The newspaper headlines read; ‘Virtual affair leads to real-life divorce for UK couple.’ The story told of a 28 year-old woman called Amy Taylor who last week filed for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour; her husband admitted to falling in love with another woman. She said she found them cuddling on a sofa.

‘It looked really affectionate,’ she said. ‘And then he confessed he'd been talking to this woman in America for weeks. Our marriage was over; he didn't love me any more.’

Sad, but not all that unusual; except that the woman on the sofa didn’t really exist, she was a fictional character in an Internet game. Taylor went on to say that their marriage started to fall apart a year ago after she caught her husband having cyber sex with a virtual prostitute.

I don’t know how widespread that sort of thing is, but I guess it’s on the increase, and it sounds to me like a worrying trend. But why do people do that? Could it be that their lives are so empty and aimless that they have to create a virtual world where they can act out their imaginations that will never be fulfilled in reality? Or is the attraction that in their make-believe relationships they don’t have to take responsibility for unrestrained behaviour?   

Running parallel to this is a perception that Christians are dull, boring people. Now I couldn’t possibly comment on that, except to say that I know many who are and many who aren’t, similarly I know many who claim not to be Christians who are dull and boring and many who aren’t, so I guess your faith or lack of it isn’t a factor.

One of my favourite movies is Shirley Valentine. Made in 1989 it’s the story of a middle-aged woman who realises that life is passing her by and she takes steps – still not too late – to put things right.  

There’s a wonderful monologue in the film as the central character Shirley Valentine sits forlornly on a beach in Greece contemplating the utter futility of her life in working-class Manchester. She says, ‘I have lived such a little life. I’ve allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there was so much more. And it’s all gone unused.’ And then there’s a tear in her voice as she turns to speak to the camera and pleads; ‘Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don’t ever use them?’

Like Shirley Valentine most of us live little lives, we take our phenomenal creativity and originality with us to the grave with a little label tied to it; ‘Returned unopened.’

Now, I don’t talk a lot about evangelism because it’s a grossly misunderstood topic. But I’ll say this, if the secret ever gets out that human beings were made in the image of God, the ultimate Creator, can you imagine what would happen? Queues would form spontaneously at the door of every church in the land, Sunday after Sunday, for on the one hand you’ve all these people who are so unhappy and unfulfilled that they’re sacrificing their marriages by having imaginary sex with computer images, and on the other hand you would have a bunch of people crackling with life and creativity and boundless energy and ideas and a sense of purpose.

Makes me wonder how anyone could define evangelism as dreary looking men in grey suits stuffing gospel tracts into the hands of longsuffering passers-by.