Chronicles of the Lost, Introduction

(Author's Note: I do not use the term "The Lost" lightly, for in my opinion it connotes the sense of being judgmental, whereas we Christians should do our best to avoid being judgmental, instead leaving judgment to God. Yet as a sheerly factual matter, I believe that people who are not Christians are indeed "lost" in the sense that they have not yet found Christ. I believe they become "lost" forever if they do not accept Christ before their physical deaths. All of the people who I describe in these stories are avowedly and vocally non-Christians, and I pray for their salvation.)

Sometimes, it's a little strange to consider how my own beliefs and opinions have changed since I became a Christian. Conversations and viewpoints which I once would have viewed as commonplace are now astonishing. Astonishing, and disconcerting. Sometimes, I don't know what's more shocking, the actual viewpoint under discussion, or the realization that my own worldview has shifted so dramatically.

A fundamental case in point is the notion of pre-marital sex. In the world, pre-marital sex is absolutely a given. You need only watch just about any television program or movie to see that perspective time and time again. For example, I recently watched the movie, "Fever Pitch," a romantic comedy about an avid Boston Red Sox fan and his relationship with a woman who did not share his passion for baseball.

It was a cute enough movie as such things go, but something struck me about it. It wasn't the fact that the two lead characters were having pre-marital sex. Indeed, as I indicated earlier, pre-marital sex is the default presumption these days, and so there's nothing particularly surprising or striking about it, as sad and sinful as that statement might be. No, the thing that struck me was how at the end of the movie, the narrator described the birth of the lead characters' child, but never once mentioned that the two of them had gotten married.

So now we have a situation where popular culture has established pre-marital sex as the cool norm, while abstinence is relegated to the quaint -- or more accurately, the archaic -- status of an uncool artifact. Moreover, we appear to be moving toward a worldly reality where supposedly stable, loving couples don't even need to get married before they have children! It is almost as if the inexorable march of "progress" somehow requires a dilution of every moral value into a slushy mélange of subjective relativity, a "least common denominator" approach where everyone can be "right" and happiness -- or more accurately, hedonism -- is elevated to be the ultimate good.

Extending this concept to my own life, I will say that before I came to Christ, I never once viewed pre-marital sex as any kind of sin. Quite the contrary, I viewed it as a positive, and at times as a pre-eminent, goal. Virginity was a badge of shame, and I wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible. And suffice it to say that I eventually accomplished my goal, although my preference would be to leave it at that, my past "accomplishment" now truly being a badge of shame.

I was a base sinner. I still am, even though I now strive to do better in accordance with my new nature. And even though I might never have done some of the things that I am about to relate, I was undoubtedly worse in many other ways. The stories I am about to relate are not conveyed in an effort to glorify or elevate myself, quite the contrary, in fact. They are not told to imply that I am in any way better than the people I am describing. I am telling these stories so that they might hopefully serve as cautionary tales to fellow believers, and to emphasize that the brothers and sisters who have been fortunate enough to grow up in the church and away from the world have missed out on absolutely nothing.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. All too often, the grass next door is dead and brown for lack of watering. And even if the unwatered lawn somehow appears to be lush and vibrant, perhaps it is actually the false life of astroturf.

D