on faith / sex

***Warning: this post has content that some of you may find offensive. Please realize that it's written with the intent to amuse, and is in no way intended to be insulting, dirty, or vaguely blasphemous. (Boy, I bet you're interested now.) See this? This is my tongue in my cheek. Note it. Thanks!***


"You'll just have to have faith about it..."
"I'm really struggling with my faith right now..."
"We just need to walk in faith..."

Question: What do all these phrases have in common?
Answer: They're CLICHES. They're BORING. Most of all, they're so often said in a way that is trite, insincere, and incredibly, drippingly PIOUS.


It is my humble suggestion, then, that in our casual conversations about God and the universe and stuff - assuming we're trying to be sincere, meaningful, authentic and honest human beings - we should substitute the word 'faith' with the word 'sex'.

"Really struggling with sex right now."
"I just wish I had more sex, you know?"

Obviously, I realize that this would create a few new problems (starting, I imagine, with the horrified looks from your fellow small group members), but hey - at least we wouldn't sound so holier-than-thou to our non-Christian friends. At least talking about something as earthy as sex would keep it in the forefront of our (and our listeners') minds that we're just people, finely crafted out of earth and air and snot like everyone else. It might help us to remember that trying to be a Christ-follower doesn't mean you have to talk like you're a Precious Moments doll (but if you do, that's your business, and I admit that when I'm in certain moods those things are kind of adorable), and this whole Christian Walk* thing - or whatever you'd like to call it - can be every bit as complicated, messy, scary, boring, hard, mundane, risky, interesting, ridiculous, and above all, Ordinary, as sex is.

That said, I'm probably too much of a chicken to make the change. But if you ever overhear me saying something like "My faith life seems really boring right now," please don't write me off as a self-righteous prig. Just replace 'faith' with 'sex' in your mind, and feel free to snicker a bit, because you know, I'm probably every bit as normal as you.

D'awww. Look, they're watching a movie!

Thanks for reading, friends!



*Other Christianese phrases that could do with some livening up: "Christian walk", "ministry", "fellowship", "saved", "blessings" and the most popular lie in church, "I'll pray about it."