In Relationship, At Risk

Think of a time you thought something would happen and it ended up not happening.

Given how many expectations we have, it's surprising how relatively few of them are not realised. When I go to sleep at night, I fully expect to wake up. So far I have not been disappointed. When I sit on a chair, I expect it to hold me without breaking. When someone says something to me, I expect to hear them.

Such expectations are almost always met. We don't even think about them as possibilities. As far as we are concerned, they are certainties. But of course they are not certainties, and every so often we get a stark reminder of that. A chair breaks. An illness affects our hearing. A friend dies.

It is relationships that cause the biggest and most frequent gaps between expectations and reality. Choosing to love another person puts you deeply at risk, because now your expectations are resting not on favourable probabilities but on complex persons who can make all sorts of choices. Of course as a relationship grows, so to do the percentage probabilities of certain outcomes, while the choices actually decrease. This is epitomised in the act of proposing, where the man eventually leaves the woman with only two choices - yes or no. Before he gives her that choice, of course, days/weeks/months/years have been spent putting the probability of a "Yes" in his favour. As risky as this yes or no question is, as risky as a positive answer to this question is, he would not ask it if he didn't expect a Yes.

But what if she says Yes, what if the marriage goes ahead, and then she proves to be unfaithful? Or what if the husband is the unfaithful one? An expectation is not met, a promise is broken, and a heart is shattered.

To be in relationship is to be at risk, in small ways and in the largest of ways.

Consider these words spoken by a person in the Bible who knows this full well:

And I thought, 'After she has done all this she will return to me', but she did not return...

The husband thought his wife to return to him, but she did not return. An expectation is not met, an imagined future is not realised. The husband loved, he put himself at risk, but all he got in return was disappointment and heart break.

This person in the Bible is YHWH.

If God's love for Israel put him so at risk, how much more at risk is he in the giving of his son for the sake of the world?

If God's greatest act of love is to be one with relational integrity, perhaps the real question isn't so much what happens to people who do not accept it, but what happens to God himself if his love is rejected?

Finally, if God's relentless love for faithless Israel is such that Paul can say "all Israel will be saved", what about the future of a faithless world?

Sex (Talked About) On The Beach

Zoidberg - I'm confused, Fry. I'm feeling a strange new emotion I have never felt before. Is it love when you care for a female for reasons beyond mating?

Fry - Nope. Must be some weird, alien emotion

I was reading an article on the beach this afternoon with the headline, "A prostitute's life: 'Whether it hurts the woman or not, the men don't care'". According to the article, the prostitution racket has remained unaffected throughout the recession. Apparantly money can not only buy you love, but it can do so when there isn't much of either going 'round.

But this slightly risque blog post [reader be warned]* is not about prostitution...at least not explicitly. As I read the article, becoming more depressed with each passing sentence, a guy and a girl -- college aged -- walked by me. They were talking about her (I'm guessing) holiday in Europe/summer in America. The gist of it was that she was "scoring" some guy over there, someone she knew from Ireland. Her male friend (who clearly wished he was the aforementioned "some guy") asked if it was "just casual?", to which she didn't quite respond.

"Scoring" is an appropriate word, because all of this is indeed a game; a game we're born into and start playing at an increasingly early age. No one really has to teach us the rules or the strategy. It all just comes naturally. In fact the game only works when no one examines it or thinks about it critically, for do so might expose the game for what it really is.

It's a generalisation to be sure, but love is what each human being searches for, craves, holds most dearly. The problem, as illustrated by Fry in a most brilliant episode of Futurama, is that we have equated love with "scoring". Or perhaps we've simply decided that proper love doesn't really exist, so something less will have to do. Energy, time, and money are all put into getting this "something". Nightclubs stand as a modren symbol for the quest. As Charlie Brooker so bluntly puts it, many people will do the hard work of spending [earmuffs]

seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who'll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o'clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette.

My criticism isn't of nightclubs, or of the people who "play the game". My criticism is of the game itself. It is rigged to leave all of its players miserable. We have all tasted of its misery to some degree, and the effects are not easily undone. Nor is the way of playing easily unlearned.

It may be obvious to most that prostitution is a severly corrupted and corrupting expression of love, but what about to the people involved? To the men who hand over the cash?

The notion of a mutually pleasurable, damage-free transaction -- as promoted by the industry and supporters of legislation -- sits wildly at odds with the reality of these engagements. Were it not for the wreckage they leave behind, the self-delusion of the average sex buyer would be laughable.

"Mutually pleasurable", "damage-free". My male friend on the beach might say "casual". The self-delusion does not end with the man who steps into a brothel for the first time. It is the default setting for all of us. We refuse to think, we refuse to criticise, we refuse to seek an alternative. Therefore we hurt...both ourselves and others.

[Spoiler altert]

Jimmy McNulty of The Wire represents the archtypal player of the game. He is in the process of a divorce because he cheated on his wife with a female colleague. He goes to bars, gets sufficiently drunk, and wakes up the next morning with a stranger drooling by his side. This is his life outside of police work. He then meets a classier woman (a political campaigns strategist) in a more unusual setting (a school opening day), but the relationship goes in the same direction all the others went: towards the bed. McNulty begins to sense that something is not quite right. He feels like little more than a "breathing machine" for his private parts, so he tries to make a real relationship out of this all too familiar one. His lady friend, however, is stuck in the old way, playing the game as it's meant to be played. In one of his wiser moments, McNulty gets out of his chair at a restaurant and walks away from the relationship, from the game, knowing he just can't play anymore.

Then comes one of The Wire's best scenes. McNulty knocks on the door of Beadie Russell, a single mother whom McNulty was previously interested in, but McNulty declined to consummate the interest when he probably could have. She answers the door, and McNulty starts articulating what has been going on inside his head for the past while, stumbling over his words not because of alcohol but because of something else. The scene is charged with emotion, as a rock bottom McNulty reflects on life up to this point: "It's like everything I poured into a glasss came out the bottom...and I just kept on pouring, like the thing had a whole in it..." Beadie asks him if he wants to come inside for a drink. "Not tonight" he says, but he tells her that he'd like to meet her kids.

[Spoiler over]

McNulty's self-analysis is true of most of us, if we would only stop and think for a while. We're pouring and pouring something into our lives that leaves us more and more empty. Why? Why don't we stop?

Walter Brueggemann says that a prophet's first task is to criticise. If anything is to change, criticism is necessary. But criticism is not the end. There must also be the envisioning of an alternative. It's all very well to criticise the thinking (or lack thereof) behind the conversation I heard on the beach, but what is the alternative to the dominant game? Does a Christian have anything to offer its participants besides sheer hypocrisy, distant judgements, and seemingly arbitrary commands like "No sex before marriage"? Do we have life...life to the full? A life where what we pour into it actuallly rises to the top rather than leeks out?

* I don't have delusions that Charismata has suddenly turned all edgey and controversial because I've used words like "pelvic" and "private parts" and an illustration from The Wire. But I am aware that I'll have some readers who won't want to read this. The warning is for them.

Did God Really Say...?

Just in case your finger isn't on the pulse of pop music today, there is some 'big news' floating around which I was unaware of until yesterday. Now normally I like to keep myself abreast of all the goings on in the current stars' lives, but somehow this piece of information escaped me. The current big star in question, the pop star all the kids are talking about is of course one Sir Cliff Richard (as if I needed to tell you).

Sir Cliff, like pretty much every other person who considers themselves even remotely famous (I'm looking at you Jaap Stam), has written an autobiography. And if that simple fact isn't 'big news' enough for you, well there's more. It's what is contained within the pages that is the real news. Cliff (and forgive me if I'm about to shock any life-long fans of his), has, um, well, a male "companion". In teenage girl speak, he is now bff's with a former priest by the name of John McElynn. I'm not implying anything about their relationship; I'm just saying. And also, in completely unrelated news, Cliff also writes in his autobiography that the Church of England needs to allow gay marriages.

Like me, you may be a bit cynical about this. He has admitted to having a male companion (do people still use that word?) and also admitted to wanting a change in the Church's stance on homosexuality. The temptation here is of course to put two and two together. But since Cliff hasn't explicitly said he's gay, I'll refrain from making that seemingly glaring deduction.

What I will comment on are Cliff's in-no-way-self-serving views on homosexuality, as quoted in his autobiography. In fact, Cliff's views are possibly shared by many, so I shouldn't restrict them to being the views of only one man with an ex-priest as his companion. That would be narrow-minded of me.

Here's the extract I'll explore:

I think the Church must come round and see people as they are now. Gone are the days when we assumed loving relationships would be solely between men and women. It seems to me that commitment is the issue, and if anyone comes to me and says: 'This is my partner; we are committed to each other', then I don't care what their sexuality is. I'm not going to judge; I'll leave that to God.

Based on this extract, there is one prominent question in my mind, one question that everything hinges on, and that is, 'Does Cliff believe what the Bible has to say?' He talks about God, but does he believe God?

Cliff says that 'gone are the days when we assume loving relationships would be solely between a man and a woman'. Well, I feel I must remind or inform my reader that if you were to pick up a Bible and start from the very beginning, it would only take an hour, maybe less (depending on how quick a reader you are), to come across the days when relationships were no longer exclusively between a man and a woman. We're not told of any 'loving relationships' between men, but we do know that men were with men, so in all likelihood there were some 'loving relationships', whatever that means.

The point I'm getting at is that homosexuality isn't a modern phenomenon. It's not something that has been conjured up in the last 100 years. It's not something God just didn't see coming, and therefore He hasn't been able to make His views known on the matter. The days when men were exclusively with women are long gone. Cliff seems to think that 'sexual liberation' was something fashioned in the 60's, but if you believe the Bible (and if you don't, then you should really consider a different religion to Christianity), then you will be aware that free, hedonistic attitudes to sex have existed almost since the beginning of time.

So in one sense, Cliff is actually right. Gone are the days indeed. However, the days are long gone, and God has not remained silent on the issue. His Word has not left itself open to re-interpretation on homosexuality based on a cultural swing (which actually swung in Genesis 19). Therefore when Cliff states that "The Church needs to come round and see people as they are now", he is basically calling for an absolute truck-load of Scripture to be ignored, or to be dismissed as being culturally irrelevant. True there are many laws in the Bible that have been abolished by God based on cultural changes or the New Covenant, but we don't get to just pick and choose which ones to do away with and which ones to keep. We live under a theonomy, not an autonomy.

Based on faithful biblical interpretation, it's as clear as day that God's views on homosexuality were not cultural. I mean if you think they were, then you might as well say that lust is no longer a sin, because they didn't have widespread internet pornography back then, so Jesus didn't really take into account our culture today when he talked about this issue in the Sermon on the Mount. It's absurd to try and twist the Bible in order to justify ourselves, yet we are of course all guilty of this. From homosexuality to lying, we all try and excuse our actions by calling into question the Word of God. For this practice I certainly don't single Cliff out.

When we read about Satan's role in the Fall, the very first thing he says to Eve is 'Did God really say...?'. He didn't present sin in its true colours, he didn't tell Eve to flatly disobey God. He came to Eve and brought the Word of God into question. There is no device of the devil more devious than this, and so we are to be constantly on our guard, knowing unequivocally what God's Word teaches us.

No Church has the right or the power to change the Word of God. Or at least no Church should have the right or the power. Only Jesus Himself, the Head of the Church, can alter anything, but since He has already given us everything we need for life and godliness, there is no biblical reason for a change in the Church's stance towards homosexuality - just like there is no biblical reason to change our views on lust or lying, no matter how committed a liar you are.

Cliff goes on to say that "it seems to me that commitment is the issue'" "It seems to me"? Based on what, Cliff? Well we're not told why it seems to Cliff, but I'm guessing his autobiography doesn't go into his reasoning, so we're left in the dark. As a word of caution however, the phrase 'it seems to me' is a dangerous one when it's not backed up by anything but our own gut feelings or preferences. If you can point out instances in this blog when I say something like that but give no attempt at sound reasoning, then do please inform me, because I need to cut any of that nonsense out.

Anyway, Cliff seems to think that commitment is the issue. Not heterosexual marriage, not homosexual marriage, not even heterosexual commitment. Cliff has widened the path so much as to encourage every single person involved in a committed relationship to just keep it going, because commitment -- and nothing else -- is the issue.

This may sound very kind and loving and so forth, but it really isn't. By saying "I'm not going to judge; I'll leave that to God", we may think Cliff very noble and biblically minded. Not so.

Say a Christian friend of mine comes to me and says, "OK Declan. So I'm sleeping with my girlfriend, and I know the Bible doesn't actually approve of that, but we're committed to each other. Is this alright?". Would I be loving that person well if I just replied "Well, it's not my place to judge, so go ahead. After all, it seems to me that commmittment is the issue God is most concerned about". No, I wouldn't. In fact I'd be bringing judgement upon myself by saying such a thing (Isa. 5:20).

Loving that friend would involve setting him straight. It might not be the easiest of tasks, but it would demonstrate a heart that truly cared for him - a heart that wanted God's will for His life. I wouldn't be judging him by revealing God's Word to him, showing him the error of his ways, and strongly encouraging him to turn to Jesus in repentence and live a godly life. Judging is something entirely different. We are called to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), and I would hope I have the courage to do so in such times.

Jesus said that He didn't come to judge the world, but to save it. He could have judged the world then and there and we wouldn't have had a leg to stand on, but He didn't. Instead He came to save us, which begs the question - Save us from what? Well, to cut a long story short, from the penalty of sin, which is the wrath of a holy and righteous God. If you want a passage that falsifies everything that Cliff Richard and others of a similar viewpoint say, then you need look no further than Romans chapter 1:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things...For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

It doesn't get much plainer than that. Of course we know that's not the end of the story. We know there is hope, despite the fact that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". As I mentioned earlier, Jesus came to save the world, not to judge it. But one day the whole world will be judged by God (as Sir Cliff rightly noted), and His wrath will be poured out on all unrighteous suppression of the truth.

However, the message that Cliff seems to be heralding is for us to exchange biblical truth for a lie, which is eternally damaging for all who believe it. He can sugar coat it with nice words, but that's what is at the heart of the little extract I quoted earlier, whether he intends it or not. And of course one cannot be saved if one doesn't acknowledge the truth.

Now I'm not saying that we go around telling practicing homosexuals that they are destined for hell a la Wetboro Baptist Church (who, for the record, are just flat out wrong in all that they do and teach). Though 'homosexuals end up in hell' (whatever that means) is found in the Bible (1. Cor 6:9), it is not the message that we are called to teach. We might as well go around preaching that coveters, liars and extortioners are on their way to hell too, if that's our job description. And what's more, we might as well go around preaching that everyone is going to hell, including us, because as Paul makes clear in the first three chapters of Romans, we all stand guilty before God as transgressors of His righteous law.

We are called to make disciples - to teach people. But not to just teach people according to our preferences or ideas. We are to teach people the truth, which is Jesus Christ - the Son of God who died for our sins and was raised to life. We are also to teach people what is true - as it is revealed in God's word - in the light of Christ's redemptive work.

Cliff Richard, in calling for a change on what God views as sin, is not teaching what is true. You may not think he's teaching at all, but unfortunately he is. When he says that he thinks commitment is the issue, he's teaching us his ideas, and some will read that and think, "You know, maybe Cliff is right". Well, if I haven't made it clear enough already, Cliff isn't right. Not because he's out of sync with my preferences. Not because 'it seems to me' he's not right. But because the Bible clearly teaches something different to what Cliff is teaching.

You may wonder, "Well so what if he's teaching this wrong view of sin? Isn't teaching faith in Jesus enough?". A short answer to that is 'no'. Jesus said that you will know who men follow by their fruits. You cannot encourage someone to profess a faith in Jesus without encouraging them to live godly lives. The two go hand in hand. Our faith alone saves us, but saving faith produces works and a desire to obey God, because Jesus is now Lord of your life. As James writes, 'Faith without works is dead'. By teaching wrong views on sin, you are not producing disciples of Jesus, but disciples of some other person who is like Jesus, but not the real thing.

As with Eve in the garden of Eden, the Word of God is being questioned when ideas like those of Sir Cliff Richard are put forth. Cliff might as well be asking, "Did God really say that homosexuality* is a sin?". It's a cunning question, and we must be careful to know just what exactly God does have to say on the matter, as unpalatable as it might be for some people.


* When I say 'homosexuality', I'm talking about someone who has given their life over to the practice. There are Christians who no doubt struggle with homosexual desires, but look to God to overcome them, just as there are Christians who battle with heterosexual lust (i.e. every single male Christian). And of those who have adopted the homosexual lifestyle, it's of course the Christian's job to love these people as our neighbours. This piece isn't supposed to act as a speech every Christian must say to gay people. After all, you can have all the correct doctrine in place, but if you have not love in your heart then it will profit you nothing

Mahwidge

There have been a lot of divorce-related statistics floating around for quite some time now. The general consensus regarding these statistics is that the divorce rate amongst Christians is more or less equivalent to that of non-Christians. This is find very troubling, as a single, male Christian (who enjoys long walks on the beach and good, wholesome conversation).

I don't, however, doubt the validity of the statistic. I do believe that 35% (or whatever the figure may be) of people who say they are Christians and entered into a marriage have suffered divorce. However, what I don't believe is that all of this 35% are in fact Christian. I'm sure there are Christians who for very unfortunate circumstances (i.e. sexual impurity) have had to end their marriage, but my guess (and this is just a guess since I don't have facts and figures and all that) is that most of these failed marriages were anything but Christian, entered into by people who may have been Christian by name, but knew nothing about being Christian by character.

Take the Catholic Church here in Ireland. Now I have a number of theological issues with the Catholic Church in general (none of which I'll discuss here and now), but I have major problems with the way the Catholic Church operates in Ireland. One of those problems is the way the sacrament of marriage is treated so cheaply.

To my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong), so long as you've been baptized into the Catholic Church and have gone through the various other membership processes, you're good-to-go in terms of marriage. What a misconception that really is. Going through a series of motions no more makes someone Catholic than if I were to call myself Australian by going surfing and putting another shrimp on the barbie.

That is not how true Christianity works. All you're doing is taking external actions and proclaiming them as internal truths, which is just not right.

Paul deals with this in relation to the Galatians by saying,

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

You can replace the term 'circumcision' with any number of things. The point is, being a Christian has nothing to do with outward actions or signs - it has to do with an inward transformation.

The Catholic Church in Ireland seems more than willing to marry any Joe and Mary, provided they've gone through the external rigmarole. Forget about the fact that Joe and Mary have been living together for the past 2 years; forget about the fact that Joe and Mary don't really buy into that whole 'no sex before marriage' thing; forget about the fact that Joe and Mary only attend Mass twice a year; forget about the fact that they don't read their Bibles, don't pray, don't have any living faith in Jesus. Provided they say they're Catholics and have the relevant documentation to prove it, then what God has joined together let no man put asunder. What a joke, and what a mockery of what the Bible considers marriage.

The Catholic Church in Ireland has a lot to answer for when it comes to marriage, because they are marrying people under the name of God, when in reality some of these people have no more interest in God than an atheist. That's nothing short of taking the Lord's name in vain, which is no trivial thing.

Of course this isn't just restricted to the Catholic Church, and I don't mean to sound like I'm singling it out (which I kind of am I guess). Living in Ireland, I can't help but use it as an example. If you take a trip across the Atlantic, I have no doubt that a similar modus operandi takes place in the 'born-again' circles of America.

Christians are constantly campaigning against homosexual marriages, a topic which I won't go into right now. However, I think that Christians need to start looking at heterosexual marriages taking place within the Church, and putting a stop to some of those. That's right - down with heterosexual marriages!

Okay allow me to qualify that. What I mean is that if a couple is to get married in a Church and be 'joined together by God', then whoever is marrying them better be as sure as possible that this couple are new creations, to use some Pauline language (by that I mean the language of the apostle Paul, not the language of my mother who is called Pauline).

I mean take a Christian kids camp for instance (I'm going somewhere with this - trust me). When I've had to apply as a leader for one of these camps, whoever is organising it doesn't just accept me on the basis that I say I'm a Christian. That would be absurd. No. They ask me questions about my faith, they ask me about previous experience working with kids, they ask me for references from my local church. Basically, they want to know that I'm living out the Christian life, and therefore whether I'm suitable or not for the task at hand. Surely a more thorough approach should be taken for something as important and sacred as marriage, right?

Joe and Mary walk into a church. They say to the priest or reverend or pastor 'So, would you be able to marry us?' The priest/reverend/pastor says ,"Let me ask you a straight up question first: Are you having sex?" Joe and Mary reply 'Well...um...yes'. The priest says 'Do you think that's wrong?' Joe and Mary say 'Err...no' and the priest says 'Well come back to me when you do'.

That's kind of a strange example I know, but I think it illustrates my point...kind of [?].

If 'Christian' marriages actually involved two people actively living out their faith, how much less would this divorce rate be? No two people should be said to be joined together by God when they haven't even been joined with God individually, and yet this is happening all around us.

A concrete solution to this I can't really offer, though I can categorically say I'm not talking about something along the lines of License to Wed, which is not a funny movie in case you ever wondered (Oh Robin, where did it all go wrong?). But surely the Church Of Jesus Christ has to have standards. Any couple that is joined together by God must then live under the lordship of God. To proclaim the former while knowing that the latter to be a sham is, as I've said, to take the Lord's name in vain. This must avoided at all costs.

There are of course numerous other reasons as to why Christian marriages are failing, even amonst Christians who do have faith in Jesus and who are regular Church goers etc etc. In his sermon based on Colossians 3:15-17, Charles price says,

Now I am fully aware of course, and fully sympathetic to the fact that there are issues which cause a marriage not to continue. But somewhere along the line it would seem to me that the way we conduct our marriages is not out of a rich indwelling of the Word of God, but out of a pragmatism and personal preference and a self-indulgence which permits us, when it's inconvenient, to jettison the Word of God in favour of our preferences.

This depreciation of the Word of God is another huge issue in the church, but not one I'll talk about now (consider it added to the list containing 'Catholicism' and 'Homosexuality').

The point is, if the divorce rate amongst Christians is similar to that of non-Christians, then something is severely wrong with our definitions of both 'Christian' and 'marriage'. Maybe it's time Christians stopped focusing so much energy on stopping gay marriage, and started focusing more on cultivating God-centred, Christ-empowered heterosexual marriages.

Dating, eh?

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day (and believe it or not, it wasn't Paul). Anyway, one thing lead to another, and before I knew it we were talking about 'relationships'. Oh dear. It was actually a really good conversation, and during it this person put me on to a sermon on dating (or recreational dating) by Paul Washer.

For those of you who don't know Paul Washer, he's one of those guys who after he says something, you sarcastically say 'So tell me what you really think, Paul'. Kind of like a Christian Eamonn Dunphy, except what he says makes sense. This man shoots from the hip, and mince his words he certainly does not.

You may find him offensive, you may find him hard to swallow, but what he says is very much worth considering, and needs only to be tested against Scripture, not against our personal preferences and fancies.

Anyway, I'll give you a run down on (some of) this particular sermon, and maybe add in some of my own thoughts. But before I do that, I want to make sure you understand that this isn't meant to be preachy in the least. I'm not doing this to give you rules to follow. This post is just food for thought. These are Paul Washer's beliefs, and so my goal is to present you with them and get you thinking (as I am) about this fiery topic. You're under no obligation to agree, and you're certainly under no obligation to feel condemned, but I'd encourage you to really examine what's being said.

There is clearly something wrong with the way our culture does 'relationships'. I think deep down everyone knows this. The question we have to ask ourselves is are we going to settle for the status quo or are we going to strive for something better, even if it means looking foolish? And so, to Paul Washer...

"OK, now we will talk a bit about the ungodly, demonic, worldly, sensual practice of dating". Tell us what you really think, Paul. He says that it would be proper to attach another word, just to make things clearer, and that word is 'recreational' - as in 'recreational dating'. He also says this practice of recreational dating is not just restricted to secular culture, but it's prevalent in Christendom also.

So what is 'recreational dating'? Well Washer sums it up as "dating for the fun of it". It's "getting into some sort of relationship, just because you think you would like it". He then gives a statistic which is quite surprising, although I obviously can't verify it, nor does he. He says that on entering marriage, the average Christian has had 5 relationships of note with the opposite sex (on the bright side, at least they were with the opposite sex. Amen?). Does that seem like a plausible statistic? Honestly, I think so. Is it a statistic to be proud of? I think not.

He sort of expands on the kind of relationships he's talking about, first off by saying that sex doesn't have to be involved. He's talking about the coming together of two people that has 'the hint of the romantic to it; the hint of companionship to it'.

And so what happens on the marriage day? He says that "you're not whole, because you've given a part of yourself to 5 different people". He also says that "whether you realise it or not, it will affect the way you look at your wife, the way you look at your husband. It will affect everything about your marriage more than you would dare to believe".

These sound like hard words, don't they? I hear them and I think 'Well Paul. What about forgiveness and restoration and God making us whole?' It's true. God does forgive us if we've sinned. God does create in us clean hearts. But He doesn't remove consequences. Just ask King David. When Paul Washer says 'more than we would dare to believe' it's not just a figure of speech. What we do now has consequences later. We just don't want to even think about them, lest we not be able to do as we please with a guilt-free conscience.

Washer then informs those who aren't aware that dating is a modern phenomenon. Go back 150 years and you won't find it, not even in secular culture. However, fast forward to present day and "we wonder why marriages have gone to seed, we wonder why there's immorality rampant everywhere -- including what is called 'Christendom' in America -- and maybe we ought to just put two and two together". In other words "the last 100 years things have gotten a lot worse, the last 100 years dating has become prominent".

Is recreational dating the cause of all of this immorality? Frankly, no. I think Paul Washer would agree that our hearts are the cause of all of this widespread immorality. But I can see his point, in that recreational dating (I'm just gonna call it 'dating' from now on) is most people's starting point on the road to sexual immorality. And since it has become such an accepted practice, is it little wonder that things are turning out as they are in modern day society?

After telling his audience that "you don't know what you think you know" (something that not only applies to teenagers --who I assume he's talking to here -- but also idiots like me), he goes on to ask a simple yet telling question. A question every Christian needs to ask himself or herself.

"Where did you learn all the things you know about romance and sex? From whom did you learn it? The Bible? Or television, and friends, and other things?"

Is it not a sad but true reality that most of what we learn comes from television and other friends who are as equally clueless as we are? We might not think that's the case. We might think we just watch these shows for entertainment, but we don't actually learn anything from them. I'm afraid we might be wrong. I'd like to think that One Tree Hill hasn't affected how I view relationships -- largely because that would be an incredibly embarrassing thing to admit -- but the fact of the matter is, it has. And so have lots of other shows I've watched throughout the years.

I mean just yesterday on Friends, Joey said to Ross concerning Rachel's departure to Paris something along the lines of "Maybe sleeping with her was the perfect way to say goodbye". I don't want to sound like a hypocrite here. I've seen a lot of episodes of Friends, and it used to be a very funny show (it got crap after season 5, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong). But read Joey's words again. I know he became an idiot towards the end of the series, but that sentence sums up what the media portrays as acceptable behaviour, and it's affecting all of us, whether we 'dare to believe it or not'.

I mean according to Joey, sex is now a form of goodbye? Whatever happened to an old fashioned handshake, or a hug even? To quote Mr Martin from McGee and Me, 'Garbage in, garbage out'. Again, I don't want to sound preachy here. This is just food for thought, both for myself and others. And as I said at the beginning, everyone knows there is something wrong here - Christians and non-Christians alike. How do we all know? Because when we engage in the kind of relationships the media portrays, they never truly satisfy. Ever. They might for a brief moment, but then it's gone and more damage than good is done.

At the risk of sounding preachy I'm going to stop writing shortly. My final point, and the thing that I've found most thought-provoking from this particular sermon, is the role of parents in the whole process. If someone is prone to dating etc, then dollars to donuts that person hasn't been either listening to or receiving the council from their parents that they should have.

This may be a slightly harsh generalization, but I think that Christian parents today have a lot to answer for in terms of their children's morality or lack thereof. How engaged are parents with their children and what they get up to? How much time do they spend going through what the Bible teaches on love and marriage and healthy relationships? How much discipline is carried out? How much tough love is floating around?

Maybe you're reading this thinking you're beyond the need for council, but if you're anything like me then you're probably not. My advice for you and I is to go back to the basics. Go back to the Bible. Listen to the wisdom of godly men and women in your life, who know the pitfalls this world has to offer and can help you to avoid them. We don't have to experience something in order to know it's harmful. I mean have you ever put your face in an open fire? Then how do you know it will burn you?

Also, I think one of the biggest mistakes people around my age (20's) can make is to think that just because we've reached that independent age, a relationship we enter will automatically be mature and healthy. Not so. We can have the bodies of people in their 20's (or in my case, an 8 year old boy), but the way we enter a relationship and the goal we have for it can be no different to that of a someone we consider a "foolish" teenager. We're just too proud to admit it. Thoroughly examining our motives, our hearts, and allowing God to rigorously search us must be at the foundation of a relationship. If it's not, then what is? Our feelings? If so, then oh dear.

Obviously there's no sure way of getting it right in one go. We may fall for a woman or man, bring it to God, seek the advice of others, begin to date (as in godly date), and then he or she could end things for one reason or another. I'm not 100% sure, but I imagine the repercussions of such a relationship are much less severe than for the person who just charges in and leaves God behind. These are complicated matters of course, but I guess I'm just thinking out loud here.

There's plenty more I've left out from this sermon, but here's the link if you're interested:

Dating - Paul Washer

And once more, this isn't me preaching to you, nor is it me condemning anyone. I come at this topic very much humbly and void of any real wisdom. The perfect life and the perfect marriage etc are not on offer to us. By nature we will make mistakes and sin, but thank God (literally) there is total and complete forgiveness.

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

This is a truth that should give peace to our souls. However, we must not make the mistake of thinking our actions don't have consequences. Of course in Christ we will receive the strength to overcome them, but it will be a battle, and there will be hurt and pain and so forth.

There is a better way though. A narrower path. My only hope is that this has got you thinking about what that looks like, or at least what that doesn't look like (I'm aware there's not much actual advice here, but listen to Paul Washer's sermon if you'd like to hear more of what he has to say on the topic).

And now, may you...

(Anyone who read my NOOMA recaps will hopefully have gotten that silly little joke. To the rest of you, go read those recaps! A web of private jokes will open up to you should you do so.)