The Christian Perspective on partying

[FreeSmith]

Hi everyone.

I have been reflecting on the growing culture of partying/feasting in the Western world.
From a Catholic perspective, we have our feasts and hence our grounds for occasional celebration. However, it would seem that the increasingly secular world has made it a “dogma” that you ought to go out weekly just for the sake of pleasure, preferably with a lot of drinking involved.

What do you think?

 

[ndeparis88]

Being from here all my life, the party culture really affected society in a lot of different ways. In the past celebrating was done in a different way. Drinking is everywhere now and it’s a social norm to be getting drunk on the weekends. I think it hinders society. It separates us from ourselves. Instead of playing and having a cookout in the backyard with the neighborhood we go the local bar. For the people who are around 30 and up it usually subsides to a beer or two after work on Friday, like it use to be. I never had the need to drink or the want. I grew up in an Italian family, wine was always around, so I never had the need to breakout and drink like a fish.

 

[Edward_H]

Hi everyone.

I have been reflecting on the growing culture of partying/feasting in the Western world.
From a Catholic perspective, we have our feasts and hence our grounds for occasional celebration. However, it would seem that the increasingly secular world has made it a “dogma” that you ought to go out weekly just for the sake of pleasure, preferably with a lot of drinking involved.

What do you think?

Great points. We are (and need to struggle to remain) a joyful people, an Easter people as I think Pope John Paul II said. Every day is a party if we keep in mind our supernatural end and our call to holiness. We celebrate, we feast, we fast, we struggle, we love, we smile on our way with Jesus.

We live virtue all the time, and this means using judgment, moderation, temperance, fortitude. A temperate, mindful life is not a dreary one. It can be enormously liberating since we are not slaves to our senses and drawn disorderly to seek mere earthy comfort. Our strongest draw should be to supernatural comfort with the Father.

 

[wild_thing]

It is one thing to party.

It’s a whole 'nother thing to get sloppy drunk.

I think Jesus approves of ‘recreation’- laughing, having a good time with friends, drinking in moderation- He performed His first miracle at a wedding feast after all. It’s when it starts degenerating into a getting high, getting wasted, sleeping around, bad-decisions-fun-fest where the sins start creeping in. Everything in moderation, that’s the key.

 

[Catholic41506]

It is one thing to party.

It’s a whole 'nother thing to get sloppy drunk.

I think Jesus approves of ‘recreation’- laughing, having a good time with friends, drinking in moderation- He performed His first miracle at a wedding feast after all. It’s when it starts degenerating into a getting high, getting wasted, sleeping around, bad-decisions-fun-fest where the sins start creeping in. Everything in moderation, that’s the key.

 

[GraceDK]

Hi everyone.

I have been reflecting on the growing culture of partying/feasting in the Western world.
From a Catholic perspective, we have our feasts and hence our grounds for occasional celebration. However, it would seem that the increasingly secular world has made it a “dogma” that you ought to go out weekly just for the sake of pleasure, preferably with a lot of drinking involved.

What do you think?

It was only when I became Christian that I started going to really interesting parties.
The ones my non-christian friends were throwing consisted in a bunch of drunk people around a table, eventually going to some disco… sometimes open displays of perverse acts… too loud music to have a conversation, all superficial talk, or shall I say, shouting…
I didn’t go to very many of these parties because even before I had my personal faith in Jesus, I felt they were monkey-parties.

When I became a Christian my new Church friends (Evangelicals) invited me to parties where you ate, drank (with moderation) had music but not at all disturbing in its volume, and most of all it was centred on talking, actually interacting with friends, sharing testimonies of faith, and getting aquainted with new people.
Often the topics were personal, full of meaning and sharing… Sometimes there were games or dancing… No drunk kind of dancing but real dancing…

I am so happy I am a Christian, … I think I’d be depressed if I weren’t.

 

[edwest2]

Hi everyone.

I have been reflecting on the growing culture of partying/feasting in the Western world.
From a Catholic perspective, we have our feasts and hence our grounds for occasional celebration. However, it would seem that the increasingly secular world has made it a “dogma” that you ought to go out weekly just for the sake of pleasure, preferably with a lot of drinking involved.

What do you think?

There was a time when a party had a beginning, a middle and an end. The parties I attended were usually at someone’s home and often involved families. There was pleasant discussion, dancing sometimes, and innocent fun, with some drinking. Later, partying became lots of drinking, bad behavior as somehow fun, and it could last all night until some were crawling to their cars and either fell asleep inside or could not remember their home address.

It has become a kind of dogma since movies and TV programs often present parties in a similar way. We have become conditioned to accept this as real or preferable to any other way to have a party.

Peace,
Ed

 

[ndeparis88]

There was a time when a party had a beginning, a middle and an end. The parties I attended were usually at someone’s home and often involved families. There was pleasant discussion, dancing sometimes, and innocent fun, with some drinking. Later, partying became lots of drinking, bad behavior as somehow fun, and it could last all night until some were crawling to their cars and either fell asleep inside or could not remember their home address.

It has become a kind of dogma since movies and TV programs often present parties in a similar way. We have become conditioned to accept this as real or preferable to any other way to have a party.

Peace,
Ed

I think another factor to is the relationship we have with people now a days. When I hear about my parish having a cookout with youth ministry, I’m absolutely stoked about it. It’s such a great way to have fun without all the cliche’s and it’s just a great way to get a community together. But what else is great is it goes back to the good times.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I think it’s absolutely stupid. Who the heck crowned the drunk and the horny as the authority on what defines sociable and fun?

I even had at least one encounter here with such an idiot who said I “need to get out more”. As if. My house is in a low-maintenance subdivision on the outskirts of town. The only people I can get close to socializing with are my little bro’s gang of neighborhood rascals and my housekeeper’s circle of nosy gossipers.

If being drunk and having sex every night with a bunch of girls after a party (not to mention blowing cash equivalent to a week’s worth of savings just to commute down and back) is what it means to “get out” and “socialize”, then I’ll gladly stick to playing Ragnarok Online, reading books/comics, or researching the net (CAF included) for stuff I can use in my stories. Those studs can make fun of my social skills all they want but at least my moral compass points closer to north.

P.S.

If you’re one of those people who can party and drink without being a total (and sinful) jerk to those who choose not to, then more power to you.