The basic themes of Advent contain themes of preparation - getting ready for something tremendous to happen. We are called by our baptism and our faith to be here on this earth as “heavenians”, those who are citizens and belongers of a Kingdom that we are to prepare for actively, a Kingdom that demands of us that we act differently from our fellow-citizens of the earth.

John the Baptist, the unique forerunner of the Kingdom that would be revealed in Jesus, called his contemporaries to get ready for what was about to be revealed, to clear and level the roadway, so to speak, for the King to travel on when He arrived. John the Baptist’s ministry reminds Christians to be prepared ourselves and to call others to preparation.

In Philippians 1 verse 6, St. Paul says that He who began a good work in his Philippian friends will bring it to completion “at the day of Jesus Christ.” They are to prepare for that day, and God Himself will help them to do so.

“It is my prayer,” St. Paul says in verse 9 and 10, “that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness.” We do well to pay those words and their meaning some close attention.

St. Paul links the increase of love to what is translated “knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent.” St. Paul sees these things as the marks of maturity. We should note that this involves making all sorts of distinctions, making judgments about the good and the bad, or the good and the better. In this maturing of character, the increase of love supports the capacity to make distinctions and judgments, rather than diminishing it.

Interestingly, here is the New English Bible’s translation of the same passage: “This is my prayer, that your love may grow ever richer and richer in knowledge and insight of every kind, and may thus bring you the gift of true discrimination.” In the politically correct lexicography of today’s media, politics, and even law, “discrimination” has become a demonised word, never to be thought of in a positive sense.

Yet it is clear we are being counselled here to have the capacity to discriminate between the good and the not good, and to choose and approve the good rather than the other.

In the published material about AIDS one sees a lot about how bad stigma and discrimination can be, when it comes to AIDS. I can identify very well with this. Several years ago I tried to obtain some essential help of various sorts for someone who was widely thought to be a homosexual and to have AIDS.

It does seem to me that what the media calls discrimination kept hindering these efforts. It was stigma based on a number of false premises and on unjustifiable fear. Blind fear of any sort cannot yield accurate discernment, and can bring about the same sort of hardening of the heart that we might attribute to the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan parable. But this is not what the New English Bible is translating as “true discrimination”

Especially when it comes to prevention of disease, I believe we are being gravely misled if we become persuaded that the gift of true discrimination is a bad thing. Those who advocate what is called safe sex rather than abstinence outside marriage do themselves advocate a limited kind of change of behaviour.

In fact the situation necessitates more than just that level of discrimination. Those practices advocated by safe sex professionals cut down AIDS transmission by no more than 90 percent, and on the whole, a lot less than that. Another very  prevalent sort of contagion among young people, the HPVs, is spread whether condoms are used or not.

By not advocating true discrimination in thought and behaviour, and by accepting or tolerating the entertainment media messages, we are increasingly harming our population for generations into the future.

We and our young need to exercise the gift of true discrimination in our behaviour and approve the excellence of marital exclusiveness. Unfortunately this message does not always get a hearing where it should. Christians should remember too that it is not for health reasons alone that we and our youngsters are called to the exercise of marital faithfulness and abstinence, but for an array of considerations which are profoundly connected with our citizenship of that Kingdom to which we most belong.

The Advent preparation of a discipline of abounding love requires a true discernment between the grace-filled counsels of Christ and the various voices that daily assail those who listen to them.

As those baptised into Christ, increasingly we must discriminate out of caring love between the ways that are consistent with our baptism and those that are not. Let us be about the true business with which we are charged. Let us obey the prophetic voice of the Baptist: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.”

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org