Mes amis (et les autres qui lisent ce blouge), I'm still here in New Jersey, with just a short (or perhaps a long) week to go until mon grand voyage. I'm sad to say that my life in the last week has been largely devoid of anything interesting, exciting or otherwise remarqueable. I did make it back to NYC on Friday, and I did get my Burmese visa, and then the train broke down on the way back from the city. That happened a day after my mom's car (the one i'd been using) broke down. So, I haven't been so lucky lately. Now I am left without a car, without any friends around (that aren't busy), and without access to my hotmail (I'm using internet explorer on a mac which doesn't seem to be compatible with a lot of sites).
Basically, I've been spending my time watching a lot of cheesy movies, sittiing outside doing Suduko, and having beers with my mom. Speaking of my mom, I recently had a conversation with her that inspired this entry. **Warning: I will be talking about sex. If this is a subject you are not comfortable with, then I suggest you don't read on.** So, let's talk about sex (baby).
In our society, it seems to me that there are generally three accepted views about sex. View #1 is what I'll call the "free love" view. This is the idea that there ought to be no restrictions on sexual behaviour (apart from, of course, rape, incest, bestiality and the like). This view condones one night stands, short flings, etc. View #2 is the conservative Christian view, and the view that I maintain. This is the idea that sex is designed for and only for marriage. Any sexual relations outside the confines of marriage is wrong. View #3, which is what my mom (who is not a christian) supports, is more moderate. While she doesn't really support just going out and getting laid, she believes sex is an important part of a meaningful romantic relationship, even if the person isn't and probably won't be your spouse.
For the sake of this entry, I am going to disregard view #1. I believe that unrestricted sex not only deprives any meaning from it, but it also creates unneccesary problems (STDs, unwanted pregnancy). View #2 seems simple and logic to me- it is consistent with the Christian attitude towards sex, which is simply that each man was designed for one woman, and sex is a biological tool for reproduction, that just happens to also be pleasurable (so I'm told). So, then why would I consider view #3? There are a few reasons: 1) As I already said, sex is an important part of romantic relationships, and surely not all romantic relationships will end in marriage. 2) As humans (especially men), our bodies do crave sex. Waiting excessively will just make these cravings more unbearable, and will decrease the overall amount of sex we will have in our lives (if we only ever have one partner)... why do you think so many Christians want to get married so young?? 3) The reality of our society is, the longer you wait, the harder will be to find a fellow virgin. If pretty much all the people around 20 years old that I know either are in significant relationships or have been in them before, how many of these people are still virgins? About 95%, from my observations, have had such a relationship by the age of 20. Even if we conservatively assume that only 2/3 have been sexually involved at least one time, that only leaves us with 35%, which will get even lower as the age gets higher. In other words, at about 20 years old, the chances of me, in a random sample, finding a virgin are rather low, even assuming I find one very soon. At the age of, say, 23, these chances are even lower. And if I don't find one by the time I'm 30.... well, I can pretty much forget about it. So, this leads me to another conundrum.
What really IS the difference between Christians and non-Christians, not only with respect to sex, but how they live their lives in general? The fact is, Christians struggle with much of the same issues as non-Christians. In fact, its probably even worse for Christians. Within the Christian community, there is SO much pressure to be chaste. Next to sex, every other sin seems almost trivial. Yet churches tend to shy away from talking about anything sex related (except River's Edge church in Montreal!!). Thus, sex becomes loaded with taboos. it itself IS a taboo! THere is a tendancy among Christians to act as though they are immune to sexual thoughts. However, and perhaps this is a strong statement to make, but hear my words! If a Christian, or anyone for that matter, appears to not care about sex, there are two possibilities: (1) They are putting on an act, to seem Christian and righteous, since there is so much pressure for that in the Christian community; (2) They have been castrated, or otherwise blessed with the gift of celibacy.
What I've come to realise, is that there really is only one key difference between Christians and most non-Christians in the way they live their lives: rhetoric. Christians love to set aside non-Christians as "the other", or more nicely, "the world", and point to them as idolators, who are greedy, lustful and evil. While many non-Christians are like that, many so-called Christians are as well. More commonly, however, I have found that non-Christians are just as loving and sincere as Christians strive to be. In fact, in my life, non-Christians have been more loving, genuine, loyal and trustworthy, whereas many of the Christians I know have been deceitful, lying, backstabbing, rude, phony and not friendly to me. When as Christian says "I'll pray for you", it becomes just as meaningful/meaningless as when a non-Christian says "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you." A Christian saying "I'm just gonna trust Jesus on this" has come to mean about as much as anyone saying "I"m just hoping for some good luck here.".
Alas, I have a lot of ideas here, but no coherent thoughts. Despite what many people, on both sides, may believe, Christians are normal people. They categorise their lives a bit differently, as evidenced by their unique language, but the reality is that Christians face the same everyday problems as non-Christians. Yes, I do believe in the saving power of Jesus. I do believe that we sincerely ought to live our lives for Him, but I also believe that no one ought to make that look or seem easy. I also believe that we don't lose our salvation by sinning, even sexually. Although I don't recommend people purposely trying to sin everyday, the fact is that it doesn't change how much God loves us. The idea that we can win/lose God's approvial is at best manmade, at worst from Satan. What I do believe, is that God gives us all certain weaknesses, call it "thorns". This is not a temptation, becuase God doesn't tempt us (the Bible is quite clear on that). However, these "thorns" are to remind us that we aren't better than our neighbours. We ought not to look onto non-Christians as our inferiors, but as our friends.
So, what about sex? There are still a lot of unanswered questions for me. I think these things ought to be talked about more often in Christian settings. However, I will bluntly admit that I'm like any normal person. Any person who seems otherwise is proabbly either lying, or has been castrated- and that's human reality. At least non-Christians don't lie about their sexual tensions. Where does that leave us? I do ultimately believe the holy text is rather clear as to the purpose of sex, and for that reason, I believe, despite what my mom might say, in waiting for the right person....
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