Staying Sober

Someone asked me the other day if I was "born again." I never know how to answer this question. The term "born again" denotes more of a(n extreme) conservative political stance these days, at least in the United States. You can say you are a Christian and still maintain a shred of respectability (very slight, and most definitely a shred), but say you are born again and you may as well walk around with a sign saying, "I am completely insane." I mean, OK, some "born agains" are insane, but frankly I think they would be one letter short of an alphabet no matter what creed they latched onto. It's just unfortunate that they picked Christianity as the philosophical and spiritual context in which to exercise their particular brand of crazy. But if anything, they are yet another exhibit for the defense of one of the foundational truths proclaimed by Christianity: Humans need some serious help.

The political and mental implications were one obvious reason I hesitated in answering "yes" to the question of my born againness. But as the conversation continued, someone else alluded to the other part of the "born again" concept that I have trouble with; namely, the idea that you "come to a point of decision" at which you "accept Christ into your heart" with the aid of a prescribed "sinner's prayer" that functions as a sort of magic spell with the result that after you say it, hey presto, you're saved! God has completed you! Ta da!

Well, that just reminds me of the scene in The Princess Bride where the man in black says to the princess he's come to save that "life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Same goes for Christianity. If you think all you have to do is pop a sort of prayer pill and everything will be fine and dandy, and you'll always have the answers to all the questions that haunt the human race, just wait a while. The pain is bound to come sooner or later, along with the doubts and the uncertainty. And then what do you do?

So I looked at the man who had started the whole discussion and my thoughts ran back over the course of the past couple years, all the doubts and all the (many) times I struggled (and still struggle) to believe in God, in Christ, in the whole Christian idea. I said that being born again wasn't so much about a single moment as a decision you make every day. Over and over and over again.

"Like staying sober," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "It's a bit like that."