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With regards to your homosexuality conversation as a gay Christian man, I don't agree with this. For a number of reasons. I believe God would want everyone of his children to be happy. I am not having sex until marriage but, when I marry my boyfriend I want to adopt children and live a normal life. I have always had a very strong devotion to The Lord, I love him, and I know he loves me. He made me this way for a reason. I don't believe he would condemn me for sharing my love.

Cool! It’s awesome to get your input on this; thanks so much for stopping by to chat :)

I think that also makes perfect sense. After all, Psalm 37:4 says to delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And later on in that same chapter, it says “The Lord directs the steps of the Godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.” 

Okay so I have a question, and you totally don’t have to answer it! But if you’re down to answer it, what’s the deal with your church? Are they cool with your life plan, cause that would be awesome, and I haven’t as of yet come in contact with a church like that. So I’m just really interested to find out. 

Thanks! Peace and love :)-Katherine 

This is more of an issue directed towards the Catholic church than towards you, but i feel like your insight might be able to clear it up for me, at least somewhat. So. Why is it that homosexuality is such a prevalent issue now, and why is it still so strongly enforced that it is wrong and a sin when there were SO many other things in the bible like eating pork or talking to a woman who was menstruating which were equally as wrong. Times have changed, why is the church denying human rights?

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to answer you! I have been…how shall I put it? Emotionally unstable as of late, teehee ;) And as a general rule, I try not to do anything of much importance during times of emotional instability. :P If I can help it. And your questions are very important to me.

I’m also flattered that you value my insight so highly, and will do my best to give you some clarity.

First off, I beg of you to appreciate how difficult this issue is for Orthodox Christians. That is, Christians who believe the whole bible. I am one of those. And when I try to sort out the homosexuality issue in my head, I end up with a sort of temporary split-personality disorder.

Katherine 1 says that obviously, you can’t blame someone for something they can’t help.

Katherine 2 wonders why the bible would say it’s wrong if it can’t be helped.

Katherine 3 says to shut up both of you, because there’s no condemnation for sin anyway through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Katherine 3 always wins and that’s usually the end of the discussion. But you see, some people ONLY have a Katherine 2. Now even with that as our starting point, we’ve still got flawed logic because there’s all this other crap, like you mentioned, such as eating pork and talking to women who are menstruating.

On a sidenote, avoiding women who are menstruating is not only an Old Testament law, it’s also just good sense!

Anyway…the point is that those things are Old Testament laws. They’re the kind of stuff you would find in Leviticus, where it also says stuff like “don’t sit on a beaver while wearing red horizontal stripes on the third Tuesday of the month if it’s raining…because aliens don’t wear hats.” That is, obviously, hyperbole meant to illustrate the sheer ludicrousness of some of the laws in the OT. They had all these random laws because that was back before Jesus died so they legitimately had to be perfect. And if they messed up, they had to sacrifice animals to pay for their sins. This whole cosmic consequences thing is no joke. Our actions have earthly and spiritual repercussions, and we owe a blood debt. Thankfully, Jesus paid that debt. But before that, they had to kill firstborn lambs and crap like that. So that’s where the pork and period stuff comes from. All that stuff became obsolete after Jesus died. The old laws don’t hold us captive anymore because the blood of Christ covers all our sins.

UNFORTUNATELY, homosexuality is also mentioned in the New Testament, by Paul, who lived years after Jesus’ death. He also says it’s wrong. So now we’re back to square one.

The way I see it, there are at least three reasons why the church sees itself as capable of condemning homosexuality:

They can distance themselves from it. All other sins, cheating, sexual deviance, drugs, lying, pride, have all infiltrated our pews and made themselves at home. We can’t judge any of those sins because we commit them. So we preach forgiveness, redemption and freedom for all those sins, but not for homosexuality. You know, sometimes I think that the church just wants a way to make themselves feel better, like they’re not as bad as everybody else. I dunno, I might be making that up. Bottom line is that we forget that all sin is equal.

The church is very fond of behavior modification. Obviously, the bottom line is a relationship with Jesus. That is the number one most basic, most primary need of every human being. But on top of that, the church likes to fix people and work out strategies to get them to stop doing the “sin” instead of focussing on what really matters: the incredible saving grace of the gospel. And homosexuality…cannot be modified. Gay people don’t want our “help”. They don’t want to change, and can’t even if they wanted to. In a way, I think that infuriates us.

The government and structures of society, until recently, have supported our intolerance. It only started not so long ago that amendments were being made to legislature to allow gay people to marry. Being supported by the law can make anyone feel secure in a position of hate. I read Huck Finn last year, and the poor confused boy thought he was going to hell for freeing a slave, because that was what he had been taught. Church and government have often been hand in hand, and racism seemed to have been condoned by Christians at one point too. Which is just as atrocious as our current predicament. You would think we would learn that people are people, loved by God no matter what!

Finally, it’s such a prevalent issue NOW because it’s relevant now. When racism was abundant and black people were confined to separate bathrooms, busses and hospitals, I wouldn’t be a tad bit surprised if there weren’t churchgoers protesting the eradication of colour segregation. All one has to do is read The Help by Kathryn Stockett to get a good picture of that. But that’s history and now it seems foolish that black people and white people were ever separated at all.

That being said, the bible doesn’t say that being black is wrong. And yeah, times have changed, but whether you think it should or not, the bible doesn’t change. I’m not going to compromise my beliefs to be relevant, but I sure as heck am not gonna judge or condemn someone for being gay. Neither will I deny them basic human rights. I believe that gay people should have the right to marry each other. Who are we straight people to say what they can and cannot do? That’s just foolish. We are all people, equal, and worthy of love and respect. And, I might add, all needing Jesus.

Look, I don’t mean to bash on the institution of organized religion. The church is meant to be a body of believers, Christ’s bride. I love the church. I love the family, the community, and, despite my sarcastic comments, the genuine love and acceptance. We’re not all bad. Some of us get confused. Katherine 1 and 2 may never settle their differences, and I just have to live with my split personality. And from confusion can stem misguidedness, good intentions, and mistakes. We are still learning, and trying our very best to make sense of conflicting information from the world and the bible.

This post was just an analysis of the attitude of the modern church. And it’s just my opinion. I could have made all this stuff up. I’m not saying that all Christians think and act like the ones I described in my 3 reasons for condemnation. And I’m not saying that kind of behaviour is right. I’m just saying.

But I do believe that we’ll get better. We will get more tolerant. There’s a bright future for the church and homosexuality, I’m sure of it. God’s love is a powerful, all-consuming force. And his love for all His children is fierce. He’s reminding us of that right now. Keep your hopes up. :)

Peace and love! -Katherine

Wow, that last answer I wrote was MASSIVE. I'm sorry anon, I just got really passionate about your question! I'm hoping that you appreciate my enthusiasm in question-answering and read the whole entire thing because I must admit, I think it's one of my better works of answer art. If you're staggered by its absurd length, again I apologize and entreat you to read it all anyway, to really understand what I'm trying to say. If not, at least skim it to get the gist of it. :P  Love, me :)

Hate is not a productive response to hate. How are we to have genuine dialogue with someone when we're putting them on the defensive? How are we to overcome evil by stooping to the same level? How are we to correct ignorance by overshadowing the real issue with our ugly words? By hating those who hate us, we ensure that we will remain trapped in a cycle of hate. Just because you're hating in the opposite direction doesn't mean you're doing the opposite of hating. You're still hating. Two wrongs will never make a right. We must overcome hate with something stronger than hate. You know where I'm going with this, right? Love. Love will always conquer hate. Love is the most radical, scandalous answer to hate, because it is unnatural. Not unnatural. Supernatural. Jesus says to love those who hate you. When your love is big enough to swallow wave after wave of malice and vitriol, then you will be truly victorious. Then you will see people take notice. Then you will change the world.

You say you're a virgin, so what's your definition of virginity?

(For your convenience, I have gotten into the habit of bolding the sentences that summarize my opinions, so you don’t have to read it all if you don’t want to.) So my friend was telling me this super awkward story today and the punchline was basically “and then he went to Australia!” -The intended joke being that Australia is…the land down under. So let’s go with this: My definition of virginity is someone who has never been to Australia! Or, by extension, I guess, someone who has never let someone else go to their Australia?? HahaOkay metaphor over. We all know the typical definition of sex that most people carry around in their heads: what might also be called “intercourse” - you know, penis in vagina, pretty straightforward. But then there’s “other stuff”. Anal sex, oral sex, and then stuff like fingering, and a handjob (What do you even call that? “Manual sex?”). I’ve heard people say “I’ve never had sex but I’ve done pretty much everything else.” Oh, story time! So I have these jeans that are made by the brand name Lucky. And when you unzip them, it says, RIGHT INSIDE THE ZIPPER, “Lucky you” which I think is hilarious! So I was telling my friend about them once and he goes “maybe I’ll be the first to see it” and I was like “uh, sure, if you wanna put a ring on my finger…….” and he was like “you can still have fun without a ring.” No. No you can’t. Not that kind of fun, anyway. I dunno, that’s just me. When someone says they’re “technically” a virgin, I don’t think they’re *actually* a virgin. You see, sexual health professionals consider all the “other stuff” real sex too, not just intercourse. Actually, I’ve read articles that say that masturbating is real sex too. I personally think that’s taking it a bit far. Sure, from a biological standpoint, when looking at arousal and orgasm and stuff like that - if that’s how you define sex - then yeah, masturbating is sex. But I define sex by the intimacy shared with another human being. And having someone’s hands or mouth down there is pretty much just as intimate as having a guy’s penis down there. You just can’t get pregnant. If it helps you understand it my definition a little better, I have rules for physical boundaries in dating:1) Don’t touch me anywhere that would be covered by a bikini. 2) No clothes are coming off.Pretty simple, but effective in preventing me from getting anywhere near sex. Like, even if someone breaks rule 1, when we come to our senses and stop it, there’s really not much harm done. But once you break rule 2, you’re a pretty slippery slope. I guess I just don’t really like living on the edge. I like to stay faaaaarr away from that line. I probably just wrote waaayy more than necessary. I’m sorry I’m so wordy! Haha yeah soooo….basically anything involving the below-the-belt area is sex, and anyone who has had sex is not a virgin, ergo anyone who has participated in below-the-belt activities is not a virgin. Again, a reminder, that’s *MY* definition of virginity. I would not be arrogant enough to tell anyone else what to do or what not to do. Peace and love! -KatherineP.S. The link to my blog is on facebook and the other day my mom mentioned something to me about something I had posted here. So, hi mom… :P (actually, mama Milly is pretty blunt, and wouldn’t even bat an eyelid reading this post.) 

“To speak of the suffering God is dangerous language, and we need to beware of any tendency to glorify suffering and to forget that suffering is bad, that God is opposed to suffering and seeks to end it, and that Jesus was not abandoned but supported by God throughout the anguish of the passion and death. Yet, in spite of these qualifications, such language is demanded of us by the truth to which we bear witness. God on the cross means God in pain, God in distress, a suffering God. Only the suffering God can help.”

— Kenneth Leech, We Preach Christ Crucified

The strength of your faith is so awesome. I might not understand it, or have the same beliefs as you but i think it's SO cool that you can fully trust in your God and have no doubts about his love. Personally i'm not a religious person, i guess i'm somewhat spiritual but i don't consider it a big part of my life. But in certain situations i feel a compulsion to pray, because if i don't and the outcome is bad i'm always going to wonder "what if i had prayed?". Is that wrong?

No, I don’t think it’s wrong.

I feel like you believe that God exists in a vague, nebulous entity kinda way, and of course when one has even a faint idea that such a divine being exists, of course one would be curious and slightly awed. Especially in situations that feel overwhelming or impossible, it only makes perfect sense to turn to someone greater than ourselves. 

Furthermore, God is straight-up thrilled when you pray. The bible emphasizes repeatedly that God is attentive to His children. He hears your prayers and heeds them. In fact, He LOVES to hear your voice! His day is made when He hears that little voice go, “God? It’s me.” Just picture this: 

A very stressed-out looking angel is holding a clipboard and saying “God, we really need to deal with the Holy fountain of eternal chocolate in quadrant 6.” And God’s like “Wait wait wait wait. Shhhhh. Hear that? That’s Lauren! Listen! That’s my daughter Lauren talking to me!” And then He flings out His arms and yells, “QUIET EVERYONE!” The hustle of activity stops and everyone stares at Him. “Lauren’s talking!” He says. So all of heaven comes to a standstill to listen to Lauren talk to God. 

I just picked Lauren as a random name, but insert your own in that little story. Obviously, that’s hyperbole because although I dearly hope so, there might not actually be a holy fountain of eternal chocolate in heaven. That story was, however, a pretty accurate representation of how highly God thinks of you and your prayers. 

I just want to let you know that as big and humongous and powerful God is, He is still a very personal God. He knows you inside out and He delights in you. He thinks you’re the most amazing and fantastic thing in the world. And He wants to have a real relationship with you. Nothing would please Him more than to listen to you tell Him about your day every day. So it doesn’t have to be certain situations. It can be whenever, for any reason. 

So I’ll end this off by saying that your attitude is completely normal, and it’s not wrong. But I would encourage you to explore praying more, because it’s good for us, and it will help you understand God a bit better, and the two of you will be closer because of it, which, of course, is pretty frickin awesome :)

Peace and love! -Katherine 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke (via anamorphosis-and-isolate)

Dress Codes and Modesty Culture: It’s more complicated than a few well-placed buzz words.

All across North America, from Labrador City, Newfoundland, to West Jordon, Utah, students are protesting dress codes which they deem sexist and inappropriate. There are many people camped out on the other side of the line professing that it is actually an issue of self-respect. 

Sexist? Yeah, probably. 

On the one hand, it is true that the length and width of boys’ clothes are not policed as strictly as girls’ and that the reason girls’ clothes are being policed is because they are told that the sight of their exposed skin will be “distracting” to the boys in their classes. Both of these facts support the platform that the entire dress code system was essentially created for males’ benefit, which opens up a number of other issues. For example, doesn’t this kind of system propagate the idea that women’s bodies are men’s property? If men are telling us what we can and cannot wear in order to keep them...docile....we can’t help but hear the message that our bodies exist only to please them, and what we want to wear doesn’t matter, because it’s not about us. It’s not about the way we want to express ourselves or our comfort level, it’s about keeping everybody flaccid. Right? Wait...

But what about self respect?

On the other hand, everybody wants affirmation. And depending on how much you value your own opinion of yourself, and what that opinion is, your threshold for affirmation will be lower or higher. If you have a high threshold for affirmation, you will value affirmation which is “expensive” to obtain: praise for your hard work, or someone’s appreciative insights about your soul. If you have a low threshold for affirmation, you will seek affirmation which can be more cheaply won. And the attention you get for your body is cheap: easy to obtain, freely given, and next to worthless in terms of earning respect. And we all know how to get that kind of affirmation. And for some people, that might be the reason you like showing a bit more skin. If you’re one of those people, I just want to tell you that your own opinion of yourself is the most important one, and I hope that you see yourself for who you are: smart, powerful, beautiful and above all, worthy of respect. If well-meaning modesty pushers feel the same way I do about cheap attention, I can see why they would encourage young girls to cover up, and to seek only more valuable forms of affirmation. 

Wait, THAT’s your definition of self respect?

The problem here is that I’ve read phrases like “your body is a priceless treasure, waiting to be found by the right person, and dress codes only suggest that you keep it in the chest until then.” OKAY. Once again, metaphorically referring to a girl’s body as a treasure is another form of objectification. It is literally directly comparing someone’s corporeal form to a box full of rocks and metal. Our bodies are not something that anybody can possess. It’s a physical manifestation of ourselves, it’s the vessel with which we navigate this natural world. AND THEN. It says “waiting to be found by the right person.” Okay so, not only are our bodies somebody’s possession, it’s not even ours? We are not the ones who get to take ownership of the treasure WHICH WE INHABIT? We are waiting for someone to come along and possess our bodies? What? 

It’s. Just. Not. That. Simple.

What I would like to say to both anti-dress-coders and pro-dress-coders is this: It’s just not that simple. 

It’s not enough to simply say that it is sexist to police girls’ clothes and not boys’. 

It’s not enough to simply say that it’s not about sexism, it’s about self-respect. 

And here’s why:

I will use myself as an example to explain why. I am a fiercely independent, wickedly stubborn, feminist hippie free spirit. In my personal life, I will wear tank tops and shorts and skirts as I see fit, not as any male tells me makes him comfortable. HOWEVER, I do so with this knowledge:

Biology is a thing. Psychology is a thing. Culture is a thing. It has been scientifically proven (I’m sorry, it really really has.) that individuals born with a penis and high levels of testosterone respond with arousal moreso to visual stimuli, which individuals born with vaginas and high levels of estrogen respond with arousal moreso to everything else (auditory, olfactory, touch, and emotional stimuli). Furthermore, as taught to us in most introductory University Psych courses, people can be conditioned to have a specific biological response to a specific neutral stimulus if that stimulus is always followed by a stimulus which is biologically pertinent. The dogs hear the bell then they get fed. Result: the dogs salivate when they hear the bell. Men see breasts then they have an orgasm. Result: men become aroused when they see breasts. AND WE LIVE IN A CULTURE THAT HAS DEVELOPED IN SUCH A WAY TO PORTRAY THE NUDE FEMALE FORM IN MEDIA AND ADVERTISING ONLY IN HIGHLY SEXUAL CONTEXTS WHICH CREATES AN INEXTRICABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN FEMALE NUDITY AND SEX IN OUR BRAINS THAT HAS BECOME SO DEEPLY ENTRENCHED THAT WE THINK IT’S BIOLOGICALLY HARDWIRED FOR MEN TO BE AROUSED BY BREASTS. 

So I make clothing choices with the full knowledge that I cannot stop men from looking at me. And that depending on the man and his personal preferences, there is a good possibility that my cleavage could cause some increased bloodflow. It’s up to me to decide whether I want that to happen, whether I don’t want it to happen, or whether I simply don’t care. But I am always aware, as I get dressed in the morning, that I do live in a world wherein someone could call my cleavage “distracting”.

Oversimplification ignores the real issues. 

And here’s the issue: people who protest dress codes want to pretend that we don’t live in that world, and people who promote dress codes want to pretend that the fact that we live in that world is not a problem. 

The dress codes are just the tip of the iceberg. I understand that women want to wear what they want, and do what they want, and sleep with whom they want. Part of the current liberal feminism is sexual liberation. However, the dress code is a prominent example of modesty culture. Modesty culture suggests that girls have the responsibility to prevent men from being aroused by them. This is less severe instance of victim blaming, which originates in rape culture. Rape culture suggests that girls have the responsibility to prevent men from raping them. In both of these situations, the blame is sadly misplaced. Rape Culture and victim blaming exist because we live in a Misogynist society. The means that we live in a society that discriminates against women, belittles women, objectifies women, and violates women. It’s all well and good to say that women should be allowed to do, say and wear what we want, but the fact is that we live in a society where that is unsafe for us sometimes. 

So the moral of the story: If you protest dress codes, you need to realize that the dress code is not the problem. It is a symptom of a systemic illness of society, and like a fever, this symptom might actually be manifesting itself to protect you. And if you promote dress codes, you need to realize that the fact that we even need dress codes is indicative of a much bigger problem in our society. My advice to both of you is that you’re fighting on the same side and you don’t even realize it. Instead of fighting for or against dress codes, let’s all focus on unlearning harmful philosophies and behaviours to create a safer environment for women, and then dress codes wouldn’t even be that much of an issue.