Surprising Christians: Moby

This is the second post of an ongoing series called “Surprising Christians” where we highlight well known individuals in the public scene who are surprisingly Christian. Not all are Catholics, not all would be considered “good” practicing Christians, but all witness in some way to the truth found in Jesus Christ. You can view the first post in this series, Daniel Tammet, here.

This week we have musician and DJ Moby. Moby is pretty much as far to the left as you can get. Naturally I was surprised when when I stumbled across an interview six years ago where he spoke of his belief in Christ’s divinity. The quote that stuck with me, even when I was an agnostic, was from a Sojourner’s interview where he explains how he first came to belief…

“I read the New Testament, specifically the Gospels and I was struck at their divinity, feeling that humans could not have figured this out on their own. We’re just not bright enough.”

During my own time of disbelief I used to ponder the wisdom found in Scripture and Christ’s teachings vs. the wisdom of the world. Christ provides insight into humanity that resonates with almost anyone who reads the Gospels. Christ was not a philosopher, yet many modernists seeing truth in His teachings turn him into one, picking and choosing concepts all the while rejecting his divinity. Moby who in fact assents to His divinity, still seems to fall victim to the trap of subjectivism.

He elaborates on his conversion in an interview with the BBC…

“In about 1985 I read the teachings of Christ and was instantly struck by the idea that Christ was somehow divine. When I say I love Christ and love the teachings of Christ, I mean that in the most simple and naive and subjective way. I’m not saying I’m right, and I certainly wouldn’t criticize anyone else’s beliefs.”

For many modern Christians belief becomes the crossroads between a relationship with Christ and subjectivism. In this system love often finds it’s fulfillment in “tolerance” and “acceptance.”

This is not the love of Christ. Christ loves us so much that He wants us to free us from our sin, knowing that true joy and peace can only be found apart from sin. True charity says I love you too much to be indifferent to sin in your life. If your friend kept hitting himself in the head with a hammer, wouldn’t charity demand that you assess the action as wrong and try your best to convince them to stop? Love demands acceptance of people but judgment of sinful action.

Moby doesn’t appear to be there yet. Still we can pray that Moby through an honest search for the face of Christ comes to find the fullness of truth in Catholicism. In the meantime we still have this video…

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.ignitumtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Steven-Lawson-e1313151202718.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Steven Lawson is a newly married young adult living in the Diocese of Buffalo NY. After a reversion from agnosticism during a semester working in NYC, he felt called to ministry in the Church and left his dream since youth of working in film and animation. Steven is the founder of Why I’m Catholic, a website designed to bring Catholic conversion stories to the web 2.0, specifically to young adults. During the day Steven works on iCatholicRadio (the first dedicated Catholic radio application for Apple and Android mobile devices) and various other new media outreaches for The Station of the Cross Catholic Radio.[/author_info] [/author]

Tags: Christ, Christian, Moby, Subjectivism

Category: Religion, Uncategorized