You'll Never Make a Saint of Me

Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, you'll never make a saint of me... Ok, I'll stop singing. This is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs, mostly just because of the hook, I think its groovy. The majority of the lyrics, well, I might not groove with so much, but the chorus has been taking on a new meeting for me recently. A lot of my friends have been going through a sort of spiritual searching period lately, as I suppose is common with all folk around what has traditionally been considered the college years. I have continued to attend church on a more or less weekly basis through this period while some of my friends have not, but that doesn't mean I haven't been asking myself the same questions they have. Thinking on these issues more seriously than ever before in my life has led me to many conclusions, which I hope to write down one day, but one in particular has been on my mind lately. Authenticity. I hate fake faith. Psuedo spirituality. Counterfeit Christianity. Nothing drives me up the wall more than someone spewing out sayings and cliches, trying to sound spiritual to impress someone. It doesn't suprise me that so many people leave church, whether they were regular attenders or not, when you are confronted with people who pretend to have all the answers, who never have any problems and who aren't really interested in you so much as telling you how to do better (or how much better they are than you). And so lately, I've come to appreciate the theology of sinners over the theology of saints. I will be more receptive and learn more from a lesson from someone who admits they don't have all the answers and who doesn't shy away from their faults, than from someone who never admits to stumbling, who claims to be a modern day saint. If those people are saints, then you will never make a saint of me... oh yeah, oh yeah.