My Moral High Ground

One of the best pieces of advice I (o me of holy wisdom) could offer Christians starting Uni is to join a Christian Union. When student life whisks you up in a world of new confusions and temptations the CU can provide the perfect atmosphere in which to regain your focus amongst people who a) care about you. and b) are also confused and tempted. Aside from this, if your CU is anything like mine you will be inundated with offers of free Sunday Roasts and Pizza Bible studies, so if you find no spiritual enrichment at least you’ll be well fed.

Despite all it offers my CU is anything but big. With only a few thousand students in our entire Uni anyway, a mere handful come to our meetings. With around 20 members we generally have around 10 in attendance each week. Though I know I wouldn’t survive without these few peoples support and am extremely grateful for that, these are not the only Christians out there, and it concerns me how few bother with the group.

Christianity has gone from being deemed totally radical to totally ridiculous. Forever tarred with ‘happy clappy’ images of rainbow guitar straps and sock/sandal combo’s, even the most devout have been known to shy away from Christian ‘parties’ for fear of shloer and quiche. The truth is Christianity was never meant to be cool, it was never supposed to fit in with the worlds way of doing things but neither was it meant to be seen as a lame little cult for do gooders and guilt seekers.

In a couple of weeks our current CU president will be handing the baton, passing the torch, on to me and I’m suddenly filled with an immense burden of responsibility. Before accepting the post I consulted with some Christian friends as to what they thought of the idea and was faced with varying responses. Most found the idea hilarious either because they thought idea of running a CU was tremendously geeky or because the idea of me being in any position of responsibility over other Christians was ridiculous, but a few were really encouraging. In conclusion I felt that it would be a severely challenging but incredibly enriching experience and so finally accepted, I only hope the CU will gain as much out of it as I will, I am remaining positive.

Taking on such a role immediately puts me on a massive spiritual pedestal and the hidden expectation is for me to be perfect. This I can not do, so instead I’ve decided to be honest, I struggle as much as the next person and in making this blog public, people may know all that I am and am not ashamed of. I would rather people thought I was a good leader despite my imperfections instead of hiding them, perhaps then they would learn something of God’s grace, how someone so totally perfect could use someone as useless as me to do his work.

Next year I hope not only to look after the few CU members we already have but also to get as many other people as possible involved with CU activities, to go to students rather than waiting for them to come to us, to shed the happy clappy image and be effective in our university.

In the beginning was the Web, and the Web was with Blog, and the Web was Blog. This adaptation of John 1:1, best describes my current academic focus. Let it be known that I’m studying to be a journalist, perhaps the modern day equivalent of the bibles wretched tax collector, the most loathed of trades and my pending assignment is to blog my way to internet stardom.

How can this be? A Christian and a journalist? Surely that stretches even God’s infinite imagination.

Though I write this in jest, you’d be suprised just how many times I’ve encountered such a reaction, and before anyones begins spouting about judgmental bible-bashers, it is not only the church goers who think of this career choice as demonic.

When people ask what I study, I have begun to articulate the word “Journalism” as an apology rather than a statement. The disappointment is tangible as the ‘asker’ tries to hide their disgust and inaudibly mumbles something vaguely positive about some broadsheet or another. To admit such an ambition is apparently a serious social faux pas.

The truth is I actually enjoy my course and though I would never claim that the media is undeserving of its despised reputation, I still believe that something can be salvaged from its current miserable state. Our world is headed down the road to self destruction and drastically needs to change. Carefully wielded, the media is a revolutionary weapon, but the key is not to abuse its power.

This my friends is why I study journalism, not to promote the media, but to change it.