Two religious experiences would underlie Tournier's later work. When he was 12, he became a Christian. As he grew up he became active in the church, started writing articles about Calvinism, and argued for orthodoxy and against liberalism. His Christian experience did not, however, become totally meaningful to him until a second experience, which he called a “face-to-face encounter with God”. This encounter transformed his life and changed everything, and gave him a vital interest in “that other side of life, for its inner dimension, so necessary to us."