Of The World, Not Just In It

     I am 8 years old and I’m sitting on the couch between my brothers. The younger of my two older brothers is jiggling his leg nervously. It’s his fault we’re here and he knows it. That morning my parents had found a Kiss album under his bed and at 7 pm that evening, here we were, watching a movie titled “The Dangers of Secular Music”. Bloody women stuffed into car trunks and scantily dressed teens dry humping flash across the screen. The host, an ageing gentlemen in a three piece suit, explains that secular music encourages murder, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, and blasphemy. He plays several songs backwards to demonstrate how clearly they chant to Satan himself. My oldest sister is crying, extremely bothered by the images. I would have nightmares for weeks after. The video ends with a short bible reading and then the host says “Remember, as Christians, we are to live IN the world, not OF the world, and secular music is definitely of the world”. I knew then, in my heart of hearts, that the world was a horrible, immoral place and I never wanted to be anything like it.

              
 I grew, and as I grew my knowledge and fear of the world grew, and as my fear grew the line I was walking became impossibly narrow, until every second of every day felt like a tight rope that would throw you off and into the immoral wasteland below at any moment. ‘You must be modest, but not so much that you put off potential converts’, ‘You must look nice and give a good account to the world, but you must not be vain’ ‘You must be set apart without appearing stuck up’. Under all of the contradictions, the impossible standards ran one overwhelming current: YOU MUST NOT BE LIKE THE WORLD.

The world is evil
The world is dark
The world has no standards
The world hates you
The world hates Jesus
The world wants to steal your rights
The world will sleep with anyone
The world is full of witchcraft

On and on and on. The threats, the fear mongering, the stories of demons and premarital pregnancy, those were nothing. Those were nothing compared to the biggest lie of all: Christians are the light of the world. That one cliché, that one line uttered in prayer, shouted from pulpits and sung from stages, is what held me and countless others like me in a prison of terror for most of our young lives. I remember sitting in a group full of kids that called me “fat and worthless” more often than my real name, nursing a bruise given to me that afternoon by a boy in that group who thought requests for gender equality justified assault, listening to a sermon preached by a man who thought nothing of comparing homosexuals to pedophiles.  He was teaching on the topic of “fruit”: as in “they will know us by our fruit”. That fruit being love. And I thought to myself “if this is the loving part of the world, the light part, the rest of it must be unspeakably horrifying”.  And my fear grew even more.      

              
 And then came college. My parents had nothing else left in my homeschool curriculum, so out into the masses I went. I was a battle hardened warrior. I was prepared for disdain, bullying, and personal attacks on my faith. I was determined to spread the gospel, to save all the promiscuous, sad, lost souls of the world with the light of Christianity, to show people a happier, moral way to live...But it wasn’t long before I realized that maybe they weren’t the ones that needed saving.  Where I expected whores and players, I found Atheist and Agnostic couples in healthy, long term relationships. Where I expected liars and cheats, I found people who were moral because it was the right thing to do, not because they feared hell. I anticipated music that served no purpose but to incite violence, and instead found love songs, rally cries, stories and heartbreak. I was ready to be self sufficient and lonely, and instead found friends that would spend their weekend moving my apartment for no reward. I found professors that would spend their lunch hour pleasantly debating belief systems and co-workers that didn’t question taking on some extra work when I was swamped. Everywhere I looked I found beauty and kindness and humor. The world was incredible. People with opposite belief systems could value each other’s friendship. Nobody noticed if your shirt fell four fingers below the collar instead of 3.

Art was valued even if it had nothing to do with God.     

I’m not saying that life is a fairy tale. People cut you off in traffic. They cuss out busy cashiers and leave broken beer bottles in the street, but I’ve found that most fellow humans are going through the day to day doing their best to be good people. They love, and have family and friends that love them. Muslims have favorite colors and hold open doors too. ‘Pagan’ isn’t a derogatory term. The world is beautiful and diverse and unique. There is darkness everywhere, but the older I get the more I believe that you’ll find most of it within the shadow of a church steeple rather than out in the sun.