A Witty Title.

Let me start by saying that this post doesn't have answers, but questions.

I've been challenged recently by a friend as to what happens to babies too young to understand Christianity of the day of judgment. I don't have an answer.

He also challenged me about those so disabled as to be unable to gain coherence for long enough to understand, and about those who were so isolated as to nether have the opportunity to learn.

Now what I would like to do is to throw this out there for those of you brave enough to do so. Post your understanding of the answers to the above in the comments. More-so, post it BEFORE you read everyone else's.

Feel free to ignore these instructions, but Id like to get as many different thoughts/views, untainted by each other. Once you've done that, please feel free to read others and discuss...

These days the majority of movies, heck all of them bar a small collection, present perfect people. Well.. not perfect. Clearly I'm exaggerating here to prove a point. But the people presented are /more/ prefect than real people. By that I mean that, at least by the end of the movie, they are usually

• better looking

• Have less real problems

• Have less (for want of a better term) defects.

And this is true not just in movies, but in adds, books(not so badly, but then the image they present is usually less complete) , and TV series. The majority of the fictional people that we see

Now this has two effects that I can immediately think of. I provides us an incredibly difficult standard to which we are expected to live up. Its an unattainable goal, but that doesn't stop us from wanting to attain it.

The second, and the one I want to talk about really, is that it provides is with a similarly unattainable level of expectation from the opposite sex. When I am looking for a partner, subconsciously, a part of my brain will be judging potential candidates by an incredibly unfair standard.

Similarly when I'm looking at my friends, and how they handle situations, I cant expect the standard ability to deal with things as seen in many movies. The "Able to solve any problem in 30 minutes (or 1 hour, or 2, depending on what kind of medium were talking about)"” ability which seems prevalent in these shows is just unfair to expect from real-world people.

When we get to heaven, the people well be dealing with will be even better than those we see in the movies. Until then, I think I need to make surI'mim cutting them even more slack, since I'm going to have to accept that I have at least in part some unfair attitudes here. And, as is so often the case, Hollywoodod is to blame.

I was reading this, and it got me thinking. This is how a non-Christian views attempts to evangelism him.

Admittedly, this is a topic I've given a lot of though to in the past. But here's what I found interesting in the above.

Asking someone to be accepting of something like gay rights is a passive thing. If they accept it, and indeed want to live their life taking what you have told them to be true, all it requires is non-action. You can go further but that's not a requirement in accepting what they say. Just let gays be gays.

Christianity on the other hand, is an incredibly active thing to accept. If I accept that there is a god who has acted in this world to save me if I let him, then I cant just passively sit back and let god be god. At least not how I understand Christianity. Taking on board what I've been told by whoever it is that evangalised me requires an active change in my life. It requires me to accept that I need to do more, to put in effort. In fact it requires a change to the entire way you view the world and live your life.

To some extent I think this is why people consider Christian evangelism so aggressive. Yes some of it is the way it is delivered... Some Christians don't seem to know how to take no for an answer. But even delivered perfectly, Christianity is a very aggressive message. And if taken seriously it demands change.

To that end, I would say that Christian evangelism is far more effective from the context of a relationship, a friendship. Something where you have earned the right to tell someone they need to put in effort to change their life. God can use anything, but we need to show SOME tact.

I've been widey reading peoples blogs, live journals, and the like this morning, and I came across this.

Its a completely different angle on it, but I think it fits in interestingly with what I was saying about circles of friendship. Were talking about when you have someone in a stable place in the circle, and your reaching out to make the effort at individual times (rather than trying to bring them in to a closer distance) If you do that reaching out far more than they do, if the effort is always yours, then as wiredaces put it... Your the bitch. (Scuse the language, but I think the point I'm trying to make is worth working beyond it)

Now- don't get me wrong...You may be OK with your bitchdom. I have had a couple of relationships where I was perfectly content to be an obvious lower priority- just because the person in question was special to me in some way.

And that's also a valid point... Sometimes you will be willing to put yourself out for the privilege of just having a relationship. But I don't think its healthy. This is the kind of thing that generally stems out of an infatuation. You may be getting a relationship you think you need, but it will be a draining one. Maybe you can support that drain... It depends on the percentages, and to a large extent on your other relationships and how healthy they are.

Generally I would suppose that this is the kind of relationship you would only want to get into either on a temporary basis... ie to support someone through a crisis, or in the understanding that you were doing it at your detriment, for their benefit. Preferably with the intent to fix it in the long term.

Food for thought.

Its come to my attention that I havent posted anything on here for more than 2 weeks. Ill try to correct that in a sec, but first just a quick personal update.

Im finally getting over the insane flu that was given to me by my friend (Thanks. You know who you are!)

Im also preparing for a short trip to New Zealand, next week. This year is my grand mothers 90th birthday, as well as My dads 60th, My sisters 30th, and my 25th. Were all heading over to New Zealand to celebrate the 90th.

Currently, I havent been to my regular church in 2 weeks, and from the looks of things, after tomorrow, im going to miss two more. Im really not avoiding you guys, 1 was due to sickness, and one to visiting a friends church. After tomorrow, the next week I will be in New Zealand, and it looks like the week after I will be in Canberra.

Anyways.. I shall now return you to something thoughtprovoking... I hope.

Karen post recently on just how hard it is to keep up with all your friends. This is something I've been experiencing a lot recently myself. It's inspired this post, although I don't know how related to what she was saying it really was.

I remember a theorem that I was once told about “"circles”" of friends. I can't remember the number of circles, or what they involved, but the idea of a set of concentric circles with me in the middle and my friends scattered about by proximity of relationship is one that sticks with me...

But I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to take this illustration, and add to it, all my priorities. The closer something is to me in the middle, the more time you spend with it. That goes two ways, first because you put more effort into doing it (like say spending time with god would be something I'm putting a lot of effort into. The more I do so, the effort I apply is either to move it closer to the centre of my imaginary diagram, or to reach out to the point where it is. Either to improve my commitment to it, or to make an effort to go out of the way to do it "this once".

The closer it is to the centre, the shorter the distance from me, and that's the second way. Its less effort to spend time doing something your in a habit of doing. People who I meat up with on a regular basis, church, where I'm committed to attending regularly, bible study, quiet times (Ok, yeah, that one needs a lot more effort... to move it in).

If we wanted to take this analogy far too far, we could say things which are touching me in the inner circle are things I do instinctively. You could even add attitudes and the like to this. But I think I'm dragging this too far away from what I'm trying to say, so lets get back to the core of this.

You need to have your priorities. Some things are more important than your friends. God for one. Your own health. The things you are committed to, (the important ones anyway). If your friends are so annoyed at you for not prioritising them over something that is more important to you, its their problem, not yours. Certainly, re-evaluate whether that thing should be more important than them, but if it is, and should, then its up to them to accept what you can give them, or to not.

You can only give your friends what you have to give.

I've reached this point and I have no idea where I want to go from here, So I think this is where I will leave it.

Inspired by Haoran's comments

Warning This may be a bit inflammatory, and I'm willing to accept I might be being a bit too extreme... nethertheless...

The biggest problem is that the majority of people in this world (And I
include Christians in that) see relationships as existing for the
primary purpose of the physical relationship.

You see Christians who get married quickly so that they wont feel
tempted by the physical side of the relationship. Or who live together
while there going out. Christians who desperately hunt for a
relationship because of some physical drive of their body.

don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anyone who does these things is doing them for these reasons... Just that some are.

To my mind, and to my understanding of the bible, that's not what
relationships are meant to be about. Heck, what's the biggest way that
marriage is used in the bible... Its an analogy, for our relationship
with Christ. So there's 2 ways to take that, and I think the one that
says marriage is not primarily a physical relationship is the correct
one.

As someone (I think it was you actually) put it recently.. The first not
good thing in creation was.. Man being alone. Relationships are about a
mental pairing... The physical side of things (While I'm sure its a lot
of fun, but hey what would I know) Its just a fringe benefit by comparison.

The world, and even a lot of Christians don't understand this... And
that's, to my mind the core issue here.

When sex is the most important part of the relationship, it get taken
out of its right place, in a married relationship, and becomes an entity
in its own right. The world has turned it around. Sex has been moved from a small aspect of marriage, to a situation where marriage is a long term extension of sex.

$0.02