Hello Darlings! I'm Doing The 30 Hour Famine In A Couple Weeks, Fasting To Raise Awareness And Accepting

Excellent point!! I also like the fact that he said it's not a choice! I think that is a huuuuuge step towards becoming more accepting for the church. I wondered about that too...comparing it to a disease is kind of like saying, "God created you and loves you exactly as you are but if you're homosexual, there's something wrong with you." "The Fall" is definitely a difficult concept to talk about because it's so vast and pervasive. I guess you gotta wonder what we fell from, i.e. what we would be like if none of us had a piece of the fall in us. It's great to get your input on this :) 

Also, thanks so much :D it was so fantastic and wonderful, even for the people volunteering behind the scenes. :)

-Katherine

So….this weekend I volunteered with this provincial conference called YC. It’s an annual gathering of about 2000 Christian teenagers from across the island (the island of Newfoundland, population ~500, 000). We flew in bands like Switchfoot, Group 1 Crew, Unhindered and Bluetree, and some awesome…

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 

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

ALRIGHT EVERYBODY LISTEN UP

I AM A CHRISTIAN.

I BELIEVE IN HEAVEN AND HELL.

KNOW WHAT I DON’T BELIEVE?

THAT PEOPLE GO TO HELL FOR BEING GAY.

KNOW WHY?

CAUSE THAT’S NOT WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.

KNOW WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS?

THAT EVERYBODY WOULD GO TO HELL IF NOT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST WHO DIED ON THE CROSS.

THE BIBLE ALSO SAYS THAT IF YOU CONFESS WITH YOUR MOUTH THAT JESUS IS LORD AND BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART THAT GOD RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, YOU’LL BE SAVED (ROMANS 10 FREAKING 9 MOTHER-TRUCKER)

THEREFORE!!!

PEOPLE GO TO HELL IF THEY DON’T KNOW THE LOVE OF JESUS.

YOU KNOW WHO’S NEVER GONNA KNOW THE LOVE OF JESUS IF THE CHURCH KEEPS BEING RIGID JUDGEMENTAL CONDESCENDING NOT-NICE PEOPLE!?!?!

YOU GUESSED IT!

GAY PEOPLE 

CHURCH, BY OSTRACIZING GAY PEOPLE YOU ARE LITERALLY LIVING THE ANTITHESIS OF YOUR MANDATE.

It seems strange that I haven’t written anything about Ferguson here, given the degree to which race has occupied my mind since Michael Brown was shot by Darren Wilson three and a half months ago. I guess it is because I felt like what I had to say wasn’t that well thought through; that my role in…

Jesus is Loving Barrabas Interlude

The Need for Missionaries in North America

Christians in North America love to talk about “missions”. Usually that means people on other continents, across oceans, with vastly different climates and cultures. We talk a lot about unchurched peoples. 

I think it’s time to talk less about unchurched peoples and talk more about DE-churched peoples.

In North America, we have a unique mission field. We live on a continent where millions of people already know about Jesus, and are vehemently disinterested in Him. Because of us. 

We are surrounded by millions of people who actively reject God because of us. 

They equate God with hate, judgment and condemnation because of us. Just one generation before mine in my province, people left the church in droves because of hypocrisy, scandal and intolerance. My generation is the first generation in Newfoundland in which many people have absolutely zero affiliation with any church. My generation is the generation that knows God as someone who hates women and people of colour and LGBTQ+ people. Because his followers hate all those people. 

Jesus said that people would know his followers by their love for one another, not their hate. 

Something has gone very very wrong here. The most well known image associated with Christianity in the United States is a sign saying “God Hates F*gs”. Half my time is spent trying to combat misogyny, homophobia and transphobia within the church and the other half of my time is spent apologizing for all those things to people outside the church.

Yes I assure you, I know that it’s “not all” churches and “not all” Christians. Before you whine about my generalizations, I will preemptively refute that critique by saying that every time someone claims “not all” about a social class in a position of power, the answer is that it is the vast majority enabling us to make general claims about clear trends evident in this social class. Furthermore,  in this specific case, even if it is not all, it is a portion that is statistically significant enough that it dominates the psyche of our culture. And those of us who have not been active perpetrators have been complicit through our defenses like the one that you’re leveraging against my stance right now. Okay, that’s out of the way.

I am in no way saying that we don’t have a responsibility to “Go” and make disciples of ALL the nations. I am in no way saying that the work that overseas missionaries do is not important or that God does not call people to international missions. Here is what I AM saying: 

if God does not call you--yes, YOU, specifically--and me to go overseas and preach the gospel, then the only logical conclusion is that he’s calling us to STAY and preach the gospel. 

Too often we think that if we are not being sent to a different country then we are excused from the Great Commission. We are not. 

We will each be responsible for all the people we came into contact with, all the people we were supposed to love like God, all the opportunities to be Jesus.

We need to recognize the vast population of dechurched people in North America. We need to understand the unique cultural challenges of doing ministry in this context. We need to intentionally address the very specific obstacles to the propagation of the gospel in North America. In some countries, the gospel faces opposition from animism. In some, from Buddhism. In others, from Islam. 

In North America, the gospel faces opposition from Christianity itself. 

Our job now is to undergo cultural sensitivity training for our own home missions field. Our job is to recognize that we don’t actually have home team advantage here. Christianity is not the default, dominant moral standard. And we don’t have any right to expect it to be. 

We’re fighting an uphill battle on a landscape that has already been ravaged by the war we’ve waged against the culture.

We have to meet people where they are. 

We need to respect the challenges, the baggage and the bondage in North America. 

The pain and fear and shame that the church has instilled in people so that they run away from God. If we really want to reach people for Jesus, we have to look around. We have to stop expecting people to come to us. We have to stop thinking that it’s easy for anybody to just walk into a church. For a lot of people, walking into a church is traumatic at worst and ironic at best. 

If we really believe in this earth-shattering, history-altering, life-changing, time-stopping, world-healing message we have the immense honour and responsibility to carry, then our job is to love.

That’s vague and trite and cliche. Allow me to elaborate. You know how overseas missionaries say that it’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle? Like that. You know how overseas missionaries intentionally create spaces where they can meet people exactly where they are and meet their needs in the best way possible? Like that. You know how overseas missionaries do not consider it their place to judge anybody, simply to demonstrate the love of Jesus? LIKE THAT. You know how overseas missionaries understand that they are guests of their region and are not entitled to a platform but instead have to work to EARN the trust of the people they minister to? LIKE THAT. You know how overseas missionaries spend months and even years carefully building connections in the community and relationships with individuals? LIKE THAT.

It’s not that I think that pastors and missionaries are the only ones in “full time ministry”. We’re all in full time ministry. 

If you consider yourself a Christian and you have a personal relationship with God and you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’re AUTOMATICALLY in full time ministry. 

It’s like Step 1: Accept Jesus. Step 2: Tell EVERYBODY. Far be it from me to insinuate that missionaries are the only ones doing missions. I am claiming the opposite, in fact. I think that we all need to start thinking of ourselves as missionaries much more seriously than we do right now. 

Whether God has told you to go or to stay, you are where you are because He has placed you there for a purpose. 

I am advocating for a shift in attitude at a corporate level. I am advocating for a change in the way we as the Body conceptualizes outreach.

So what does this look like on a practical level? For one, it looks like acknowledging that we have occupied a position of social and political power for a long time and still do. It’s acknowledging the privilege inherent in living in a society where our religion has been the default for generations. It’s dismantling the myth that a white, straight man is God’s chosen one. It’s divorcing the church from the culture. It’s confronting the racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia within our communities. Yeah, I said it. It should be old news to you that I believe homophobia and transphobia to be theologically unsound and antithetical to the gospel. It’s letting go of our need to have our beliefs respected. Truly. Honestly. It’s accepting that we are not entitled to anybody’s time or ears. It’s working to build relationships, to be present in the community, to earn trust and establish credibility before we even think of asking people to engage with us on matters of life and death. It’s respecting the wounds our predecessors have inflicted on our siblings. It’s trying to be a part of the healing instead of claiming that the wound does not exist, or worse, causing even more pain. It’s putting an immediate halt to any kind of exclusion in our communities. 

What part of unconditional love do we not understand? How do we think we’re being salt and light by gatekeeping the gospel???

Whether we’re called to go or to stay, we’re all missionaries.

Your opinions on polygamy?

Hmm..I have to say that I am not so much a fan of polygamy. 

By way of explanation, I would have to say that it’s because I’m a big believer in the idea of “One Love”. That is to say, I’m not going to have sex until I’m married, and ideally, I plan to be married “until death do us part”. So I personally am not open to the idea of divorce except in the case of abuse or infidelity or some other such extreme circumstances. “Irreconcilable differences”, to me, is not an option. So that being said, my vision for my life is being in love with, being married to, and having sex with, only one person. I want to be so close to someone that I know them inside and out. I want to know all their strengths and all their weaknesses and love them for both equally, because that’s what makes them who they are. I want to be totally open and vulnerable about myself with someone and have them accept me for who I am. I want to have the irrefutable confidence that I want to spend every day until the end of my days with this person. I want to whether the storms of life with this person. I want to fight like crazy with this person. I want a life-partner. Like me and him against the world, you know? And to me, such an intimate experience with only one person makes it all the more valuable and precious. Especially with the sex thing, especially for me. 

But that’s just the romantic in me. Let’s talk about what the bible has to say on the topic of polygamy. 

In the bible, there are many examples of man who had more than one wife. Sure, King Soloman had 700 wives and 300 concubines on top of that! (1 Kings 11:2-3) [Sidenote: what the heck are you gonna do with that many women? I mean even if you slept with a different woman every day, it would take you more almost three years to get through them all! I bet he didn’t know most of their names.] That being said, most theological scholars seem to think that the polygamy was a cultural thing and only tolerated, if not condoned by God.

In Genesis, after God takes one of Adam’s ribs to make Eve, it says “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” (Genesis 2:24) That seems pretty clear. It even says that two become one, so that seems to support the monogamy argument. 

Later on in the New Testament, Paul (who was a pretty funny guy) is talking about how he’s a bachelor because it allows him to focus more on his evangelical mission, but that it’s better to get married than to “burn in lust”. Because, for some reason, the members of the early church in Corinth seemed to think that sex is bad. This is completely false! Sex was created by God and it is a beautiful thing. So Paul is basically saying that sex is not a bad thing, but you shouldn’t really be sleeping around, because that’s not the way God intended it. Paul’s point is that trying to avoid sex completely is almost impossible, painful, frustrating for everyone involved, and a really good way to disappoint yourself. So marriage is the ideal situation here. Paul says, “But because of the temptation of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:2) [Sidenote: The verse after that talks about how husband and wife should fulfill each other’s sexual needs. Well-known pastor and author Rick Warren tweeted that verse, which I think has got to be the most awkward scripture tweet ever. Its awkwardness is surpassed only by Christian comedian Tim Hawkins who mistakenly told someone that his favourite verse is Psalm 38:7, which says “I have a painful disease in my loins”.] 

So anyway, it would seem that the bible supports the idea of monogamy. I personally think that the way God designed sex was for one man and one woman within the bonds of God-consecrated, holy matrimony. (This is a discussion on polygamy. I’ve already talked about homosexuality at length here, here and here.) Therefore, my seemingly romantic “One Love” idea is actually firmly grounded in my religious beliefs. 

In conclusion: Polygamy is not a lifestyle that I would choose, based on my beliefs and personal moral code, but like anything else, I will not condemn another person for choosing that lifestyle. These are the choices I’ve made for my life and will not be arrogant enough to try to extend them into yours. 

Thanks for the question :) Love chatting with you guys! Peace and love! -Katherine 

Justice and the Gospel - a spoken word by Propaganda (by VergeNetwork)

Love this. Its about the city and culture. Its AWESOME. I RECCOMMEND YOU LISTEN TO THIS. I love the line where he says,

Our savior wasn’t a commuter. 

Man this is great. PREACH MAN PREACH