Fifty Shades of Grey-ce (Grace)

I grew up in a family of "Cultural Christians." I love my family to death, but let's be real. To us, God existed in a box. We talked to learned about heard about God on Sundays and summer VBS, went to Him to ask for blessings or to rescue us from crisis, and looked down on the girls who got pregnant in high school because they were clearly not in His will. Isn't that where the basics of Christianity fall?

With this background, you can imagine how my world was rocked when I came to know Christ in a relational sense, after having the "time of my life" in college -- which was ironically plagued with disappointment and depression from the choices I made to assert my independence and freedom.

So now as an unmarried, twenty-something who enjoys wine and Will Ferrell and struggles with judging others and maintaining purity* with her handsome, talented, amazing boyfriend, I am really struggling with this whole Fifty Shades of Grey deal.

If you haven't heard about this book, you should probably Bing it now so this post will make more sense. Don't worry, I'll wait. The Lord has been teaching me a lot about patience lately, so I'll use it here.
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Welcome back. I missed you. Did you catch that article where the librarian in Baltimore pulled the book from her shelves? Shout out to Libby. (That's the name I give all librarians. Two points if you caught the word play.)

I cannot express how disappointed I have been at the amount of Christian women who are not only reading this book, but passing it along to friends and discussing it in Small Groups. Married women claim it puts a spark in their marriage and single women think it's just as innocent as watching Glee. Don't even get me started with Glee.

The more I rest in God's Word, the more I have been forced to wrestle with how uncomfortable it truly is. Sure, there are the confirming promises our Father delivers, and the encouraging verses that can be tweeted or written on note cards. But for those of us who are Christ-followers, why do we continuously justify skipping the parts of the Bible we don't like?

Truth is not truth unless it is whole. Whole can be painful, but whole is ultimately healthy. You cannot accept some parts of the Bible while dismissing others and call yourself a Christian. I've been struggling with that as Christians continue to live divided over Amendment One, but that's another post for another time.

That is precisely the problem with religion now, though -- too much picking and choosing the things that make us feel warm and fuzzy while neglecting what God has directly commanded of us.

As it relates to Fifty Shades of Grey and the Christians who are reading it without a second thought (actually, their second thought is that those of us who aren't reading it are judgmental, stuck-up prudes), I am finding that a lot of Christians are compartmentalizing God. When we do this, we live as if God has office hours and they are from 8am-1pm on Sundays, depending on which service you attend, rather than living as if He is with us each and every day, in even the smallest details of our lives.

Really people? Come on! Christ-followers are called to be in the world and not of it, and that requires looking at the issues that are clearly of the world with a set of lenses that is not judgmental, but instead with lenses that allow our hearts to break when our eyes are opened to things that we know are not from God.

You may call me close-minded for writing about a book I haven't even read, but I can't bring myself to do it.

Just think...would you feel comfortable reading this book to your kids? To your mom? During your prayer time with God?

Furthermore, the main character of this ridiculous novel is apparently a controlling narcissist who epitomizes they type of jerk I would never want my daughter, my friends, or myself to seek in a boyfriend or husband. Sounds like my ex. And I thank God, quite literally, that he is my ex.

God is real and He is raw. He understands all of the nitty-gritty of our lives and we do not have to go before Him as perfect little angels who have our acts together. He knows we don't. He knows we are broken, bruised and tainted, and even if the rest of the world thinks we have our sh...uh, stuff...together, God knows the truth. And He still loves us. That's grace.
 
We all know it is wrong to take advantage of people, hurt children, ignore the widow. This upsets us and we even rally together around missions and social justice projects to make things better. 

Somehow, though, we completely miss the evil that is sneaking into our souls from more subtle influences. Putting poison like this into our minds, things you know aren't at all pleasing to God, will most assuredly start to take your life. 

You may think I'm being dramatic, but things rarely start full-force. Affairs start with just a glass of wine after work, innocence is given away to the boyfriend who was deemed marriage material from the first conversation. 

Most everything people regret in life has a starting point, and I bet if you reflect on things you wish had gone differently in your own life you can pinpoint some of yours. Don't let this stupid book be a starting point -- or a midway point, or a catalyst -- to the deterioration of a relationship in your life, whether that relationship is with your boyfriend, husband or most importantly, God.

I feel so adamantly about this that I decided to share my thoughts with everyone on an online blog, but it got me thinking: if I feel so strongly about something that others seem so apathetic, what am I apathetic towards that other Christians feel strongly about?

What are my own blind spots? Where am I ignoring God and settling to be of the world and not in it?

It's a harrowing thought, one that I'll have to sit with for a while, but one that I consider worth the discomfort as I grow in faith and into myself. 

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, 

whatever is right, whatever is pure, 

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- 

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- 

think about such things."

Philippians 4:8

*I'll write later on reclaiming purity that was lost/given away with complete dismissal for God's purposes and intentions.