As I spend time to reconnect and reminisce over old friends from high school and church youth group, I can’t help but be surprised by the type of people we’ve become – esp. since many of us have become an antithesis to the people instructing and raising us. For myself, I was raised in a Southern Baptist home.
My parents are anti tobacco, consume alcohol sparingly (it’s mainly for those special dinners), are die hard repulicans, and are Arminian (even though at least one of their favorite pastors was a staunch Calvanist). I am a Calvanist, politically neutral (although I’m more liberal than conservative), wish I could drink more than I do (casual drinking and maybe a glass of wine with every dinner), believe tobacco is one of God’s many gifts to man (I smoke a pipe and an occasional cigar), and a border-line Nihilist (I’m thinking about developing essays on Christian Nihilism – similar construction to John Piper’s Christian Hedonism).
As children, were we caught up in the Utopian ideals of a fairytale Christian lief? Was God another legend that we believed to be true because or parents said it was true? Were we being sheltered from reality and prevented from learning who we are and what real life is like? I think so. Man’s free will and goodness was accentuated, Man’s total depravity and God’s election were shunned. My parents never drank alcohol until my youngest brother went off to college (there are three of us in all); meanwhile the church we attended was anti-everything: Anti-Calvin (as far as I know with few exceptions), anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol, anti-homosexual*, and anti-secular government. Some of my friends from youth group now consume alcohol in varying degrees, some also smoke, some are accepting of gays as Christians and clergy while others are tolerant of them as people.
What’s more is the way these transitions come about. American & European literature abounds with coming-of-age tales and the loss of innocence. As we live, we experience loves and pains. As we grow, we become hardened and unaccepting of change. I look back over my life and see where every element of who I am as a person comes from. I smoke because I had a friend who did and saw how many good and influential people did. I’m a Calvanist because I’ve both received divine illumination that God is sovereign over everything -including man’s salvation – and I’ve experienced the depravity and hardness of man towards God. I drink alcohol because I enjoy the beverages (beer, wine and liqueurs). I’m a gothic tragedian because of the torment of my Martin Luther-esque sin struggles and man’s selfish indifference; while being frustrated with Christian pop culture not focusing on pain, sorrow, loss, hopelessness and all other elements of solemnity and brokenness that truely bring us to a full reliance on Christ as our sovereign.
Everyone says that college is a time of discovery and experimentation as you learn critical life skills and about who you are as a person. I argue if this voyage is worth $40,000 – $100,000 (depend on what school you go to and how much financial aide you take out). As my peers and I journeyed together in discovering ourselves, we diverged from what we were trained to believe. We hold on to some parts of our upbringing but have become our own self. We have traversed from ignorant childhood to enlightened adulthood and we understand what an ideal myth Utopia is. Some of us have been burned by this realization and have learned to make do while others seek to create Utopia one brick at a time. Others of us wallow in the pain of our distopic reality not expecting any altruistic kindness while secretly pining for Paradise. I find myself mostly caught up in the third and first state and the third – making due, getting by, and cursing the lack of altruism in the hedonist and the church. What about you? Were do you stand in your journey and loss of innocence?
