Don't Be Fooled By Kids And Their Follies, You Have Wisdom Beyond Fear.

I just saw this ad playing before a youtube video and I had to stop and watch the whole thing. Incredible.

Jesus is Loving Barrabas Interlude

Does the Pentecostal church allow gay marriage ?

Hi there :) 

***[I know a simple yes or no would suffice, but this is gonna be another long answer. I have, as usual, bolded important sentences for those who would rather skim.]*** 

This is going to be difficult for me to tell you, but I’m afraid that the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, with which the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland are affiliated - and therefore under which my own church exists - do not sanction gay marriage. Here is the “Statement of Fundamental and Essential Truths”. You will find homosexuality is addressed in section 5.9.1, “Marriage and the Family”. Here are a couple key quotes from that section:

"Marriage is a provision of God wherein one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others enter into a lifelong relationship through a marriage ceremony that is recognized by the church and legally sanctioned by the state."

…

"Marriage can only be broken by porneia, which is understood as marital unfaithfulness involving adultery, homosexuality, or incest. While the Scriptures give evidence that the marriage vow and "one-flesh" union are broken by such acts and therefore recognize the breaking of the marriage relationship, the Scriptures do recommend that the most desirable option would be reconciliation."

I imagine this is an affront to you, and I can understand why. I would like to justify the church’s stance, but I won’t. This decision is for two reasons: 

Firstly, because if what you want is for the Pentecostal church to allow gay marriage, then nothing I say will soothe your offended sensibilities. 

Secondly, because these practices apply only to members of the Pentecostal church: people who have actively chosen to participate in this institution, and whom evidently understand and are satisfied with the beliefs and practices. 

However, I will offer some of my own thoughts to supplement the information I’ve just given you.

[] 

Katherine’s thoughts: 

1. The Pentecostal church is part of the “private” sector, by which I mean that we are a non-profit organization and we are not affiliated with the government, be it federal, provincial, etc. Therefore, we do not attempt to extend our beliefs to anybody outside of our members. People who choose to become a member of the church (which, in case you’re wondering, is an official process involving an application and an interview) choose to abide by the practices set forth by the church, and that’s why those people chose to become a member in the first place. Therefore, the church will not corporately try to influence legislation involving gay marriage. How the church’s members vote is their individual decision, and in my experience, my church has never even discussed politics, let alone tried to influence my personal political beliefs. 

2. I am completely sure that while a person who is married to someone else of the same sex and/or gender may not choose to be a member of our church, NO ONE will discourage them from attending the services or benefiting from the various programs we offer. Being a member is a very official thing, and even though I’ve attended the church since birth, I’m still not a member. Membership involves stuff like voting for pastoral staff and board members and attending annual business meetings and boring stuff like that. So you could totally come on Sundays and chill with us and we won’t say anything to you. You could attend and volunteer and participate at Bethesda for 50 years and never be a member, so there’s that loophole. 

3. [THIS ONE IS SUPER IMPORTANT] Christianity is, above all, about a very personal, very intimate relationship with God. If you do not currently have an acquaintance with God, I would strongly encourage you to get to know Him. And if you want to, don’t let anybody or anything, including the church, including your sexual orientation, including the people in your life, dissuade you from doing so. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that there’s anything separating you from God, or that you have to change something about yourself before you get to know Him. He is waiting for you, exactly as you are, right here, right now, and He loves you exactly as you are, and nothing you do could ever make Him love you less….or more.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”- Romans 8:38-39

We as the church, are attempting to function as the “body” of Christ, that is to say, the mortal manifestation of His divine love here in the natural world. We are not God, and we cannot judge you or tell you what to do. Only He can do that. And if you have some questions about your lifestyle, I suggest you take it up with Him, not me. I don’t know anything. 

4. [This one is a little more complex and not quite fully formed so bear with me.] Pentecostals are what one might call “orthodox” Christians, which means that we believe firmly in the Bible as the complete and absolute truth. We cannot deny that the New Testament states that practicing homosexuality is not a lifestyle officially condoned by the Christian church. That’s why it’s part of the official Pentecostal statutes. As Christians, we must trust that God is a divine being infinitely more wise and more powerful than us, and that His word is truth, and that the Bible is the inspired word of God, due to its historical credibility, internal consistency and enduring influence. As such, we must trust that His plan for our lifestyle is a good one. If this is due singularly to the biology of His creation, and the fact that babies generally occur from heterosexual sex, then I guess I can see how that kinda makes sense. But in reality, I can’t actually see how anything makes any sense ever, because I’m a finite human (which is redundant, because there is no such thing as an infinite human, but I really wanted to drive the point home). I just go through life trusting in a higher power than myself (with good reasons to do so, I might add. Please see here). That means that I trust Him despite my personal opinions and despite what’s going on around me. This puts us in a rather difficult situation when it comes to formulating an opinion on homosexuality because I genuinely do think that it’s not a choice. 

5. For this reason, I have taken this as my official personal stance on homosexuality and Christianity: "Love is my ultimate answer to any question, because God is Love and Love is as close to the divine as you will get in this life. I adhere to two inalienable truths - God loves you and I love you. This love is unconditional, and has nothing to do with whether or not we agree on…anything, really. My purpose and goal in life is to show you that God loves you. I attempt to do this by loving you. And I really really want you to experience this radical, world-changing, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting love of God for yourself because it will literally change your life. And I believe that you can experience this love no matter what. No conditions apply. None. I will never tell you how to live your life, and if you have questions about your lifestyle, talk to God, not me." 

6. [Last one, finally!] Like I said, Christianity means a relationship with God, not belonging to a church. However, I strongly advocate for finding a group of believers to offer support and solidarity and encouragement in your faith. So I recommend finding a church where you feel safe and comfortable. If that’s not a Pentecostal church, that’s okay. But above all, I want you to know God. 

Okay all done! 

Thanks for your question :) As always, tip next time, 

Peace and love! -Katherine

The greater good is exactly the size of a single human life. The greater good is no greater than the well-being of the lowest member of society. To sacrifice any human for the greater good is to sacrifice the greater good itself.

To all my girls who feel like you don't like the way you look (all of you. every single one.***)

1. There’s nothing wrong with you.

Your body is not a problem to be covered and hidden. There’s nothing shameful or wrong about any part of you. Your body is literally just the vehicle you use to interact with the physical world. It doesn’t have to be anything other than exactly what it is. Often, the parts of our physical appearance that we perceive as flaws are not actually inherently negative. They’re just there, and we’ve somehow developed the idea that they’re bad. (Don’t EVEN get me started on how capitalism is the source of all evil, and how advertising manipulates our self image so we hate ourselves.) They don’t detract from your value.

2. Spring boarding off that first point, you are not obliged to look any which way.

There’s no official rule book for how you “should” present yourself (no matter what the magazines say). I hope that you find joy and creativity in personal expression, instead of pressure to conform. Nobody, not friends, family, movies, music, magazines, advertising, and ESPECIALLY not fabricated societal standards of beauty, can tell you how to look. Many may try, and the societal standards are the WORST, but your appearance is none of their business.

3. If you can, try to consciously avoid comparing yourself to other girls.

There are as many kinds of beautiful as there are people in the world. Her beauty doesn’t cancel out yours. You can celebrate her beauty and your own simultaneously. In fact, celebrating other peoples’ diverse beauty gives you a deeper appreciation for your unique beauty. And you are beautiful, my darling. I hope you can choose to believe that.

4. Wear whatever the heck you want.

Do whatever the heck you want. There is no such thing as like “______ girls shouldn’t wear this” and “girls with _____ shouldn’t wear that.” If you like it, wear it! Because if you like it and you think it’s pretty then you’ll feel good wearing it. And that’s the goal here.

5. This is the most important one: your identity has nothing to do with your appearance.

I mean, I personally believe that your identity has nothing even to do with your body. I am so here for body positivity because heck yes, everybody is beautiful. I affirm that. But you are so much more than your body. And beautiful is not the loftiest goal we should be aiming for. You are so much more than beautiful. You are smart, kind, radiant, and powerful. You are love, you are altruism, you are music. You are the spirit of the divine; your soul does not belong to this world. Only your body does. So don’t waste too much time worrying about a body that only exists in this fragile, temporary world. There are far greater things inside of you. Your body can barely contain them.

***ESPECIALLY trans girls

If you could ask God one question what would it be?

ONE question? Haha ahhh I have so many. They pass in and out of my head several times a week, and for some reason, I never think to write them down. Okay so here’s how I picture it: Right now, I’m a human, and I’m young human at that. Which means I have a mortal, finite view of space and time, which is by definition extremely limited. On top of that, as my mom says to me, “you can be as smart as you want, but until you have lived as long as I have, you will know nothing.” And it’s true, I’ve lived 19 years in a cute, white-picket-fence, sheltered, caucasion, north-american, privileged life. I know nothing!  So I picture me getting to heaven and it’s like my soul, that right now can only kind of taste the infinite, is completely freed of my brain and my emotions and my body and now I’m infinite, I’m free-floating, outside of space and time and none of the restrictions that bind me here on earth exist anymore. I’m part of infinity, I’m living in infinity and I can see everything. All of space and all of time, and I picture it as one huge “OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" moment. Suddenly you can see a gazillion and one connections between seemingly randomly events in your life, and you can see how a butterfly flapping their wings affects the death of a star on the other side of the universe, and you can see how a trivial choice someone made on the other side of the world generations before you affects your life. And you see, woven through everything, is God’s overriding, all-consuming, overwhelming love and grace. You can literally see his fingerprints in the planets and everything just clicks and you’re like “how did I never see this before?” And then I won’t have any of the questions I have now because I won’t be missing the pieces of information that my poor, human head is currently incapable of containing and comprehending. So it’s not like I’m waiting to see God so that I can ask him to explain this one mystery that’s been bugging me my whole life. However, I will share with you the latest mind-bender I was contemplating, just this morning. So there’s a theory that the curse of original sin is passed on through the father. Because Jesus had a human mother, but was conceived through the Holy Spirit. So He didn’t have a human father, and He was perfect and sinless so obviously, He wasn’t affected by the original sin curse like all other humans. And yet He was fully human and fully God. So I’m sitting there musing about this interesting idea and then I’m like, where did the other 23 chromosomes come from??  Like yeah, the immaculate conception was a miracle, but God uses science and nature as His tools, and Jesus was obviously a fully functional human, so He had to have 46 chromosomes…right? So what were they and where did they come from? Hmmmm. And I said to myself, I really will have to get God to explain that to me when I see Him. So there you go! :) Peace and love! -Katherine 

love.

If Jesus lived today, he would smell like smoke.

Whether it be from pot or from cigarettes or whatever else can be smoked, Jesus would smell like it. Not because he would partake in it himself, but because he would go out of his way to go to where the smokers were. He would go to them and be with them, get to know them and show them that they are worthy of love and that they can be saved from whatever they’re running from.

Jesus would know the sensation of stale beer drying on his shirt because somebody forgot to put their drink down before they hugged him. He’d never get drunk but he might have one beer, maybe two, socializing as he got to know the regulars at the bar. The ones who found their way there day after day, hearts too heavy to do anything but numb the pain. He’d go there and listen to their stories and help carry their burdens, lift them off their shoulders. He would be the person that everybody knew—knew was safe, knew was loving, knew would listen. The bartender would call him the ‘unofficial shrink’, and Jesus would smile and order another glass of water, ready to drive home whoever would need it that night.

He’d know the feel of gauze beneath his fingers as he wrapped it around a friend’s bleeding wrist. He wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t pry, just patiently clean and treat it with careful, calming touches. The story would eventually come tumbling out in the bathroom and Jesus would draw them close, hugging tightly, and do whatever he could to find the best help available when asked, when needed.

He would know the drained, yet relieved, morning after feel the day after (of?) a three a.m. phone call from a person who was desperate, because they didn’t know who else they could turn to. He would know the days when one cup of coffee isn’t enough to wake him up, where two cups of coffee almost doesn’t do it either, but the lethargy and the headache and the bags under his eyes are worth it because the person he was talking to is okay. He would do it again in a heartbeat, too.

He would always have somebody staying in his spare bedroom—if he wasn’t staying in somebody else’s spare bedroom himself. He knows what it is to be without a roof over his head, without a blanket to pull over his cold body, and he would do whatever he could to make sure others didn’t need to experience it—even just for a night. He’d keep an eye out for help wanted ads and help his friends on the street with their resumes and pay for their haircut and nice clothing for the interview, and he’d buy them dinner after whether they got the job or not.

He would know the need to go and grab another box of kleenex as the person at his kitchen table can’t help but cry at the feeling of not being enough, of needing to change themselves before people would love them, before they would be accepted. He would know the heave of their shoulders beneath his hand as he comforted them, reassured them that they are enough, that they are wonderful and beautiful and amazing and loved. So, so loved.

He would know the feeling of a tight bank account, not because he doesn’t know how to manage his finances, but because there are other people who need it more. Who need food for their families and clothing for their children and money for their rent. He would give of himself and build relationships with these people, connections with them, encouraging them to keep going. To keep striving. That life isn’t out to get them, and that they can succeed.

He would know the pain of a harsh word, thrown at him by a hurting soul, and he would stand tall and take it because sometimes a broken heart just needs to shout.

If Jesus lived today, he would smell like smoke. Not because he approves or because he doesn’t care, but because he knows that to love isn’t just being pleasant to other people and giving them a smile, it’s crawling into the trenches with them.

Also in regards to Paul, there are many who believe that he was either a widower or divorced (perhaps his wife left him when he became a Christian). He speaks to older widows and says they shouldn't get married but stay like him, which many take to imply that he had been married but chose not to remarry. Also being married may have been a requirement to be on the Jewish council. Anyway, I loved your response, but I just wanted to address those two things. Have a blessed day :)

Hmmm…that’s really cool! I’d never even heard of that theory until now! I will definitely be doing some digging. This then, is a good example of why fact checking is important. I think I’ll see if I can make some edits to the earlier response to correct that misinformation. Regardless, do you still agree that a celibate marriage is probably not so much a great idea? Haha :) Thank you very much, I’m so glad you took the time to message me! It’s always great to get input from people smarter and wiser than I am haha. Also, thanks and I hope you have an awesome day too :)-Katherine 

Redefine your paradigms.

And when I say redefine, I mean shatter. Destroy and decimate completely.

Something that has been revealed to me in the past few days is that what I believe is the absolute most diluted form of Christianity. It's so diluted to the point that it's barely even Christianity. It's some teeny, tiny, manmade idea of Christianity. But really, it's just church. It's just going to a building and following our cute little set of rules, and sitting in our cute little pews and singing our cute little songs. And it is so far from the lifestyle that God has called us to that it's repulsive. 

Like, God is CRAZY, man. Like tornado-hurricane-tsunami-earthquake crazy. He is mountain-crumbling, earth-shattering, sky-splitting crazy. He is sooooo much bigger than our puny minds can possibly fathom. He has called us to live on the edge. He has called us to walk on water every day, even in the midst of the storm. He has called us to live a life so extraordinary that supernatural events become ordinary. He has told us that we will even do greater things than Jesus did while He was here on the earth. He has called us to expect signs and wonders and miracles daily. 

Did you know that healings, miracles, raising people from the dead, and casting out demons are normal things?! 

Like, do you realize that our lives are supposed to be so mind-blowing that it looks scary? When was the last time your life had any element of serious risk to it? I know personally, that my life is pretty much perfect and comfortable and freaking BORING. Why am I happy with my life like this?? It sucks! I want to live in such a way that God's power and glory is blowing my mind 24/7. I want to live in such a way that I live in constant awe at my crazy, insane, wonderful, terrible, magnificent God. 

I can't even stress to you how crazy, inside-out-upside-down, shake this world to its foundations ABSOLUTELY UNFATHOMABLY INFINITELY AWESOME God is!! 

What sparked this post was the film series by Darren Wilson: Finger of God, Furious Love and Father of Lights. Dude man bro, watch those movies and see what God can actually really do, because I think we theoretically believe that God CAN do anything, but we don't necessarily believe that He WILL do anything. But once we start believing that He can and He WILL, and we step out in faith, He's already THERE. He's just willing and waiting to do crazy amazing things, and just love on this world, and we just gotta be brave enough to let it happen. 

Come on man, refuse to be satisfied with this life that we're living. There's SO MUCH MORE out there. 

Peace and love!  -Katherine 

On twitter I’m seeing dozens of threads from Black activists warning people against burnout, giving all sorts of useful tips about preventing and managing it for the sake of a long-term, sustainable effort.

On tumblr I’m seeing a hell of a lot of young white kids yelling at anyone who actually follows those steps, and acting like burnout is a moral falling rather than a well-proven psychological phenomenon.

Be careful who you get your information from. Don’t let guilt lead you to make choices that will harm both you and the movement.