My Moral High Ground

2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

My penultimate post of the day, I promised I would dedicate to a friend of mine, for the sake of anonymity I shall call him ‘Ojneb’.

The hardest part about living as a Christian isn’t the self control, it isn’t the sacrifices, it isn’t the stereotypes, it isn’t even the religion. The hardest part about living as a Christian is knowing people that don’t.

When somebody changes your life around as drastically as God did with mine you want to tell the whole world. Like falling in love you long to shout it from the roof tops, proclaim it from the highest mountains,spreading his word and love. Unfortunately it soon divulges that not everyone is as super enthusiastic about your new found salvation as yourself and your high spirits are quickly dampened. Dont get me wrong, most people are wonderfully accepting and respectful if not a little scathing, but suddenly you realise that unless they know this love for themselves they will never truly understand. Your heart breaks.You may have your own name safely stored in heaven, but the people around you, the people you love and care about, know little or nothing of what that means.

Evangelism is a tricky character, we rarely hit the mark, being either too intimidating or too nonchalant. We fumble over badly memorised Bible passages and then end up saying something we never intended, offending everyone in close proximity (this could just be me). With ‘Ojneb’ the situation is slightly different, he knows the whole salvation spiel already. I met ‘Ojneb’ briefly when he attended the first Christian Union meeting last year, he never came back. As I have said in previous posts, it troubles me that students don’t come back to the CU, so one night after probably a few pints too many, I end up near interrogating poor ‘Ojneb’ as to why he doesn’t bother. Expecting the usual responses of “too busy”or “not my scene”, my jaw hit the floor when he told me he’d become an atheist.

I can just about handle trying to evangelise to be people who have never known God, but to someone who has known God and totally turned their back on him, I did not have a clue where to start. In all honesty I still don’t, but having opened this can of worms I won’t walk away until he finds God again. Yes Ojneb, you will find him again.

With the impending release of the new film in the Narnia series; Prince Caspian, Christian band Switchfoot have been asked to appear on the features sound track. Frontman John Foreman said of the track.

“I wanted to capture the longing that is embedded in much of Lewis’ writing- so I tried to think back to what these stories meant to me when I was six years old and write from that perspective. The song that came out is called “This is Home.” It’s been quite a journey: a San Diego song with strings cut at Abbey Road in London complete with a video shot in Hollywood.”

This is not the first time Switchfoot have featured on the soundtrack for a blockbuster film. In 2004 they released their track Meant To Live on the Spiderman 2 movie.

Perhaps I was a bit heavy handed with saying that there are no successful Christian artists, Switchfoot seem to have made a fairly reputable name for themselves, and their music actually isn’t all that bad. Perhaps the key is that they are not ridiculously over evangalistic. I take my hat off to them anyway!

On 14th of February this year, I was surprisingly not inundated with cards and flowers (for a change), there was no candlelit dinner, no romantic serenade, this Valentines day I instead found I had a date with a monk (or at least the Christian union did).

I was, at the least, surprised on arrival. I had been expecting some cringey but light hearted talk about Gods love on Valentines day not the fully robed and bearded character who could well have stepped straight out of Robin hood that stood before me . Needless to say I was utterly relieved that I was being spared the cheesy talk, but I was also intrigued as to what this monk would have to say.

It turned out he was a Franciscan Monk who had been converted after years of drug induced turmoil. To be honest I don’t remember a great deal about the rest of his testimony, but I was immensely challenged buy his commitment. On initiation to his specific order of monks he had to make 3 vows.

• Poverty: to physically own nothing.
• Chastity: to remain chaste
• Obedience: to obey the guidelines of their ‘manual’ based on biblical teachings

These were no new years resolutions, these were real lifelong vows, sworn in front of God, and these monks weren’t locked away in their monastery, they were making an active difference in the roughest areas of America and the UK. That is some commitment, I won’t even deny myself a sixth packet of pom bear, let alone all personal belongings. Stunned by this amazing way of life, I asked whether his decision to sacrifice all those things for life, made things more simple. He replied “I have never been so free”.

Imagine not worrying about all the crap we surround ourselves with, living off only what was donated to us, no media distractions, no manipulative advertising to worry about, no money to stress over, and out of choice not necessity. Though I don’t think the monks life is the one for me, I couldn’t help but fall in love with this kind, loving man’s values and was deeply challenged as to how I could free my life a little form worldly distractions. Perhaps stopping on the 5th bag of pom bear would do it.