Shocking Revelations

What I failed to mention in my previous post is that there is another reason why I might not have been entirely happy this term. That is, I haven’t really connected with many people outside the house.
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I have a kind of rapport with a couple of people from my Greek class but I’ve never arranged to meet with them outside of class. Likewise, with those from the Anglican, Methodist, and Catholic societies, up until this week, I hadn’t arranged to meet any one of them outside of a set meeting. I’d only met them at society meetings where, during unstructured social mingling times, I’ve felt like a bit of a spare-part.
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However, this week, I did meet up with a fellow MA student (from Belfast), who isn’t actually in any of my classes, and we had tea (as in an evening meal) and a good long chat about all things theological and otherwise as we whiled away the evening in the pub.
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I also met someone from Angsoc on Wednesday evening and we went to a pub quiz, which one of his house mates seems to regularly attend. Actually, I made an excuse to contact him because he’d just split up with his girlfriend and I thought he might need a friend, like I did… kind of. We didn’t talk about anything meaningful but it was a bit progress maybe.
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Tonight was the Angsoc Christmas dinner, in a Thai/Chinese/Indian restaurant. After the meal, we went to the Staff Bar, which is reserved for staff, post-graduate students, and their guests. (I didn’t mean to go to this bit but I’m useless at leaving social gatherings; I don’t like having to attract attention to myself by saying goodbye to everyone, and if I leave alone, I just feel a bit sad.) Leaving the Staff Bar, one of the girls invited us round to her place. It seemed quite appealing to me to see where one of my acquaintances lived and to sit somewhere that wasn’t smoky drinking coffee and chatting pleasantly about interesting things.
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Half an hour later, I found myself in the middle of a drinking game. I was glad that I’d taken my car down to Selly Oak, which gave me a good excuse not to join in the drinking game. The format of the game was that one person would say ‘I have never…’ followed by some sort of experience, and those who had done that thing had to take a drink. I found out a lot of things that I think I’d be better off not knowing but somehow there was a morbid fascination. I was the oldest in the room but also, it seems, the most innocent. But the really shocking thing was that some of them seemed to be proud of their misdemeanours. Some of it was bravado and attention seeking, I’m sure, but there still seemed to lack self-respect for some of them.
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I found myself wondering how these Christians are different from other students. They all seem to have sincere faith, to varying depths, but they don’t seem to have let it affect their behaviour. Of course, I don’t know when they did the things to which they were confessing, or whether they would do it again but the overriding attitude seemed to be it doesn’t really matter. I can only surmise that they have very different values to me. Which is disturbing, as it seems I fit in less than I thought.
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Maybe I’m evangelical after all, that is a shocking thought! But the CU is equally difficult to fit into. As socially conservative as I may be, some of my views, arrived at by studying theology, aren’t acceptable to those who are ‘orthodox’. Whenever I’ve heard a CU speaker, I’ve found myself frustrated that they never seem to have let their views be shaped by theological study; they just tow the old evangelical line unquestioningly.
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Now I find myself sounding very self-righteous – morally superior to the liberals on one hand and intellectually superior to the evangelicals on the other. I could try to alleviate this to some extent by asking myself how much I really allow my faith to affect my behaviour. The truthful answer is not much; mostly I behave as I’m in the habit of behaving, which happens to coincide with my values. And at points where my behaviour may be at odds with my upbringing, I shape my values to justify it – in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter what time I get out of bed. And some things that might be considered as sinful, such as taking drugs and getting drunk, don’t appeal to me at all, so I can hardly be proud of myself for overcoming the temptation to do those things.
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I’m sure there are nettles I’ve failed to grasp in theological terms too.
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All the same, it’s unavoidable for me to say that I think my moral standards are higher/better than those of the students whom I got to know better than I expected to tonight. And that my approach to theological issues is more honest/better than that of those who never really allow for the possibility that they might be wrong.
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It’s only recently that I’ve started to realise how neurotic I am. Better than being psychotic I suppose.