Linky Friday No. 67

Gabriel Conroy in reply to LeeEsq says:

Well, I’m not sure exactly what “Christian sex” is supposed to mean–and I didn’t read the links above so I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to. But I’ll try to relate what I understood/understand the ethos to have been when I flirted with evangelicalism as a young adult.*

First, I’ll challenge you a bit on the notion that “everything has to be about Christianity.” I’m not saying you’re wrong, but just that it seems like a broad brushstroke way of putting it that is not always right. You’re probably familiar with similar sweeping statements about “everything” Jewish people have to do or “everything” they believe. I don’t mean to compare the situation of the two groups of people other than to say that both in theory and practice, there are a lot of different approaches to the way life ought to be lived, even among people who self-identify as evangelicals. I’ve known evanglicals who didn’t let their kids go to “secular movies” and I’ve known some who did, for example. I’ve known some who thought that even “Christian rock” was bad, while others enjoy “secular music.”

Second, I’ll challenge you a bit about “nothing” in the New Testament requiring that type of lifestyle. You might be right that the NT, read as a whole, does not necessarily require a believer to go full hog, but there are at least a few notations that someone might read in that vein. “I am the way and the light.” “who is not with us is against us.” “You cannot serve two masters.” (As a bad evangelical, I don’t have book, chapter, and verse to give you.) Now, these kinds of statements do not necessarily need to be read as requiring the lifestyle you’re asking an explanation for, but I hope you can see how someone might non-arbitrarily infer such a requirement from such statements.

Third, to actually answer your question, my sense is that one as a believer needs to give his or her whole life to God and to Jesus, and that the trappings of “the world” interfere with that project. The world is seen as inherently sinful and temptations to sin abound. while one is condemned in one’s physical life to live in it, one need not be of it. There is also a notion of forming a community of believers, and that is done through following certain putatively “Christian” activities, such as Christian music, or movies, etc. And there also seems to be the notion that Christianity, if it really is the way to salvation, is all encompassing, and not doing everything in the name of Christianity is mistaken.

Personally, I think the all-Christian all the time approach is mistaken. In part, this is because (as you point out) there’s a lot of marketing and mammon-satisfying revenue that comes of it, although even there I don’t think “evangelicals” are unique in that regard. I also think fellowship in the Christian sense cannot exist without fellowship among one’s fellow humans. Finally, complete asceticism is impossible, and trying live a “Christain-only life” only re-creates the problem.

*My own background, which I’ve probably mentioned before: I was raised Catholic, but from around 5th grade through my first year in college, I hung out with and in many ways identified with evangelicals, while never quite giving up my “Catholic” identity. I’d often go to mass on Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights, I’d either go to my Catholic youth group or to my Baptist friend’s youth group, and on Wednesday I’d often go to my Baptist friend’s church. All that changed when I started working (at around 16 years old), and I no longer could go to mass on Sundays because of work, and when my Baptist friend, with whose family I was really close, joined the navy and I stopped hanging around with them.Report