On Saturday, Sept. 24, Campus Crusade, a nondenominational Christian ministry on campus, had a party at 719 Euclid Ave. The party seemed just like every other campus party — good music, lots of people and drinks. The only difference was the drinks were nonalcoholic. So you can imagine the surprise of party hoppers when they came into the house and found no signs of drunks or alcoholic beverages.

Let me mention that alcohol was not forbidden and there certainly was alcohol at the party, though nobody involved in Cru provided nor consumed it. At some point during the night, a girl who had been coming back from further up Euclid and was disappointed with our lack of alcohol gave me the idea for this letter. ‘They don’t believe in beer!’ she yelled to her friends, trying to arrogantly imply that we were freaks. At that moment, I used all the grace that God has given me to restrain from addressing her.

I don’t believe in beer? Is that what people truly think my faith is about? The fact that I don’t believe in beer? Really?

Let me just for a second implore you to consider that my faith is the furthest thing from a list of do’s and don’ts. Those of you thinking that I consider myself a Christian because I go to church, don’t drink and don’t have sex, think again. These things aren’t the cause of my faith; rather, they are the result of my faith

I wasn’t always a Christian, and I have done some things that I am very ashamed of. But I’ve become a new person, not because I wanted to, but because when I let Christ take control of my life he changed me. And he showed me that only he could provide me with a complete satisfaction I could never have imagined before. He’ll never let me down.

Your parents will let you down, so will your friends and your boyfriends or girlfriends — so will booze. But He’ll never let you down. Besides, how pathetic is it that we don’t know how to have a fun time without booze? If you truly don’t know how to have fun without booze, then I’m tempted to think you might be enslaved to booze, though I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.

So I’m going to finish my little ramble by saying this: I love Jesus. He’s not a part of my life; he is my life. He doesn’t define a part of me; he defines all of me. I can’t even think straight without relying on him. The fact that I don’t drink beer — did I mention I have Celiac disease — doesn’t define me. And I hope that you wouldn’t make the assumption, like the girl who inspired this rant, that my faith has no substance to it but is just a bunch of moral standards. My faith is all about an unfailing relationship between a chump, myself and Jesus, the God of all things.

Pavle Bujanovic

Senior in the L.C. Smith School of Engineering and Computer Science

 

Published on October 3, 2011 at 12:00 pm