dave at antidis

I’ve started to look for a place to live in Maynooth. Last night, I got a call from a potential landlady I had emailed, and caught a cab out to check it out.

I had a look around the house, and was curious as to why the doors on one side of the house had been bricked up and plastered over. I was told that, what I had previously had thought was a room I could convert into an office, had actually been converted into a separate unit.

I didn’t like the sound of this, due to the weird relationship between the two groups of tenants. We would be less than fellow tenants, but a bit more than neighbours, as there would be shared resources that I didn’t expect to be shared in the lease. There was also more of a potential problem with noise pollution… I didn’t want to be worried about turning my music up or treading on eggshells on all the time.

Uncomfortable about this, I asked about the tenant of the other unit:

He’s a Polish guy. But don’t worry! He has a job.

O…kay.

Also…

What the fuck is going on in this picture here?

Sweet Sally in the alley, look at that hair!

More importantly, why the hell do I keep seeing people with this sort of haircut in Dublin? Why is the mullet coming back? Is common grace leaking out of this world somehow?

I was reading a blog post today that questioned whether homosexuality and Christianity are compatible. It got me thinking about a few things, particularly after Kevin’s recent posts ( The Gay Science and More on the Ghey ).

That question can, and often does, come from good motives — being fair and just to homosexuals, respecting their dignity and their worth as human beings just like everyone else. But the question of whether it is a good and God-sanctioned thing for people to pursue sexual relationships with people of the same gender, is often asked in a completely backwards and all too familiar way.

Here is a quote from one particular response that I’d like to discuss now:

As for what ‘Christianity’ has to say about it, I go back to what a very cool priest told us in high school sex ed: if God didn’t want us to enjoy our sexuality, He wouldn’t have made it feel so good. The whole message of Christianity is about loving each other. I really doubt anyone’s going to split hairs on Judgment Day about WHO we love, but whether we did and how well.

First let me say that the orthodox Christian position is that all human beings are intrinsically evil. We are all unhealthily self-centred to various degrees, and most of us will follow our cravings wherever they may lead, regardless of how God may see it. I found a great example of this in Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller: if humans are not intrinsically evil, why do we need to teach children to be good?

Take my example. A little over a year ago, I was pursuing a relationship with a non-Christian woman — a beautifully witty and reserved woman, rather tall and (frankly) rather hot. It became very clear to me that if a relationship were to develop, it would involve sleeping together after a few months at most. Certainly far before we were married, something I was waiting for. I thought about it for a quite a while and moved from the position of “we’ll see how this develops, and if it becomes a problem” to “I’m not going to let this become a problem. I’ll sleep with her once we know each other a bit better and are both happy to do so”.

But really this was all an excuse I told myself because I wanted her, wanted to spend time with her, wanted to sleep with her. All honourable and natural impulses, but I didn’t care if God wanted me to have her. All I cared about was her and I. God didn’t come into the picture at all. This is the very definition of sin. I had pushed God out of my decision-making process until all that was left was what I wanted.

I see this again and again in how people approach whether or not particular things are okay with God. They tell themselves that God wants them to be happy, so they should do whatever makes them happy. And surely it will make me happy to sleep with that woman, or to buy that expensive car, or to go on that holiday. Or, in the case of whether homosexuality is a sin, “God made me this way and it will make me happy to sleep with men, so I should do that”.

But although God is our creator, He didn’t make us the way we are. We have twisted this creation, ourselves, into something that walks away from and not towards Him. We focus on our own ideas of happiness, when God has a completely different understanding. God didn’t want me to have that woman and I don’t think God wants us to sleep with more than one person or to sleep with someone of the same sex. I think all of these options fall short of the Joy that serving God and delighting in His presence can bring.

The relationship with that woman didn’t pan out in the end, and I’m both glad about that and deeply crushed. I certainly love her. But I know now that to think “this will make me happy so I should do it” is the wrong way to approach any decision-making. It should instead be “What do You want me to do, God?”. He is a little bit wiser than I am, after all.

Now obviously I fail at this every day, but it is the ideal, not the reality. But it’s why I never tell people “I hope you get what you want”. That feels disturbing.

Instead, “I hope you find what you need”.

My brother saw this on the wall of a school he was working in during polling day:

Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that far fetched?
No, it’s not far-fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says, No, I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson….I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilisation for over half the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s far-fetched…

Ah Bono, you legend.