when sexual purity leads to bad marriages

Chris is a committed believer, has “kissed dating goodbye,” and believes in saving sex until marriage.  He also has a normal sex drive which means that he thinks about sex every seven seconds.  Then he meets Christina at church, a helplessly voluptuous woman who also believes in saving sex until marriage.  They fall deeply, powerfully in love, the stuff of romance books.  All manner of hormones flow through them during those heady first weeks and months: norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, inevitable chemicals of romance, enflaming an eruption of that red-hot lava called lust.

 

Ah, lust.  Lust which clouds judgment and leads sensible people to make questionable and rash decisions.  Poor Chris, suddenly so overwhelmed with lust: committed to no-sex-until-marriage, he is going nuts trying to stay true to his convictions.  He has lost all objectivity, all ability to rationally assess life-long compatibility with Christina (and she him), all ability to discern God’s will.  Within a few short months, in the midst of his pulsing libido, he proposes to Christina.  Their engagement period is (surprise, surprise) only four months.  Though filled with virginal nervousness and clumsiness, their wedding night is as hoped for.

 

Eight months later, however, they’ve come to realize how truly incompatible they are, how different they are, how – had they not been so intoxicated with lust – they would never have gotten married.  They were duped by lust. 

A letter to my college church

Dear  _____ Church

 

You probably don’t remember me.  I was one of hundreds of students who attended your church during my four years in college.  We walked through your doors, we sat in your pews, we enjoyed your worship, your sermons, drank your coffee, we came and went via the buses you provided.  Over the years, countless thousands of students have breathed your air and taken up your space.

 

My reason for writing you is to apologize.  For all that you gave us, we never gave anything back.  We used your facilities, but never tithed a cent.  We enrolled in Sunday School classes, but never offered to teach (or help with e.g., nursery).  We enjoyed your worship services, but almost never helped out.  You welcomed us into your fellowship with arms wide open, but we kept our arms clipped downwards, huddling in cliques after service, stiff-arming you.  We did lip-service tokens of service like occasional acapella performances, but they tended to be of the min-commitment/max-limelight vein.  We were the kind of churchgoer I now despise, the parasite who offers nothing, expects the world, and takes everything for granted.  We came to be entertained and edified; we left having given nothing.  We were parasites, like the typical church youth, too myopic and self-centered to know better.  But we were older and should have known better, and for that, I apologize.

 

There is another reason why I’m writing you.  It’s to thank you.  Now that I am older and perhaps wiser, I realize what it cost you.  You sacrificed in real, tangible ways to accommodate us.  Real money spent to expand the church to be able to fit us.  Buses bought to transport us, people willing to take lessons, attain bus licenses, willing to wake up early to pick us up.  More teachers willing to prepare Sunday School classes to half-asleep, dozing ingrates.  Muffins and coffee prepared or purchased, only to have them gobbled up by students already on full meal plans.  So many examples: invitations to home meals, mentorship, allowing us to use your facilities for overnights, guidance, etc. etc.  You gave and gave and gave, and demanded nothing in return.

 

I was baptized at your church.  In my testimony, while standing in the water before the church, I thanked everyone but you.  You still clapped and cheered and cried when I came out of the water.

 

Thank you for modeling Christ to me, for truly demonstrating what sacrificial love looks like.  Years too late, but for what it’s worth:

 

Thank you.

 

(and here’s check covering what I should have tithed)

my weird sp_r_t_al gift

I have this really weird gift.  When I watch a movie trailer, I come away knowing all there is to know about the movie.  Just from the trailer, I can predict the overall movie’s quality and eventually find that I’m not far off. 

But not only can I predict the quality of the movie, but I can predict . . . the whole movie.  My gift allow me to, in my mind’s eye, “fill in the gaps” of the trailer and mentally imagine how the movie plays out.  Like, everything: plot developments, establishing shots, dramatic turns, dialogue, plot devices, etc, etc..  It’s scary how right on the money my prediction usually turns out.  With this gift, I “saw” Ironman before anyone else did – before even I did.  In fact, I’ve already “seen” this summer’s blockbusters: Indy Jones, Batman, the Hulk, SITC.  Going to movies now is an exercise in redundancy.  They no longer entertain.

 

I also have this really weird spiritual gift, which is a lot like my movie-trailer gift. 

Oh, my dear friends, where art thou now?

I never had better friends than the buddies I had in college. I never had deeper, richer fellowship than those days when I explored college and life and faith with friends in my Christian fellowship group. And since then, I’ve come to realize that nothing will ever come close to what I had when it comes to fellowship.

I miss those days, painfully at times. I miss the college fellowship group – where in our innocence, naiveté, and youthful energies, our relationships transcended mere friendship and touched the ideal we professed in – loving fellowship between brothers and sisters.

A Hallmarky phrase, perhaps, but back then it was real to us. We held hands in circles as we prayed and it didn’t seem cheesy. We hugged constantly, literally soaking shoulders with tears – and it didn’t seem corny. I remember midnight treks in the snow under a canopy lit up by a blaze of stars and a mercury moon, worshiping God. Spring break missions trips to hell and back, but together, always together. Another time, around a campfire, a group of us praying, our eyes open, looking at one another with tenderness, overcome with love for one another. So many other moments, where the intercept of idealism and friendship and spiritual passion made for a beautiful collision. In those times, I truly felt like I was in heaven with spiritual brothers and sisters. Fellowship wasn’t an overused and emptied word, but a living ideal, breathing, flowing, pulsing, invigorating. It was a given that we’d all be lifelong friends.

I never thought we’d forget each other so quickly after graduation. No, that’s not quite right. We never forgot each other, we did something worse. We drifted, became indifferent to one another.

stop the (conference) madness

Once upon a time, Christian conferences were an invaluable resource. They brought together the best speakers, pastors and leaders of the church to a receptive and teachable audience. For most of the attendees, it was the first time to see, hear, and learn from some of the leading voices of the church who dispensed new and original thoughts and ideas.

Fast-forward to today. Conferences have, for the most part, lost their utility and are nothing more than a gargantuan waste of money.

• They have lost their utility because of the internet. Whereas conferences once provided a platform for some of the leading voices to articulate original or little-heard and inaccessible messages, speakers today simply regurgitate the same old message they have already spoken or written about, and which are already accessible via the internet. The essence of - or the very same message itself - can be found online or in a book. Conferences are reduced to little more than a performance on American Idol: the song is already available online even before the singer picks up the mike. But the audience still wants the speaker to perform live!

• They are a gargantuan waste of money. For a two day conference: Commuting cost (trains, planes, and automobiles) = average $450 roundtrip. Room & board (at an economical hotel for two nights = $250); food = $ 40/day; conference ticket = $150; Misc. = $70. Total estimate per attendee = $1,000. In addition, the conference organizers dish out $ to the speakers, rental of venue and facilities, insurance etc. At the end of the day, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of $s are wasted spent. And all for messages which could be downloaded online for free, or bought for $14 at a bookstore.

reversing short term missions

It’s that time of year again when I get guilt-tripped into supporting people for short-term missions (STM). This year, I might just say no. Call me tight-fisted, and you’re right - I am being tight-fisted. But it’s out of anger that I’m tight-fisted, and not because of stinginess.

Over the years, I’ve become more jaded about the effectiveness of STMs. We spend exorbitant amounts of money for transportation, insurance, and room & board to send a team to a local (exotic) church for a week or two, money which alone could have supported that local church/ministry for years. We put on puppet shows, take the obligatory photos of being surrounded by lots of local kids (if you can hold a baby, that’s even better), make sure we collect hundreds of professions of faith at some evangelistic finale on the last night, and promise to pray for the new believers as we take off for our “decompression period” - a three-day stay at a local resort. While we think we have done good, we have actually violated basic principles of poverty-alleviation and created long-term harm.

When anonymity is next to godliness

Recently, my manhood was put to question. Pastor Eugene Cho, in so many words, insinuated that I was cowardly for not “coming out” and disclosing my real identity.

I suppose his point – that cowards like to hide in the www – does have some validity. There are many cowardly bloggers who are “mighty in word but meek in real life.” They rant and rave in blissful anonymity, while in real life they are probably repressed, mousy losers. As Mark Driscoll puts it, they are often unemployed 30 year-old dudes still living with a mother who cooks and does laundry for them.

In fact, I have considered coming out many a time (but not for the above reasons!). Tim Challies has an interesting blog about how full-disclosure (in the www) is next to godliness. But I’ve decided to remain anonymous for a number of reasons – godly reasons, in fact.

Here are some good reasons why anonymity is sometimes the right place to be:

Cheating in seminary

Last week, I took my mid-term Greek exam. As the professor handed out the exams, the air was thick with stress and tension. My pencil was slick with sweat. After the professor wished us good luck, he told us he’d be back in about forty minutes to collect the exams. And he walked out.

About five minutes later, that’s when the cheating began. The girl seated at the very back of the classroom behind me (the laziest student I’ve ever encountered, never did the assignments, feigning headaches, busy-ness, and even the I-left-my-book-at-home excuse) began to shuffle papers. I heard all this: rustle rustle rustle. I also heard books being open, pages turned, more papers being pulled out. Strange behavior indeed, especially since the exam was not open-book. She was quiet as she could be about it, but since I was sitting in front of her, I knew exactly what she was up to.

My fall from desirability

 

 

Ask any committed Asian American female Christian what she’s looking for in a potential husband, chances are she’ll say something like: he’s got to be a Christian.  And I don’t mean just any kind of Christian.  He’s gotta be the real deal, have Christ really be the center of his life.  His spirituality has got to be his core, not just window dressing . . . etc. etc.

 

To which I say: baloney.  Truth is, while AA Christian women may want a guy who’s got all the accoutrements of religion, they don’t really want a guy who’s all-out for God.  Specifically, Christian women are scared off by SMIMs – Single Men in Ministry.

Top 15 Confessions for the Asian American Christian (2007)

• I confess that my faith has been reduced to going through the motions. Go to church on Sunday. Smile. Lift hands. Sing. Smile. Say goodbye.
• I confess that I pray about five minutes a week.
• I confess that when I look at the kids in the youth group, at how emotionally they worship, at how emotionally they express their devotion to God, at how emotionally they seek God’s will, I inwardly smile. For I confess that I think them naive, idealistic, and that their religious enthusiasm is just a stage in life. It’ll pass.
• I confess that even though I say there is no higher calling than the pastorate/ministry vocation, I inwardly hope my children go to Yale Law School, and not Gordon-Conwell Seminary. I will feel affirmed if they become doctors and lawyers; I will feel disappointment if they attend seminary.
• I confess that I do not like watching body worship.
• I confess that I look down on youth pastors. I think of them as academic failures, people unable to get real jobs in the real world. Mostly, I think of them as glorified baby-sitters. They also make very easy targets, and I blame them for all the shortcomings of my children. Somebody has to take the blame, and it sure ain’t gonna be me.

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