FEBRUARY 2005

Disaffection

have often heard goths described as “disaffected.” I love the way that sounds but I’ve never been sure what it means so I decided to study it. I’m a curious person and once something attracts my attention I usually obsess on it until I’ve drained every ounce of vitality from it. Then I go to sleep in my coffin for the duration of the day.

I’ve always liked the word affection and though I would never refer to myself as a demonstrative person, I think I am very affectionate. Affection can take on many forms. Physical touch is only one.

The word disaffection refers to the absence or loss of affection.

The faith of the Bible is radical and quite distasteful to the mainstream palette. It calls for “disaffection” for the world.

Jesus said, “If the world hates you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” John 15:18–19

Jesus also said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

The words of our Lord are counterculture and they tug at our hearts to stand out and be different. The essential call of Christianity is to trust and obey, to surrender.

John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30

Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

The opposite of trust and obedience is control and manipulation. We are called to lay down our lives for each other and for the gospel of our Lord.

Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Matthew 16:24–25

He gave us an example to follow when He said, “Not as I wilt, but as thou wilt,” Matthew 26:39

When we manipulate and control to achieve our own ends we move away from God and toward the world. Serving God as a living sacrifice, as one dead is the Christian way.

We remove ourselves from God’s presence when we seek dominance and control. But to the extent that the interests of the self are brought to the cross that God’s purposes may be brought about in and through us, to that extent one resembles Christ.

The problem is that some people never make a conscious choice. They do what everyone else is doing simply because everyone else is doing it.

When someone does make a conscious choice and that choice doesn’t jive with the mainstream, the mainstream tends to fear. They fear not because the difference is fear worthy but because they are uncertain of what they believe and why they believe it and therefore insecure.

An insecure person will always fear any deviation.

When forced to live not only with those who ignorantly follow their own selfish path but self-righteously condemn any and all that disagree with them, the disaffected don’t so much walk out, as are pushed out, they aren’t as much outsiders as they are outcasts. It isn’t that the disaffected want to create fear, it’s simply that some people can’t help but fear what they cannot or will not understand.

In one sense, it all comes down to knowing what one believes and why one believes it. It’s about conscious intentional choice. When a person is secure in his or her position, he or she has nothing to fear and, in fact, will not fear when someone disagrees with that position.

So we are disaffected, we lose our affection for that which no longer represents us, but disaffection for that which does not represent our choice to follow Christ does not equate to disaffection with God.

Alienation is another word that describes a relationship that has gone from affection to estrangement. When you look at something that you once called home and you feel that it never really was, when the everyday is strange and unfamiliar while the honesty and integrity of goth is comforting and satisfying then some sense of alienation is inevitable and even desirable.

If there ever was affection for the mainstream it is withdrawn with the realization that it simply isn’t our way of life. It is not necessary for the disaffected to feel hostility for the mainstream any more than in it's necessary for the mainstream to fear the disaffected. Mutual respect remains or can remain even when indifference is the order of the day.

For the disaffected there is no sympathy with the mainstream, and by that I don’t mean caring, as goths by and large are a caring people. No, instead, I mean harmony. We are out of step with the mainstream, the proverbial crowd, and have made a conscious and deliberate decision to be so.

Alienation hurts and disaffection is not as warm and comfortable a place as affection, but for the sake of integrity, pain is sometimes worth the price. For all my jibbing and jabbing the Bible best described and called those who truly love God to disaffection when it said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 1st John 2:15–17

When you see selfish ambition in the guise of “ministry,” when hurting people are hurt more in the name of “preserving Christian values,” when hate is called “a stand for righteousness,” when you see it all so very clearly for the filth it is and then reject it, you become one of us, one of the “disaffected.”

Disaffection is indeed a curious word. If I change but one letter the bittersweet connotations give way to a hidden pleasure:
Dis Affection = His Affection

So the next time someone tells you that you are disaffected, smile and know that God is smiling on you.

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2nd Corinthians 5:17

David Dellman