14 FEATURES
gairrhydd | FEATURES@GAIRRHYDD.COM MONDAY NOVEMBER 16 2009
I'm not religious...
...but I am a Christian. In Features this week one Cardiff student challenges the usual stereotype of a Christian at University Will Stokes Features Writer
you have little or no desire to drink ridiculous amounts or to sleep with every member of the opposite sex you come into contact with, for the simple reason that you no longer need those things to feel fulfilled. Apart from anything else, you also realise quite simply that following the status quo is seriously overrated. I have always found it ironic that Christians, who believe that it is wrong to make false judgements about people, are often found to be doing plenty of judging themselves. I cannot understand some Christians in the ‘Bible belt’ of the US (Mississippi, Alabama and so on) sporting signs saying ‘GOD HATES FAGS’ and ‘ABORTION CLINICS ARE EVIL’. What an abomination of a faith that claims to preach love. University is hyped up to be ‘the
If I wasn’t a Christian, I’m pretty sure I know what kind of response I would expect from someone writing a piece on being a Christian at university. ‘Being a Christian at university is really hard because sometimes people want to give you alcoholic drinks and things like that and I don’t know if that’s a good thing because I’ve never been drunk before because it’s evil and also some people might want to kiss me or even have sex with me but that’s evil too and they’ll get pregnant and I’ll catch a disease and die, and sometimes I get nervous about telling people that I’m a Christian, just in case they start talking about evolution and things like that, and although people say church is boring I enjoy the hymns and the sermon and the tea afterwards and I try to get people from uni to come along sometimes but for some reason they just aren’t interested and prefer to enjoy having a hangover and are probably going to hell anyway so it serves them right…’
Some things in life, like Christianity, will always be seen as uncool
The socks and sandals wearing Christian is a rare breed these days The fact is though that the classic socks and sandals wearing, ‘you’re going to hell’ preaching, tea drinking, tee-total, hymn-humming Christian is a rare breed these days - an endangered species even. True, you will find them in particular hangouts if you look hard enough, but to me such people have never done a very good job of ‘selling the product’ of religion, which is not only the wrong thing to be doing but also bound to be unsuccessful. People seem to think that Christians are constantly trying to get you to ‘join their club’ or ‘buy into this whole great Jesus thing!’ However, if I may say, I believe that this is not the case, for the simple reason that Christianity is neither a club nor a product. So, this piece is about being a Christian at university, and Cardiff University in particular. What is there? Firstly, there’s the Christian Union. It meets in the Great Hall on Wednesday evenings, and is a genuinely chilled out place to be; just good people meeting together and talking about things that matter. There’s also some music, with anti-hymns played on guitars that, even for a music snob like myself, take one to a place that traditional hymns seem to keep at arm’s length. There’s also more throughout the week; smaller groups
LADS: Belief in Jesus isn't all Bibles and sandals meet in halls and flats on a regular basis to chat about the big issues and eat pizza; there are less-hippy-than-theysound house gigs for up-and-coming musicians (the ‘oh, they might actually go somewhere’ kind of musicians), socials, charity auctions and even the odd night at Buffalo (yes, the one with the big neon ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’ sign. Controversial? We think so too). At university, all first-years seem to undergo a crash-course in forced conversations, and gap years inevitably come up in these pointless exchanges. It’s always interesting talking to people about my gap year, where the inevitable question will be ‘what did you do for it?’. I’ll tell them truthfully that I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, interning with a youth ministry which ran outreach projects and events for middle and high school aged kids, culminating in a series of summer camps at the end of the year. The question which naturally follows is always "so, uh, do you believe in God and all that…?" to which I will answer in the affirmative. This is where the conversation gets interesting, because the range of responses
one gets upon disclosing this information is brilliant. Of course, many people are perfectly happy with this- I mean, it’s not as if I’m telling them I’m a neo-Nazi - but personally my favourite response is the assumption that I think that evolutionary science is complete rubbish and that dinosaurs and all the rest of it never existed. Why is it that to be a Christian
Most people are fine when I say I'm a Christian - it's not like I'm saying I'm a neo-Nazi you have to be a creationist? I’m not knocking folk who do believe that Adam and Eve were real people, but at the same time I feel that the general perception is that Christians dismiss science like a bad theory, when in fact a huge number of scientists themselves are believers. A variation on the above mentioned
question is, "so are you religious?" To this I’ll answer in the resounding negative. This often prompts confusion, and rightly so; until relatively recently, religiosity has been part and parcel with Christianity. I would not call myself religious though, nor do I subscribe to a denomination. In fact, I’m sure I am less religious than a great many people who have no belief whatsoever in God. The word ‘religion’ means literally ‘to constrict’, and it is a sad thing that often the radical meaning of Christianity is lost in the realms of ceremony and often boring church services. I think that if you believe that God actually exists, that the Bible tells the truth, then you should be aching to escape from the constraints of dulled down religion; from the pathetic squabbles between divisions in the church and the bullshit of whether you’re allowed to be confirmed or not. Surely you should allow it to have an actual, tangible effect on your life; allow it to be real. This is where the real fundamentals come in to play, because for a Christian, when you realise that this is the real deal, you suddenly find that
best years of your life, where suddenly kids can drink all they want without the parental eye watching over them, and take charge of their own lives. "Be anything you want to be" seems to be the motto of coming to university. The trouble is, surely you can be anything you want to be at any stage of your life? My parents, it seems, are still working out who they want to be. There will always be things in life that are seen as being uncool, and I believe that Christianity is one of them. I have a theory though, which is the reason Christianity is so uncool at school and university is that it might actually be true. I have friends who believe all sorts of crazy things, and it’s interesting to observe people’s reactions to such beliefs. These are often along the lines of "yeah, man, believe what you want to believe, that’s totally cool…" but the moment somebody mentions that they believe in the God of the Bible, the tone changes. Here we have something that many people, consciously or not, actually find quite threatening, not least due to the fact that there are people willing to be seen as pretty uncool just to let everyone know what they believe. A good example is the kind folk handing out bottles of ‘holy water’ by the steps of the Student Union on Friday nights, when they could quite easily be out somewhere else. Who knows? Personally, I think that uncool is coming back. I think that the age of cool might be coming to an end, and when it does, God help us all.