incredible love. And I didn't hear it with audible ears, but with spiritual ears. I heard this voice said, “I am the truth that you've been searching for.”
Discovering That Truth Is a Person
Jesus, the source of all that ever existed, had suddenly entered into me and it was powerful. I can't even describe it how powerful it was. My body shook from the impact. Jana, I had to pull the car over to the side of the road, and I sat there in my car, just heaving great bursts of pent up energy, crying uncontrollably, not in despair, but now in uncontrollably just joy. Complete joy that the one truth, the source of everything that existed or ever would exist, knew me, knew my name, and heard my cosmic plea of years earlier and chose that time and that place to reveal himself to me.
It turned out that Jesus was the that the one truth was much more than some principle or philosophy. It turned out that the one truth was actually a person, the person of Jesus Christ.
Well, after 20 minutes or so of just sobbing and weeping, I managed to pull myself together and get to my apartment. And I should mention the two weeks before I had been with some friends at a Christmas tree lot, and I didn't know at the time. I sort of assumed it, but it had been run by a religious group of some kind, and when you bought the Christmas tree, they gave you a small paperback book, and the book was entitled Good News for Modern Man, and I had no interest in it at the time. And I remember that night that I got home, set the Christmas tree up.
I just put the book in my makeshift bookshelf. Didn't give it another thought. But now when I got home on this night, where is that book? And there it was in my bookshelf, and I immediately picked it up and starting I started reading, um, the first page and the first page in this particular book, um, was Matthew chapter one.
It was a modern rendition of the of the gospel story. And for the next several hours I just sat there reading the gospel and it dawned on me, Jana, that I had never read it before. No one had ever given me a Christian tract as far as I could remember. No one had ever presented the gospel to me. But now God personally was revealing his truth to me. First at the stop sign on Van Ness Boulevard and now through his Word.
And as I started to read Matthew's account of the gospel once again, it has happened at the stop sign, but now more subdued, as if to say, Mark, heed this Word. Waves of heavenly love started once again pouring over me. And as I read certain passages, um, God would personally impress upon me. You know, you need to understand this.
Um, and so about midnight, it was it was close to midnight. I had reached the point in Matthew's gospel that Matthew actually Matthew chapter 16, when Jesus had come into the district of Caesarea Philippi and he had asked his disciples, who do the people say that the Son of Man is? And as you know, you know, some people said, well, some say you're John the Baptist, or they say you're Elijah or Jeremiah or some other Old Testament prophet.
But then Jesus asked them. But who do you say that I am? It was the question.
The question of the ages. The question every human soul is ultimately going to have to answer, was the question now being posed to me, and Simon Peter was the first person to respond. And he said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. To which Jesus responded, blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.
And suddenly dawned on me, Joanna, that just as with Peter.
Jesus incarnate, now revealed the same revelation to me.
Well, I got down on my knees and cried out to the Lord of heaven, and as best I could, to understand the gospel that had been declared to me now through the Word. I gave my life to Christ. And, uh, it surprised no one more than me that I, among all people, had become a Christian. Uh, people who before I thought of as harmless but always slightly annoying.
And now I was suddenly one of them.
The Peace That Remained
JANA HARMON: Mhm. Well, that. That's extraordinary. That experience, the revelation of Christ in your life, uh, through that spiritual experience, through reading his gospel. Um, he presented himself to you, like you say, in answer to that prayer. It was honored several years later. How amazing is that?
And I, and I wonder, the dark depression that you had been dealing with it, you said things changed in a moment. Did it sustain? Have you had trouble with that sense?
MARK SCHNEIDER: Never. From that morning on the peace of God, which is word, promises and abundance has been with me ever since. It's never left. And it's not that I haven't faced life's difficulties. I have, like every man who's lived so long. But the joy and the peace that the Lord promises have been a constant in my life.
Grounding Faith in Objective Truth
JANA HARMON: And you were in such an earnest search for purpose and meaning and what life was all about. How have those questions been answered for you? Now that you have become a Christian, that you found the truth in the person of Christ?
MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, this leads really to part two, I guess, of my journey and in my book Ransom, for those interested in reading it, um, because I'm still, I think, by nature a skeptic, I suddenly felt the need to ground my subjective salvation experience, um, with objective truth, ground it with the life that we actually live in this world.
So, this set me on a whole new, um, journey. But rather than being a depressing journey, it's been the adventure of my lifetime to ground the truths of Scripture in actual reality. And this is the story that the rest of my book tells in philosophy and science. And getting along with people and dealing with difficulty in our lives with difficult truths in the Scripture. And as you know, if you've read my book that I'm more convinced today of the truth of the Scripture than I ever have been.
What Should a Seeker Do?
JANA HARMON: Yes. And the truth of the spiritual reality, both the darkness and light. It sounds like, yes, that you have a very keen understanding of, of how even you can we can live in our lives and not be aware in a sense, of this real spiritual reality that's going on around us, in us and through us that is trying to affect us in various ways.
But yes, I really encourage anyone who is very thoughtful asking these questions, wrestling with depression, even trying to find their way in life without God, or, you know, with God and trying to find substantiated reasons for, for our faith.
And, and Mark does a really, really beautiful job of that. Um, you've done a beautiful job also of telling your story. If somebody's listening, Mark, and they're listening to your story and and it's obvious you are a transformed man and that it has sustained over many decades your faith and your walk with Christ, that you continue after decades to proclaim Jesus as the person who is truth, and that His word is truth, and that it's worth believing.
Um, but they may be at a place where they they're looking for something. Maybe their life isn't what they had thought or planned, but they're open. You know, maybe they are even open enough to say, God, if you're real, you know, show me. Or are there when they're wondering, what should I do next? Um, you've obviously been on a journey.
How would you recommend that someone become open to the possibility, or if they are open to the possibility? What steps should they take toward in the direction of God to find what you have found?
MARK SCHNEIDER: I would say, first of all, that open yourself up to the possibility that life is more than you know. We all have personal worldviews, sort of a grid or lens, that we use to filter the world, that we use to separate the wheat from the chaff. And our worldview is often shaped by things like personal knowledge, intuition, uh, science, uh, things like that. But none of these things by themselves is sufficient to lead us completely to truth.
And I think my advice would be that if you're a skeptic, if you consider yourself an atheist or even an agnostic, at least consider the fact that there may be more to life than what you suppose. If Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, seriously, examine your worldview to see if it comports with reality.
Or if you're someone who's struggled all your life with meaning. Or maybe you've been depressed and you've struggled with that off and on throughout your life. Jesus says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, give I unto you.
The world can sometimes give happiness, but it can never give you that underlying peace which God always meant for us to experience through him. In fact, Paul said in Romans one seven. Grace to you and peace from God our father, in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, he's called the God of peace by Paul in Romans 15:33.
So, I would just pray that you would consider opening yourself up to the fact that God is who he said he is. And ask him to reveal himself to you. But if you're honestly seeking him. Rest assured he will answer you.
Where to Start Reading the Bible
JANA HARMON: And he revealed, the Lord revealed himself through Scripture as well. I would imagine it would be, uh, it would behoove someone to find that the good news for modern man to open up the Bible to look at what you have often called the Gospel, the good news. Uh, maybe read Matthew or one of the other, uh, biographies of Christ. Um, I presume you would recommend starting in Matthew or.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Um, well, Matthew was where the Lord chose me to start because that was the book that he gave me. But I would actually recommend the Book of John. If you've never read Scripture before, start with the Gospel of John and read that and then go back and read the other Gospels.
JANA HARMON: That's a good recommendation. And Mark you, you are a beautiful representative of Christ. You express your faith so eloquently. Um, and we all know people who perhaps don't believe they're skeptical of belief. They're skeptical of God. Maybe they think, as you did when you were in your earlier days, that you're fine without the religion thing. Um, that that you were rather indifferent to it.
MARK SCHNEIDER: Every person is unique. Um, there's no two of us that are the same. We all have our journey, our own personal journey of faith. But throughout the scriptures, there's what is called the scarlet thread of redemption. It doesn't start in the New Testament. The Bible is actually 66 books written by 40 different authors over a period of some 1500 years.
It's a combined narrative of many different authors, but the entire canon of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, tells the same story that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. That's why my book is called Ransomed. I was personally ransomed, and you can be ransomed as well.
Who Do You Say That I Am?
JANA HARMON: Mark, your story is truly amazing. I love; it really encapsulates your subtitle here. One man's journey out of darkness into the light of truth. You are a man who is sitting there, who is representing the light, because it's obvious that the light lives in you. You know you're no longer oppressed by darkness and the peace that you speak of. It's just so obvious and evident.
And I think what I love mostly about your story, which is so powerful, but is that you bring it back to the very central point, and that is Jesus. And the question, who do you say that I am? Um, and that is the question for all of us, is the one that we will all have to answer at the end of the day.
But I also think by people listening to your story, they're like, If Jesus has done this for Mark and given him this kind of peace and joy in spite of all life circumstances and truth. That is really what we're all looking for, right? I mean, it's that's the thing that our heart longs for. And Jesus is the one standing there offering with his hands open wide.
And I love that you've really brought that, because he is, and even in your book, that Jesus is just waiting and it's available for all who seek him. And I pray that anyone who's listening to your story today will come and will seek and will find what you have found. So, thank you so much for coming to tell your compelling story.
Closing
Mark's story reminds us that truth is not merely something to analyze from a distance. If truth is ultimately a person, then it doesn't simply inform us. It confronts us, calls us, and invites a response. And that's what makes Jesus's question so unavoidable. Who do you say that I am? We all have to answer that question.
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This podcast is produced by the C.S. Lewis Institute Podcast Network and the help of our producer, Ashley Kelfer. Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you next time where we'll hear another unlikely story of belief.
