Christians Say the Darndest Things

So I was walking back to my office after lunch at the Ugly Mug today, passing through the Quad, when a tall, lanky, and cute smiling young man approached me, in a very laid-back sort of a way, and asked me if I'd 'seen one of these before'. I bit back the obvious quip when I noticed he was handing me a small pamphlet or thingy or whatsit, and not in fact his genitals. This whatsit or thingy or pamphlet is entitled 'The Mystery of Human Life', which Tall Lanky Cute Smiling Young Man then explained to me. It was about God, of course, but he was sufficiently attractive that I listened quite politely and didn't attack him viciously at all. As it happens, I soon realised that what he was saying was, in fact, actually rather interesting, for he described his faith in a heresy I'd never encountered before in workaday life. America is a wonderful place for heresies.

Firstly, he put it to me that God put Adam and Eve before the Tree of Knowledge fully intending that they should eat the fruit and thereby become more like God, for God wishes to express himself through humankind. In fact, the Christian goal, he affirmed, was not to worship God but to be filled up with God and become one with God. And was it my imagination, or did a certain hedonistic light gleam from his face when he spoke of the need to appreciate life and the material world as aspects of God's self-expression?

Secondly, I noticed some entertaining diagrams on his thingy or whatsit of pamphlet, affirming the threefold nature of the human entity: body, the material form; and spirit, the divine portion; and then soul as an intermediary between the two, allowing spirit and body to communicate; which I seem to recall reading in Dame Frances Yates' accounts of Marsilio Ficino in Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, an absolutely lovely study of certain branches of Renaissance occult thought. I think it was a more generally Neoplatonic doctrine, but don't quote me on that. I'm not sure what its status is in modern mainstream theology, but it is nice to know you can't keep a good doctrine down.

Thirdly, said thingy or pamphlet or whatsit contains the suggestive invocation:

To be regenerated, simply come to the Lord with an open and honest heart and say to Him:

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner.
I need You.
...
Come into me! Fill me with Your life!
Lord Jesus, I give myself to You for Your purpose.

...Which I think speaks for itself to anyone with even the slightest of slightly dirty minds.

In conclusion, then, I suspect this Christian Students Association is actually a coven of gay Hermetic astral-magician Time Lord nymphomaniacs.

Which I can respect.

PS...He also said that a sincere and heartfelt declaration that one does not believe in God is also as pleasing to God as proclamations of faith, so long as one is open to the world of experiences, which I thought was remarkably nice of him. Much nicer than than Pascal's trite old Wager.

Posted by aloysius at May 07, 2003 07:19 PM |