Wonderful Christianity

Christianity is amazing.  Christianity is profound, perhaps even absurd, and one of the greatest faults of modern Christians is that many fail to see it as such.  The modern Christian is all too often wanting in the simple virtue of wonder.  Christians fail too see the implications of Christianity, both in their own lives, and in the world around them.

Because let's face it:  Christianity is not the easiest pill to swallow, both for Christians and those who are not Christian.  However, in the modern time, the term "Christian" has been so used and easily tossed around we seem to forget what Christianity is about.  Some think it a moral system, some think it a social justice mission, some think it the first wave of hippyism, some think it one spiritual teaching among many, some think it delusion, some think it a nice story with a cool moral.  The list seems endless, tailored to fit any view.  But what is Christianity?  True Christianity?  To understand that point, and thus, to understand why Christianity is so sensational and fantastic, we must address the person of Jesus Christ.


Most people, and many many Christians, do not "get" Jesus.  Our greatest crime as Christians is that we do not "get" Christ, and that when we do, we don't want him.  That's why we crucified him.  Christ, you see, is not one nice guru among others, nor is he one enlightened fellow among others like Buddha, Baha'u'llah, Muhammad, or others.  Many people like to think Jesus Christ is one flavor of man's diverse religious palette, an option among other equal options, killed/rejected because he was a prophet like the rest.  The way many people have watered down Christ, he may well have been Barney the Purple Dinosaur.  Make no mistake about it at all, Jesus Christ was a dangerous man.  Christianity doesn't exist because we like the teachings of Jesus and think they're just swell guidelines.  Christianity exists because we believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, fully man and fully divine.  Christianity asserts that God and Man collided in the person of Jesus Christ, a man like us and yet the Son of the Father.  So what does that mean?

It means we're children of God now and forevermore.  The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons and daughters of men could become the sons and daughters of God.  This is the great premise of Christianity, not that we're a whole bunch of goody-goods saved from savagery by a Jewish carpenter, but that at a point in time and space, the transcendental became physical, Heaven touched Earth, and God became Man.  This was not a nice guy being nice.  This is re-writing the very foundations of existence.  Jesus Christ changed everything.  He is still changing everything.  It's not enough to just do what he said and call it adequate.  With Jesus Christ, there is no such thing as "adequate".  A Christian is never stationary, they're never sedentary, they are constantly being remade, constantly being renewed, constantly being driven to greater and broader heights.

The only duty of the Christian is to come to know the real Jesus Christ, to let him live in you.  Every aspect of a Christian's life, whether it be active or contemplative, ordinary or extraordinary, spiritual or temporal, is because Christ dwells within him.  The Christian is the living testimony to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, he is the shining witness to Christ's life, death, and Resurrection.  Many proclaim that we live in a post-Christian world and wonder how that ever came to be.  I cannot say for sure, but I'd bet a considerable amount that it was because Christians forgot how wonderful Christianity is.  We forget that Christianity is not just an aspect of our lives, like our career, our hobbies, and our preferences.  Christianity is who we are, it rewrites the very basis of our existence.

Christians are tasked with no simpler a task than saving the world, by way of bringing everyone before Jesus Christ.  We cannot hold this to ourselves.  We cannot just be another flavor of the world, for it is only through Jesus Christ that the world has flavor at all.  Christianity is not just a preference, it is the Truth, revealed in love.  We cannot treat it as anything less that.  We cannot sit contently with ourselves, nor can we go forth as conquerors.  We must go forth as witnesses, carrying a power that is not our own, relying not on our own strength but on the strength of He who sent us.

So to you, the Christian reading this, I give you this warning:  Do not take Christianity lightly.  Do not think it easy or insignificant to be a Christian.  Do not think it optional, or preferential, or inconsequential.  You were chosen for this, you were made for this, and it is discovering Jesus Christ that you will be discovered.

Man and His Religion

Let's face it:  We're pretty awesome.  You, me, and all 7 billion other folk dwelling here on earth.  There is a sense of the extraordinary surrounding mankind, a sense of unrivaled marvel around our species.  However, our majesty is at great risk; there is a threat to the glory of man, and that threat is man himself.  It is a hard task to find a man who doesn't agree that mankind is great, honorable, and praiseworthy in some sense, but it is extraordinarily easy to find a man who finds mankind great, honorably, and praiseworthy in the right sense.

Most people find man great because he can evolve, because he can change, and most especially, because cause he can progress.  By the popular definition, man is great because he is able to grow, to shed the mistakes of the past and progress into the future, and it is when man is more progressive, he is more fully alive.  Many will claim that when man is most open-minded and most progressively oriented that he is fully alive.  All of these claims are essentially rooted in the principle that man is evolutionary, that our progress as a species is a product of an evolution of sorts, voluntary and involuntary.  This idea rests on the notion that as time progresses, humanity constantly gets better, stronger, wiser, more moral, and ultimately more praiseworthy.  It supposes that our ancestors were ridiculous, that their antiquities hindered them, and that with each new generation of progeny, humanity will shed the stupidity of the modern era.  While is might be true that our ancestors were ridiculous, it is much more ridiculous to assume that we're any less ridiculous then they were.

Human progress isn't what it used to be.

While the human body may very well be subject to evolution, the human soul is much less susceptible.  We may have grown taller, but we certainly haven't grown much wiser.  Our technology has advanced, but the principles behind its creation and utilization have stayed very much the same.  The human soul is not evolutionary, it does not get more and more sensible as history progresses.  A brief look at the 20th century should suffice to demonstrate my point.  No, if anything, we seem to be getting more efficient at enacting the same old evils.  It used to take a sword and a strong swing to kill a man, now a bomb and a politician can kill a hundred, all from the luxury of an corner office.  If anything, the idea of man's progress has cause more regression than anything else.  The Nietzschean idea of the super-man, the evolved, transcendent man, has not lead to a more evolved man at all, if anything, it has given man an excuse to embrace folly and call it progress.

Most dangerous of these notions is the notion that progress requires the transcendence of beliefs, the removal of faith and the destruction of bias.  In the name of tolerance, we've created the greatest intolerance of all:  intolerance of human nature.  By the attempt to welcome all ideas, we've rejected all people who ever held an idea.  By saying that every belief is equal, we've made every belief valueless.  By proclaiming that your views are just as good as mine, we've made your views and mine out to be nothing more serious than the choice between chocolate and vanilla.  We are creatures who believe, we live to believe, and if we're not given something worthwhile to believe in, we'll create something to believe in, and when we believe, we desire to believe so fiercely that our belief is the only thing true.

But why listen to me, why not listen to the immortal words of G.K. Chesterton:

"Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but which has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. "

Chesterton dislikes your nonsense.

Man is not great because he transcends belief in his progressive march towards whatever-it-is-that-he-happens-to-be-progressing-towards.  He is great because he embraces beliefs.  Man becomes most human when he builds temples, not because he overcomes them.  Man's greatness lies in his ability to worship eternal greatness, it resides in his ability to commune with eternity.  Mankind is a creator and practitioner of dogmas, and those dogmas allow him access to the realm of the fantastic and spiritual.  Because man is not chaotic, but very conclusive, decisive, and faith-filled, he is capable of eternity.

We become animalistic when we forget this.  When we shun the eternal for the temporal, or eradicate the immaterial for the material, or negate the spiritual because of the physical, we are not discovering our humanity, but destroying it.  Every crime of humanity has come at the behest of this:  That we saw fit to define humanity apart from his relationship to divinity.  Even when we say that man is great in his own right, that humanity is awesome for no other reason than it is human, we have taken the definition of mankind away from a definite, eternal ideal and placed it in the hands of man, making it effectively a non-definition.

Man is great because he is inherently religious.  Even he stands at the podium to denounce religion, or if he marches with a mob to burn down churches and bomb mosques, it is because he has religious zeal against those things.  Many will say that religion is a catalyst for violence, but in reality, it makes no difference whether religion has a part in it or not.  Some of the most violent regimes in the world were irreligious groups, such as the Soviets, the Khmer Rouge, and Maoist China.  Men are violent because they are passionate, some about religion, some not.  While our values and structures may be sources of violence, so also is our zeal to destroy values and structures (i.e. the French Revolution).  The demolition of faith serves no purpose to man.  If you leash churches and suppress mosques, man will find another thing worth fighting for, not out of hatred, but out of passion.

A man without religion is a shell of a man.  If a man is stripped of something to believe in, an end to seek, a goal to strive for, he will inevitably fall into indifference and angst.  Man must believe, he must have a goal, a meaning, a value to orient his life around.  Great men are not great in their own right, they are great because they orient themselves to great things.  Mankind is spectacular precisely because it has the ability to pursue this greatness, to make concrete the abstract.  He can take the spiritual and make it corporal, he is the beautiful collision of finite and infinite, and in that potential, he is magnificent.  In that gift, he is infinitely valuable.

If you think this guy is anything less than awesome,
I want to say many uncharitable things to you.

Why My Chicken Sandwich Isn't a Hate Crime

No matter what side you're on, we can
 all agree: these people are doing it wrong.

I usually don't hesitate in addressing controversial topics, but I'll admit, I'm pretty hesitant on whether I want to address this issue, the gay marriage debate, mostly because its moved beyond rational arguments and into the realm of slogan wars, glitter-bombing, and fast-food political statements (I honestly did not see that one coming).  In the modern climate of the debate, there's a lot of hatred (on both sides), miseducation (also, on both sides), and general stupidity (we're all in the same boat on this one folks).  Its pretty apparent why I'm not all super-enthusiastic to throw my 2 cents worth into the fray.  I'm okay with people calling me wrong, or stupid, or just plain antiquated.  But calling me hateful?  That's plain ridiculous.  I'm not hateful, I'm just being rational.  Now, if you can quell that fiery rage that you may be holding for me deep in the recesses of your soul and listen to what I, a sane, rational person, have to say, I will explain why I'm not hateful.

As a Catholic, I can assure you that hatred has nothing to do with it.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church 2358 states rather clearly, "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible.  This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.  They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.  These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." (italics and bold mine).  When I see actions of hatred and discrimination against homosexuals, I'm every bit as flamed.  No human, regardless of orientation, ought to be discriminated against for qualities that are out of their control.  Being gay is not a grounds for dehumanization any more than being black, being woman, being disabled, or any other trait.  (Being unborn? #thoughttrolling).  I see the Westboro Baptist Church protesting on street corners and I'm incensed.  I can't stand the idea of people being hated for something out of their control.

Many people have drawn parallels between the LGBT Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, some claiming that the fight for gay marriage is directly analogous to the fight for desegregation.  I've also discovered that this comparison has swayed a lot of people to supporting the cause for gay marriage, mostly because they don't want to be remembered by history (or their grandchildren) as the 21st century version of racists.  And who would want that stigma on their legacy?  I'd hate to check the history books and see a picture of my grandparents protesting the Little Rock 9.  Who wouldn't?  The comparisons between gay rights and civil rights has been an effective weapon in the hands of the gay rights movement, but I think it has some critical flaws, which I'd like to point out.  First things first, the Civil Rights movement was absolutely necessary.  The systematic prejudice against an entire group of people on basis of their skin color was absolutely wrong, and desegregation was a great achievement of the 20th century.  But LGBT is a little more complicated.  (Stomach that rage, spare me the hate mail, and please keep listening.)

Being a racial minority is an amoral quality, meaning that there is absolutely no choice in the matter.  Emmett Till never chose to be black, thus he had no moral responsibility for being black.  There is no choice, and without choice there is no culpability, and without culpability, there's no legitimate moral consequence.  This can be paralleled over to homosexuality, but we must be careful here.  In most cases of homosexuality, the attraction is inherent, and thus without moral culpability.  Discriminating against a person because they have homosexual attractions is wrong, and must be avoided.  However, there is a moral decision to be made here:  the decision to pursue those attractions.  In the Civil Rights Movement, African-Americans did not have the choice to be or not to be black.  It was a quality they had outside of their ability to willfully choose it, and thus, ought not to have been held against them.  In the LGBT Movement, there is a choice, the choice to pursue one's sexual attraction, thus calling into question moral legitimacy.

Is this really helpful to anybody?  Really?

 People can legitimately oppose the LGBT Movement upon the the grounds that pursuing homosexual relations is objectively and morally wrong.  Or at least, they can oppose the LGBT Movement without being hateful parallels of the KKK.  They can enter the debate without the stigma of being hateful, vicious monsters, and instead be sane, rational people with a sane, rational view of human sexuality.  They can eat at fast-food restaurants without vomiting forth hatred with every delicious chicken-y bite.  Are there people that legitimately hate?  Yes, absolutely.  Are the wrong to hate?  Undoubtedly.  Can a person legitimately disagree with gay marriage?  Of course.

Now that I've said that, I probably ought to address the notions of rights and marriage, specifically the large number of people steaming out the ears, foaming at the mouth (exaggeration?  perhaps), demanding how we can deny another human being equal rights on basis of sexual orientation.  A fair notion, perhaps, especially seeing how hot and heavy we are about rights in this nation.  But is marriage a right in the first place?  Did the government create marriage?  Or did it affirm marriage as an institution far more ancient and authoritative than the state?  Marriage is a social institution, far older than civilization, predating history itself.  Governments to not make marriages, but validate social (and religious!) institutions.  I have a hard time believing that all the hullabaloo is merely for some tax benefits and a legal goody basket.  The LGBT movement may want state recognition of same-sex marriage, but merely for the recognition of a social change, for the redefining of the most ancient of social institutions.  This isn't just about a piece of paper, this is a second sexual revolution, and must be treated with the gravity of such.  The first sexual revolution was full of good intentions and had produced a load of bad statistics (for more information, read "Adam and Eve After the Pill" by Mary Eberstadt.)

Redefining sexuality is a grave notion indeed, and ought to be given serious consideration.  Call me old fashioned, but I think that the wisdom of generations past ought to be seriously considered here.  Marriage has been inseparably tied to the success of human civilization since the dawn of history, not simply as two people who love each other, but as man and woman singularly committed to mutual well being and the creation of progeny.  It is this definition that brought us to the modern day, and upon the foundation of this definition modern society stands.  We're now given the opportunity to destroy our cultural foundation and hope that society will stand on its own, (hopefully) wiser, stronger, and more progressive than the generations before it, or reinforce those foundations, recognizing vanity for what it is and reinforcing good cultural institutions rather than blasting them to pieces like a French revolutionary on meth.

"Dismantle all the cultural institutions!"

We tread on uncharted territory indeed, and the stakes are high.  We're rewriting the principles of sexuality as pure preference rather than beautifully necessary function.  Sexuality is so unique and resplendent because it has such a magnificent function, a function that resists fashion and serves to provide the very foundations of civilization from its very foundation.  There is a incredible moral weight to these issues, far outweighing the notion of rights and personal freedoms.  Yes, the government ought to defend the liberties of a society, but in its obligation to legislate, it must also protect society from itself (hence speed limits, bans on drugs, high explosives, and 4oz.+ containers of fluid on airplanes).  If male/female marriage is (and let's be real, of course it is) the foundation of known human civilization, the government ought to very vigilant in its approval or disapproval of changing definitions of marriage.

Rather than letting this debate evolve into a shouting match in which fabricated slogans and witty bumper stickers are slung at opposing movements without any discretion or consideration, let's actually take this seriously.  That goes especially for you, my fellow Christians.  "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" ain't cutting it anymore, and constantly reiterating "God's Plan for marriage" (while theologically true) does not constitute a binding and airtight argument.  Work a little harder, fight a little truer, and for the love of God Almighty, love thy neighbor, even (and especially) if he disagrees with you.  For those of you who are still repressing your rage and indignation, thank you for your patience.  We could use a few more considerate people like you.  Stay classy folks.

A Generation of Very Bored People

I'm bored.  Let's face it.  If you've been wondering why my output on this blog has slowed down, its because I'm bored.  I love Christianity, I love Catholicism, and yet, it is a constant battle for me to muster the enthusiasm to spend an hour writing about these things, and how they relate to the very pertinent issues of today.  Nope, I'd rather sit and refresh my Facebook news feed yet again and carefully craft my Pandora Stations until they know more about my musical tastes that I do.  Boredom is a rather nasty situation, and has  some nasty consequences for the human soul.

Most would think boredom exists when we have nothing, but that isn't the entire case.  Boredom doesn't occur in the presence of nothing, it appears in the presence of nothing valuable.  We're bored not because we have nothing and nothing to do, its because we have everything and everything to do, but no convicting reason to do it, apart from instant gratification.  I'm bored because I lack motivation, I lack motivation because I lack stimulation, I lack stimulation because I live in a generation that struggles to value.  My generation, with its redeeming and condemning qualities, is saturated with choices.  No generation has had the opportunity (or is it a burden? #thoughttrolling) to make as many choices as my generation.  It is these choices that fuels our economy, fuels our society, and, to a greater extent than ever before, fuels our identity.  

A hearty " MERICA!" helps too!

Yet, amidst the plethora of choices we have, we're denied the one choice we actually want:  the right one.  We couldn't care less about having all the choices in the world, because we only want the one that will truly make us happy.  When we're faced with decisions, we choose the best option.  However, give us infinite options, and that decision becomes much harder.  This is especially in a society that's becoming more and more permissive.  When we're told that everything is good, that any decision is acceptable, it doesn't make our decision better, it makes our decision more boring.  If being a party animal or a church mouse are ultimately indifferent, the only reason to choose either of them is personal preference.  The moral standard of this generation is just that:  do what you want to, your personal preference is the ultimate arbiter of morality, and the only additional rule is don't step on other's ability to have a personal preference.  Appeasing?  Yes, very.  True?  Absolutely not.

While it seems to be awesome to have the incredible freedom to do whatever the deuce you want to, that freedom is just some smoke and mirrors, a vain dream.  Human beings don't want the freedom to do what we want, we want the freedom to do what we ought.  We crave purpose, we desire it.  Everything must have a meaning, Truth must underlie every corner of the universe.  The desire for Truth has led us to science, the discovery of Truth has led us to religion.  We want truth, we want purpose, we want meaning.  We're creatures of logic, whose minds desire the world to be logical as well.  Thus, while doing what we want might seem nice, we really want to do what we're supposed to do (whatever that might be).  In a culture that praises near-absolute human freedom, proclaiming moral absolutes is frowned upon.  Stating that a lifestyle choice is morally and ontologically (kudos to any non-philosophy major who knows the definition of that word by heart) better than another lifestyle choice implies that freedom is not the golden calf that humanity has made it out to be, but rather, a tool that demands eternal vigilance.  The great flaw of freedom is when we fail to realize that freedom, while good, is not absolute or greatest good.  It is necessary good, a good that must exist in order for virtue to exist.

Got that?  Philosophy spasm there.  Sorry if that was unpleasant.  Where was I?  Oh yes, virtue.  Our society, through implicit ways and subtle means, has been trashing virtue like an elephant in a curio shop.  Virtues are no longer virtuous, vice is no longer vicious, and the only noble cause is the selfish one.  And what does this make us?  Bored to pieces.  When our immediate desires are the only thing motivating us, and our instantaneous cravings are the only valuable thing on which to base our life, we find ourselves so very very bored.

Heaven:  The Universe's Hall of Fame.  

We're being overstimulated by things that are ultimately unstimulating.  Human beings are the one creature that can be provided every physical need and can still experience dissatisfaction.  We're material creatures who collide with the immaterial realm, and it is in that immaterial realm that we must orient ourselves.  We don't want flashing lights, pumping beats, and sweaty grind-fests.  We want goodness, we want truth, we want beauty, and we want them to the infinite.  We want noble causes, true beliefs, and beautiful lives.  When, for whatever reason, we're denied those things, we will become bored, no matter how much fun we seek to have, no matter how much indulgence we partake in.  Man was not made to be bored, he was made to be great in the eyes of God.  So get your lazy rump out of the chair, turn off the computer, and go seek greatness.  Don't settle for less than Heavenly Glory.

If you have any questions, comments, or requests for future posts, please feel free to email them to jgehret204@gmail.com  and I'll get back to them eventually.  Also, hate mail will only be considered if in the form of a limerick.

What the Hell?

People don't like Hell.  Shocking, I know, but the idea of hell isn't easily stomached by the modern generation.  We don't like the idea of a place of eternal torment, where unimaginable torment awaits evil for all eternity, and God is responsible for it.  Seems counter-intuitive, especially considering the nature of God as an all-merciful being and whatnot.  However, while we may not like Hell, we do want Hell.  As unpleasant as it sounds, we desire Hell, and we'd be rather upset if there were no Hell.  L'explanation:

Even Satan is bored in Hell.

Hell exists because God is just.  God separates right from wrong, good from evil, truth from falsehood, and to each is assigned its due.  We want a just God, we need a just God, precisely because we want and need goodness.  Human nature constantly aspires for goodness, we always seek for good, we seek to destroy evil.  Even in our most evil atrocities, we don't aspire to them for their own sake, but rather seek a distorted good through misplaced means and maligned intents.  As people who are oriented  towards goodness, we desire that goodness not to be in vain.  Because we take consequence with the dichotomy of good and evil, we want our quarrel to be consequential.  Nothing would piss us off more that if we found out none of it ever matter, that we could be Mother Teresa or Charles Manson and it would mean nothing either way.  We want to be good, to be right, and we really want that desire to be affirmed.  We'd find ourselves disappointed to discover that our desire for justice, for goodness, and for truth to be the vain anomalies of a cosmic void.  (I smell a prolonged debate a-brewing over this part...)  We want Hell, because we want goodness to be good, and in order for goodness to be good, evil must not be good.  (Re-read that a few times, you'll get it.)  Hell is a just God being just, Hell is a just God letting evil be evil.  We, human beings, being moral agents (dudes and dudettes who have to discern and choose between good and evil.) must then have an end to our moral choices, and having committed killers and convicted saints be ultimately indifferent would make our moral agency ultimately indifferent.  Yeah, you could say you ought to be a good person for goodness's sake, to which I'm going to respond by being an arsonist for arson's sake.  They're ultimately the same thing without justice.

Hell is the result of God's Love.  I'll say it again.  The Fires of Hell are lit by God's Love, not hatred.  People don't go to Hell because God's really really peeved by them, people go to Hell because they choose to go to Hell.  God's Love has given us a marvelously wonderful (and rather terrifying gift), and one all too often understated: freedom of will.  We are not automatons, we are not machines, we have the incredible gift of choice, and with that choice comes the capacity to Love.  This is truly God's image, that man has the perpetual choice to love.  We have the capacity to receive God's Love and return it in kind, as well as the power to receive God's Love and do absolutely nothing about it.  Hell the choice we choose when we don't choose God.  Hell is when we short circuit the Divine Cycle of Love.  The souls in Hell (if there are any there in the first place) are there willingly.  Their perpetual choice to love has been eternally cemented against God, their power of will forever turned away from God.  Their torture is not God's cruelty, but his Love.  By denying the Love that creates, sustains, and redeems them, they are torn down to their very nature.  A will against God is self-destructive, it destroys the soul from within by denying the very principles and truths that created it.  God, being a just God, allows the free will of man to be free, even unto the point of damnation.

Our God is Merciful and Just.  His Justice is His Mercy.  God has the ability to do what no one else can do:  perfectly discern Good from Evil.  He alone can immaculately mark out the line between good and evil, a line that runs right through the human soul, and thus only he is able to separate from our hearts that which is vile and evil and retain that which is good.  In this swift and precise justice, he is merciful, for he cleaves from us what is evil and nurtures in us that which is good.  Most see justice as a condemnation, but God's Justice is so perfect it is salvation.  However, one still has the choice, the choice to resist the execution of Divine Mercy, to fight against the torrent of Divine Justice, and for that person exists Hell.

So, you want to avoid Hell?  Don't resist Divine Justice.  You have married your soul to lies and falsehoods by your sins; submit yourself to God and let him take the razor's edge to your heart, so as to chisel away your hardness of heart.  The mark of a Christian isn't perfection, it is true repentance.  The extent to which you repent is the extent to which you will be exulted by Divine Justice, free of the weights to drag you down.

Why Religion is a Crappy Hobby

I grew up with Legos.  You know, the plastic bricks with which you could build a plethora of multicolored glorious artworks.  To this very day, I love Legos.  Legos were (and, when I have the chance, still are) one of my favorite hobbies; they were right up there with finding creative ways to use firecrackers and launching model rockets piloted by an unsuspecting grasshopper (who always managed to survive!).   Legos were a hobby, one that brought me much joy, were a great conversation starter, and allowed me a creative outlet that both inspired imagination and didn't involved pyrotechnics.  However, that's all Legos were for me:  A very fun, very good, very passionate hobby.  I would have never died for the good of Legos, nor were Legos a formative source of my life.  I dictated my interaction with Legos, I held the reins of my relationship with Legos, not the other way around.  Don't get me wrong, I really really liked Legos, I got the catalogs and magazines and read them through and through, and when I found a fellow enthusiast, we would chat and build for hours.  But ultimately, I controlled the experience, and I never the experience control me.  Such is the way with any hobbyist's relationship with his hobby.

"I like this.  Rock on"

Such is not, however, the relationship between a man and his religion, however, all too often, that's what it ends up becoming.  More often than not, a man's religion (at least, the religion names) becomes a hobby, and he treats and is expected by others to treat it as such.  Hence the common modern sentiment of religion being a "private affair"  and the party rule that we should never talk about religion or politics.  The public generally tends to view religion as a hobby, typically a very odd hobby (because really, who makes a hobby out of telling single old men your secrets and calling it forgiveness.).  Our culture tells us that our religion is equal to everyone else's religion, that the only difference is purely subjective and they ultimately distill to the same essential values and lessons (which, evidently, one can learn without the usage of religion.)  Hence, when I say someone "I'm Catholic" they are disinterested and when I say  "I'm a committed, hard hitting, live-holy-or-die-trying Catholic" they give me looks reserved for the guy who only leaves his mother's basement for Comic-Con.  Catholics are hobbyists and die hard Catholics are fanatics, or so modern society would suggest.  And, if the last 11 years of fighting terrorism have taught us anything, its that fanatics are dangerous.  Thus, modern society has made religion into a hobby and fanaticism into something frowned upon at least, damnable at worst.

And, for the most part, many people have accepted those terms.  Religion stays in church pews and remains a one day a week affair (or more likely, a one hour a week affair).  We'll turn our thoughts towards religion in Mass, but then we'll quickly check those thoughts at the door (Because once you leave the church, it's perfectly acceptable to flip the bird to that guy who cut you off in the parking lot, irregardless of whether you just shook his hand 15 minutes earlier with the words "Peace be with you").  Even worse, more often than not, religion isn't even our favorite hobby, usually, its our least favorite hobby, one we cling to out of family tradition or insurance for eternity.

I'm going to be blunt here:  Religion is a terrible hobby (especially Christianity).  As C.S. Lewis once said, "I didn't go to a religion to make me "happy".  I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.  If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity."  If we choose to make religion, especially Christian religion, a pleasant hobby, a sort of sport for your moral and emotional health that ultimately, you're wasting your time and missing the point.  You cannot wield your faith like a tool for your use.  Faith forms men, not vice versa.

To be completely honest, every man has a religion, whether he realizes it or not, and more often than we'd like to admit, its not the religious preference we put down on census forms.  Every man worships at the feet of something.  Some bow to gods, others bow to men, still others craft their own gods and worship them.  The ancient Druids worshiped trees, many a modern tween-age girl worships Justin Bieber.  You judge which is more ridiculous.  We worship, its what we've always done.  The religion, the true religion of a man is judged by the extent to which he gives his soul to it.  The man who worships money is the man who's soul is driven towards and by money.  The man who roams the world shouting in the forums "God is dead!" has not killed God, but merely made his message his religion, because his soul is invested in that cause.  Man does bow.  As Loki notes in the Avengers, man's natural state is to kneel, even if we think we're standing tall, free and powerful, we're only kneeling to the idea that we are gods ourselves.


If every man is bound to be a religion man, then why not let him be a truly religious man?  Let him worship something worth worshiping, something to satisfy his desire for religion.  He worships at man-made altars, let him worship at the Altar built for men.  He kneels to man-made gods?  Let him kneel to the God who made man.  My point is: if we stopped making ourselves into religions and our religions into hobbies, we'd understand why we have religions, why we are religious, and why our hearts are truly "restless until they rest in thee" (St. Augustine of Hippo, 1600 year old and you've still nailed it!)

 I invite you:  Rather than letting your faith (especially Christian faith) sit on a shelf until Sunday morning (or Saturday night, if Jesus and hangovers just don't mix for you.) make your religion more than a hobby, more than something you keep around for special occasions, more than something you comfort yourself with in hard times and comfort children with before bedtime.  Choose to worship, choose to make your religion your religion, not your pastime.  Commit, surrender, and repeat every moment of everyday for the rest of your life.

Let's Talk About Sex! Ep. 3: Attack of the Consumerists

It's been a while.  Many things have happened in the last few weeks, such as vacations and retreats and meeting country music stars.  You know, the usual.

(I could subtitle this post “How Consumerism Devolves into Self-Cannibalism” but I opted against it.  Too wordy.)

True story

 Anyways, if you’ve listened to a rant against our culture by 96% of Christians, you’ve heard the word “consumerism” or “materialism” being tossed around.  We use this word recklessly without every actually examining what it means, so on the behalf of Christians, mea culpa.  Consumerism, as most people use it, looks a lot like many modern women’s shopping habits, i.e., overbearingly excessive.  However, that’s not quite the case, consumerism happens to be a bigger beast than credit cards and clearance sales.  Consumerism is the desire to ingest.  Putting it bluntly, it’s trying to eat the world.  Allow me to explain: while being a shopaholic is a result of consumerism, it’s not the only result.  Consumerist-minded people are obsessed with everything but being.  They’re all about doing, about having, about getting, about experiencing, about ingesting, but never about being.  And there lies our problem.  There’s nothing wrong with doing things, or having things, or getting things, or experiencing things, or ingesting things.  I do work, I have money, I get gifts and whatnot, I experience cool things like hiking next to a moose or Mass with the Missionaries of Charity, I ingest food, air, beauty, comfort, etc.  These things are all good, however, they can become all sorts of wrong when they replace one crucial aspect of life:  being.  Who am I?  The great tragedy of consumerism is the loss of identity, or rather, the replacement of it.  Our identity is no longer a matter of the soul, but of our decisions.  We identify ourselves by our achievements, by our possessions, by the various things of even more various sorts that we have, in some way or another, consumed.  Antoine de St. Exupery, in his excellent novella "The Little Prince", puts it elegantly,

A better book there seldom was...

"Grown ups love figures.  When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters.  The never say to you, "What does his voice sound like?  What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?"  Instead, they demand "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh?  How much money does his father make?"  Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him."   (BTW, if you've never read  "The Little Prince" take 4 hours out of your life and read it now.  You'll thank me later.)

Our lives are far to important to be reduced to numbers, figures, histories, and decisions.  These things are important, yes, some to an eternal extent, but they do not constitute identity.  Our choices may change us, they may shape us, the may save us or they may damn us, but ultimately, they are not us.  You and I are human beings, and before we do, we are.  Before we can choose, we exist.

Did you survive that bit of philosophy?  Good.  So where does our sexuality come in?  Well, just as we treat everything as something to be consumed, we treat our sexuality as something to be consumed, and by doing so, we miss the point entirely.  You see, while there is a physical aspect to sex (which is important, of course), there is also a spiritual aspect of sex, an immaterial reality surrounding the beautiful collision of two people.  It is this spiritual reality that makes sex something so much more serious than any other sort of physical action (like a sporting game of tennis, a romantic walk, or partner's cooking classes), and it is the spiritual reality of sex that we've been denying, via our consumeristic attitude towards sex.

Sex, as so many cultural icons have noticed, has something to do with love, hence why we call it "making love".  We have sex because we love, or, at least, because we claim to love... and there lies the crux of the matter.  In our eagerness to consume, we've redefined what it means to love, and honestly, it only seems natural that we'd do so.  Love is the defining signature of mankind, it is the primary expression of ourselves, (there's a great tie in our relationship to God (who is love) here, but I'll set it aside for later writings.) and in a society that only knows how to consume, we've defined love as nothing more than an intense favor, or a passionate desire to consume.  We use the word "love" to describe Romeo and Juliet's star-crossed romance and our opinion of Taco Bell, although a mere glance would show that the two are far different.  True love, love in the sense that is tied to romance and sexuality, is no mere preference, not even a loyal preference.  Love is a deference, a neglect of the self for the sake of another.  Love is the emptying of the self, the sacrificial emptying of self.  Love requires then, substantial commitment.  If we intend to sacrifice ourselves, we must commit ourselves.  Love has to be committed, surpassing mere affections and placed in the hands of determined, committed, willful surrender.

Love is not a matter of what we like, even if we like it a lot.  Love is a reversal of consumerism, it requires you give all and take none, that you destroy nothing and create everything anew.  Love crafts worlds, and even more beautifully, it creates lives.  Truly, nothing expresses the meaning of love (or at least on this side of eternity) quite like the beauty of the family, the trinity of husband, wife, and progeny.  Love must have fruits, it must have children.  Love creates in the world, it bonds and blooms.

We've lied to ourselves for a long time.  We've told ourselves that love is about finding someone for mutual satisfaction, and that's a lie.  Perhaps a practical lie, but a lie, and one that ultimately leaves us deprived.  Love is greater, even greater than two matched souls.  Love is real, more real than anything, and our society, by consuming itself into death, has violated that.  By reducing the power of love, by consuming our world and never letting ourselves be consumed by the love in it, we've begun to discover that there's nothing left to consume but ourselves.

So reclaim sex!  Reclaim love!  Reclaim yourself, so that you can give yourself away in love!  Go!