The Sacred and the Profane

“East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.” Or to para-quote a random Black preacher “Sin is sin is sin.” The Easter weekend made me deeply contemplative about the nature of sin, after all as a Christian I believe Jesus died for my sins on Good Friday and conquered the final frontier, not space but death. I had a deeply ambiguous relationship with God until recently when I became born again, but what does “born again” mean? Death takes many forms; the worst being “living death” like vampires, immortality can be a curse. Millions of people are zombies in a devilish world; like in ‘The matrix’ unaware of their plight. The story of Jesus is always being retold in modern popular culture because people need to hear it. The terminator is the story of the nativity with robots and cyborgs as angels, Superman is another Jesus rip-off, The matrix is another Jesus allegory. So you realise that Jesus was the original Superhero, more multi-dimensional than Zeus or Odin who used lightning and mutation as their main powers, while Jesus had it all; a shape-shifter, healer, faster than a bullet, ability to fly and walk on water. There were other gods before him but they followed our moral code, they didn’t define our own morals. Greek gods were downright evil, selfish, capricious and spiteful.


The Greek and Roman gods did all the things that people did; they fell in love, committed adultery, had gay relationships (Zeus was a bit non-specific), stole, cheated and destroyed lives on a whim. Indeed all they demanded was that you obey them and not commit hubris (this was to take the gods lightly and challenge them in some way) the Sacred and Profane were the same. Christianity was the first religion to set a moral code for behaviour; a religion of absolutes, the sacred and profane are as separate as black and white or night day, but like dawn and dusk there are times when there is a blur. This was brought home to me recently on Friday when a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless but you know who you are) was at our weekly basketball game that we hope to make a tradition. We were tired after some exertion and sought to quench our thirst, beer quenches thirst in a way that soda just can’t, so my friend who had a reputation as the biggest drinker among us, also known as the “party extremist” declined a libation. Much to the surprise of all of us, most of us were too shocked to comment, so he sipped on his Coke while we grudgingly sipped our pints.


I am very partial to Guinness, ever since I was young I was told “Guinness is good for you”, I was always allowed to drink it even as a child as I was given it by my Mum, watered down and mixed with Coke. I never considered Guinness a sin before, but my friend’s eyes were judging me or more precisely I was judging myself. I was saying to myself “Jesus drank wine at the last supper, didn’t he?” Wine can be sacred and profane but only at different times; in Church as a Blessing or in a drunken setting. Ancient people drank wine because water was more likely infected with germs but tea was discovered to be safe because the water was boiled; only then was beer and wine associated with drunkenness. I don’t think Jesus frowned on the odd pint but he didn’t like drunkardness; but where does the line get drawn? That’s why it is better not to drink if you don’t know the limit. The Christian is faced with the tightrope of “being in the this world but not of this world.” To stay focussed when the world around you is telling you do the opposite. It tells you to hate when you want to love, to be selfish, to destroy; it has never been so hard to be a Christian or belong to any belief system. This world is rational, only sees the tangible, and only serves the desires of flesh.

I admire my friend for withstanding the slings and arrows as they taunted him with the rhetorical question “are you a bitch or a ninja?” I interjected saying “ninjas don’t go to heaven, but bitches do” most people didn’t know what to say but I was backing him up as best I could. He assured them that it was just a temporary solution and he was detoxing but I hoped he was done for good. It is like in The Shawshank Redemption when he runs away but his friends are happy to see him escape. “Run Forrest Run!” is another analogy. In Africa Christians define themselves by what they don’t do “I don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t screw around, don’t swear, don’t do this, don’t do that.” I espouse to a faith that defines itself by what it does. I want to help the poor, live a balanced life, speak no ill, and do no ill, fight against the true evils of this world.


Most of those teetotal Christians never do the positive things in life; the hardest thing is to believe, it is easy to quit drinking, smoking, and all those things, but to trust and believe in God 24-hrs a day is harder. It is like jumping from a plane knowing God will catch you, a literal leap of faith; how many of us could do that? Life is a baby thrown from the sky, it takes your whole life to hit the ground but when you do better hope God is there to catch. I spoke to a prostitute recently and talked for a while before asking the $64,000 question; “why do you do it?” She said she had no choice “I believe in God and I go to church but I can’t get a job, I would starve.” Her faith was there but not enough, man can live on faith alone, without food or water. Mary Magdalene was a lady of the night but Jesus still believed in her ability to change. Circumstances make up 90% of our decision making; what would you do in her situation? What would you do if you didn’t know what you know? If you didn’t have what you have? If you weren’t in your situation.


You will never know because you know what you know, you think what you think and you are in your situation and you can’t change by your own power. Ever since man has been on this Earth his first questions were; what am I doing here? Who made me? What happens when I die? And the biggest one; what is the point of it all? Modern society has bypassed those dilemmas by many diversions.

What am I doing here? You are here to consume products.
Who made me? You weren’t made you were evolved from amoeba – to consume products.
What happens when I die? You just live once and enjoy it as much as possible, with these products,
What is the point of it all? To buy these products that can make you happy.


Most people are too engrossed in their consumerism to take notice of the moral and spiritual void in their life. In UK it was tragic to see people who were just lost and being led like sheep to the slaughter. Being told they were oppressed and needed sexual liberation and if they were to have the right kind of sex then their problems would be gone. Sin is sin is sin; sin is not bad just because God said so, sin hurts people and all the consequences of sin carry on through the ages. Think of a sin; be it gluttony, adultery, drugs, alcoholism and the like, they affect wives, husbands, children, brothers, sisters and friends. I tried to think of a sin that doesn’t affect others and I came to the conclusion that unless you live on a planet alone, then you affect others. We are always trying to re-define what sin is, if we all do something then it is fine, if we are open about it then it is fine. The age of the individual means we define ourselves but in reality we are being defined by those trying to sell us stuff. Saying that; I can’t wait to get the new Apple Mac that is thinner than an anorexic Somali refugee.