Loving the world

This week the movie of E. L. James’ multi-million copy best-seller Fifty shades of grey trilogy is released.  Novels and movie chart the course of a graphically-described sexual relationship between Christian Grey, a young entrepreneur damaged as a teenager when he was seduced by an older woman, and literature student Anastasia Steele.  The book is in the tradition of romantic fiction – but it flings the bedroom door wide open, and has brought into the mainstream awareness of terms such as ‘dominance’ and ‘bondage’ in a sexual context.

How do Christians shape a response to this?  I remembered Miss Taylor’s trip to the movies back in 1959 to see Ben Hur. She was considered very daring in the church I attended as a child, because in those days Christians, or at any rate ‘our kind of Christians’ simply didn’t go to the cinema. Or to the theatre, the ballroom, the football stadium. We didn’t drink, or smoke, or wear makeup, or watch television. Such activities were considered ‘worldly’ – and didn’t the Bible say ‘do not love the world or anything in the world?’ To me, growing up, sex was a strange, forbidden country.

I didn’t fully understand then that what matters fundamentally is not so much what you do, as what at heart you are. Christians believe that the Spirit of God is active – prompting and inspiring virtues such as love, justice, peace, holiness, joy.  But another spirit is present, driving us to greed, pride, wild anger, lust and violence. Christians by definition are those who have oriented their lives to Christ and opened their sails to the wind of God’s Spirit. ‘Worldliness’ is simply allowing the dark wind to blow us off course.

Christians nowadays are more aware of the freedom we have as God’s children. When I was a child it seemed we lived in fear of being contaminated by ‘the world.’  Now, there is joyful openness to life and all the good experiences it offers, to drama and the arts, to the recognition that God is not ghetto-bound – wherever goodness is found, God is present.

But the dark wind blows, strong as ever, across the landscape of society and culture. At times we may as Christians need to explore dark things, to confront their reality, and to understand and help others. But there are behaviours which if we immerse ourselves in them will slowly numb our responsiveness to the wind of the Spirit. We do well to realise their destructive power.

Acquiring wealth without regard to others, controlling and manipulating people, making success or position our prime goal. These are actions driven by the dark wind of worldliness which blows even through churches.

When it comes to Fifty Shades of Grey the question is simple – which wind blows through this plotline, and through the whole enterprise of writing and publishing the novel and shooting the film?

There is no doubt some good in the books: Ana, for instance seeks to heal Grey’s brokenness. And some readers of the novel, Christians included, claim it brought new fire to their marriages. But predominantly it is a story of using someone rather than loving them; of inequality in the relationship, rather than a union of equals; of abuse rather than blessing and tenderness. And it bathes these damaging things in romantic allure. Miss Taylor would, rightly, be horrified. The dark, deceptive wind of worldliness blows strongly.

But the Bible also says ‘God so loved the world.’ We believe God loves and rejoices in everything in creation and in our lives where goodness and beauty is found.

At times we may have given the impression that Christianity is defined by what we don’t do. In fact Christians are called to be different in a positive sense. When on our clearer-seeing days we open our sails to the wind of God’s Spirit we will leave in our wake lives and situations blessed as we express in our relationships the love and creativity of God.  In living as those whose brokenness has been healed by God, we will heal the brokenness of others, encouraging many to open their sails tentatively to the better wind.

And we will celebrate sexuality as God’s good, joyful gift. A gift which enriches our whole identity, and finds its fullest expression in intimate tenderness and self-giving when, in the security of long-term commitment, the bedroom door is closed.

Is there a word for the opposite of ‘worldliness’? Possibly not. ‘Unworldiness’ or ‘other-worldliness, suggesting remoteness and disengagement, don’t work. Perhaps two words are required. We seek as Christians to express here the values of God’s unseen kingdom. Here, there are shades of grey; there, perfect clarity. We seek here to discern and live out of that clarity. The opposite of ‘worldliness’ is ‘kingdom life.’

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 12th February 2015)