Having barely recovered from SABC 3’s disastrous ending to Survivor China recently, Hayley and I decided to make our TV selves vulnerable once more by tuning into the Amazing Race which began on Monday night. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, the premise is simple enough. Teams of 2 race each other around the world, navigating their way through various challenges to be the first to cross the finish line and win the million dollars.

But the real interest of the show revolves around the partners chosen to make up the teams. This season boasts two overachieving siblings, a grandfather and grandson, and a pair of Goths. The one team that’s hard to miss this season however is Kate and Pat, the lesbian couple that are also (wait for it . . . ) ordained ministers.

In the first episode they came across as confident, self assured and happy. They are full of compliments about the adventure they have embarked upon, at one point saying something to the effect of; “Amazing race is a love letter to the planet as we get to go and explore God’s creation”.

It was after one such outburst of carefully aimed happiness and love talk, that Hayley rather shrewdly observed, ‘It’s easy for them to love everything since they have decided never to say no to sin.’ The danger of Kate and Pat is that they embrace what God has told us to flee, and then proudly wrap it in clerical robes.

Many viewers may think that this lesbian team represent everything the church should be if it hopes to remain relevant in the 21st century. A religion that denies nothing and embraces everything is perhaps, at first glance, appealing.

Yet can one use the phrase ‘God is love’ as an excuse to baptize every human whim?

Jesus says that if we are to follow Him we must take up our cross, a daily battle in which we die to sin. It’s Jesus Himself who points out that to say yes to everything is no way to find life. ‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet loose his soul?’ (Mark 8:36)

Simply mimicking the world by saying yes to every sinful impulse is not difficult. Whether it be rejecting God’s authority when it comes to our sexuality or our morality, the end result is always the same; ‘The wages of sin is death.’ (Rom 6:23).

Real joy in life is not found in saying yes to sin, but in saying yes to Christ. Only then will we discover what it is to know life to the full, and only then will we be able to know the God who is love.