Christian writers and readers meet here!

[English Lady]

For any who've been wondering, English Lady is very busy running her blog and publishing stories commercially. So she's been away from Lit for a while. But all's well with her.

Thanks for keeping people updated, love!

Good to hear that she's doing well!

Thanks for the update,
- curl

I am

Thanks to everyone who had Pat on their prayer lists. Please continue to pray for her. She still has the infection in her legs and they continue to be red and swollen. Also on top of her other problems, she has been told she is diabetic.

Also Debbie, Pat’s sister who was doing so well after her surgery, has had a setback. Among other things, she can’t keep any food down.

On a positive note, Pat's book on Amazon – Second Chances under the name Marie Everett – has had modest sales. I’m so excited for her.

Maddie

I will keep both in my prayers.

 

[English Lady]

So, here I am after farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr too long away. Apologies. I've been insanely busy since Nanna passed away. I've redecorated the downstairs of my house and written lots. I've got my first proper novel out right now and I've been doing various promotional things recently too. I apologies for neglecting this thread and you lot!

So, on top of being hyper busy I've had rather an upsetting situation to deal with.

This year my term as school governor came up. Now my daughter's school is C of E so most of the governors are what are called foundation governors, this means they're appointed by the church. I was one of these. So when my term came up for renewal I knew it would have to be voted on by the church council.

Now my vicar, who some time ago found out I wrote erotica, said he would have to tell the PCC (church council) about my writing if I decided to go for re-election. I did wonder for a bit about just giving up, it's alot of hard work for no pay but I find it rewarding and decided to stay on. I told my vicar to go ahead and tell them.

I honestly thought it would be a storm in a teacup, it might cause a bit of a stir but they'd vote me back in again. I wasn't worried about it. Then I got a brief phone call telling me they had decided to say no.

Big disappointment. Even when I got the details and worked out the vote was pretty damn close I was still disappointed. I had been at said church for six years. I've sung in the choir, taught Sunday School, I've been the PCC secretary and Child protection officer. And much more on top of being a governor for 4 years competently.

All this was outweighed because I write erotica.

So, after plenty of prayer (God moves in mysterious ways, he spoke to me via the Pretenders song I'll stand by you!) and discussions with friends and family and my fantastic husband I decided I had to leave that church.

And I have done. Since I've left I've had one short conversation with the vicar and it was nothing to do with this issue really. I've had one of my friends at said church ring me and tell me she was furious that my writing was even brought up. She gave the vicar what for, apparently and she's right behind me in my decision.

I've still been going to church the last 2 Sundays. I went to the one closest to me and found a lovely welcome, I'm now travelling round the parish for the summer with them as that's how their team parish works and am enjoying it a lot. I visited another church in the community on Friday for an olympic quiz, too and that was great fun.

I am sure I've made the right decision, tough as it was.

So there you go, that's my update. I'll try to be back more often. I have a vague idea about opening a G+ bible study/house group. When I think more on it I'll let you know.

 

[oggbashan]

Congratulations, EL, on finding a church that accepts you as you are.

Your previous church will find it difficult to replace you, and I hope that your departure will help to change mindsets - but I doubt it. Strongly held convictions can trump common sense and hinder inclusiveness. Too many Christians follow too literally the prejudices of St Paul, and not the more inclusive views of Jesus.

 

[English Lady]

Congratulations, EL, on finding a church that accepts you as you are.

Your previous church will find it difficult to replace you, and I hope that your departure will help to change mindsets - but I doubt it. Strongly held convictions can trump common sense and hinder inclusiveness. Too many Christians follow too literally the prejudices of St Paul, and not the more inclusive views of Jesus.

Well, so far so good. I need to bring up my writing with the vicar to check if it's going to be okay long term but I didn't want to start my conversation. 'Hi, I'm Victoria and I write smut.'

I agree, Og. I think there is a reason my old church was struggling with dwindling numbers...sad really as they are really lovely people.

 

[oggbashan]

Well, so far so good. I need to bring up my writing with the vicar to check if it's going to be okay long term but I didn't want to start my conversation. 'Hi, I'm Victoria and I write smut.'

I agree, Og. I think there is a reason my old church was struggling with dwindling numbers...sad really as they are really lovely people.

You could always show your new vicar the letter I wrote for your old one.

You don't write 'smut'. You write romantic literature that is more explicit than Barbara Cartland. (Almost any author of romantic literature is more explicit than her!)

 

[topace]

Congratulations, EL, on finding a church that accepts you as you are.

Your previous church will find it difficult to replace you, and I hope that your departure will help to change mindsets - but I doubt it. Strongly held convictions can trump common sense and hinder inclusiveness. Too many Christians follow too literally the prejudices of St Paul, and not the more inclusive views of Jesus.

I'm afraid all the churches around here are like that, oggbashan. It's another reason for me not to go back. As long as I don't harm anyone, I don't see why I have to stick to what was written almost 2000 years ago either.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm afraid all the churches around here are like that, oggbashan. It's another reason for me not to go back. As long as I don't harm anyone, I don't see why I have to stick to what was written almost 2000 years ago either.

I have only a few problems with the four gospels. I have more with the interpretation of them, and the changes forced on the early Christian Church by church politics including the removal of priestly roles for women.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

an old Christian

Although I am 'only' 53, when I remember back to when I was a small child (and I do have a prodigious memory) I can see no relationship between 1. what mainstream churches have become, and what my experience of them was and 2. what people have claimed in relatively recent times the churches were like. I don't recall the mainstream churches that I knew about to have been at all like what all this current era blackguarding implies. And I rather think things truly went off the rails a lot later than people say or care to believe.

It is possible, since my own family were fairly 'upper upper' intellectually, that a different perspective was being shown to me by the continual visits of every rank and denomination to the family home in what were virtually 'evening salons' - but never was I under the impression either from Jesuits or Anglican academic luminaries that intelligent people swallowed ancient books purely as unchallengeable dogma. And as for sex and sexuality, it's bewildering to me that modern people assume christian churchpeople to be so narrowminded and nutty as they have been cast to be!

What I can say as a sound fact of my own personal experience, is that many a time the Marquis de Sade was averred to have been a Catholic by rather proud Jesuits - albeit to some a wicked one and to others a pre-psychology psychologist - and at the same time, I certainly recall those Christian religious of actual church orders who were the most humble and selfless and self-sacrificing of people imaginable.

My view is, many years post WWII, churches, like academia, science, medicine, banking, journalism, law, and politics - have all gone down the drain.

There is a real dumbing down process that has gone on today, that well, means there are a lot of dumb people around, including critics and whiners, and including deluded self-important 'atheists' who have a complex that drives their need to implicitly claim some sort of superiority.

As a Christian who literally attended the famous Ragavan Iyer's Hindu-Christian parallel church (for the ethnic poorer classes alongside the horrendously wealthy colonials and ex-pats) you will not find a more permissive and sex-radical person - but I would hardly see myself deliberately going about interfering with the sensitivities of those who are far more 'innocent' when it comes to sex, for example. I am not going to 'corrupt' tame people's minds, if you will, just because I have a different personal sexual high-jump bar level. As a Christian, I just can't see how or where there is any implication either in a textual form, or from any other source, that god has any problem with people's sexual drives, pleasures, or desires - other than if the practice of these things cuts across people's inalienable rights to ordinary human fairness. And as a person, I can see a point to monastic ideas, as well as a point to sitting in a beautiful building dedicated to someone's concept of god or a god. As a real Christian, I put god to the test everyday in my demands for miracles, without the delivery of which, such a god would be a poor and weak thing indeed.

Critics talk a lot about 'faith' and 'belief' but they don't understand that these things mean demands upon god for action. And frankly, if your god doesn't answer you satisfactorily, then you're entitled to abandon him/her/it - as far as I'm concerned. The only god I know of is one who is unlimited - he/she is not limited by gays, politicians, idiots, evil, satan, or any other thing. Meaning, I don't think god is going to be exercised or adversely concerned because of such small matters; because they are small and people make much of very very little indeed. Humans are young and jump at shadows - in the grand cosmology of things. Show me an atheist or anti-church person who spends as much time and energy worrying about the next great Bordeaux vintage - there is no such thing other than those who pay a small lip service to pretend they do on account of snobbery. It is not a great leap from an exhalting 100 year old Tokaji, to the words 'and this is my blood!' I could care less whether there is modern-era proof of Jesus, but I could care about what the wine was he turned the water into. Fallernian doesn't exist today - despite all the contrivances and pretensions of today's bigheads. But it did back then. And it might again. That is the point of Christianity. Belief - human belief - is about a certitude about Man, not about god! Religious belief is about the certitude one has that Man will attain limitlessness. I am willing to grant that ego drives Man to desire to reach limitlessness, which is 'god.' And ego, is not a dirty word. If atheists can also attain limitlessness, I commend them. I'm sure god would not object. I doubt whether atheists are as ego-driven as I am. I'm not at all sure they share the same ambitions as me. Unlike 'Satan' I don't want to take over god's throne, but I am, unlike the more moderate atheistic personality, shamelessly interested in sharing this throne - at some point, following a great attainment of Wisdom, that is to say, if Mankind could attain to a great Wisdom, why could he/she/it not be like god?

Maybe not today. But some day. Christians believe this; are compelled to believe this. The difference between a great wise scientist who is an atheist, and a wise Christian - is nothing at all - in the very final analysis. The great scientist, must also attain to limitlessness eventually; that is to say 'scientific Mankind,' must attain it, in the end. This is Man's destiny. Beforehand, there is ignorance sufficient for one side or another to namecall and deprecate the other. There are good atheists and there are dumb atheists. The dumb ones are the noisiest, and give the philosophy a bad name. Meanwhile there is the story of life. And we are in it. As Socrates said, humans are half-way between mortal and divine, and not just merely mortal - and that is why we experience change, and transition. As humans, we partly occupy a section of that which is itself limitless. And that is why we seek and need the unchanging, limitless - or god. Limitlessness, contains all things. ALL things. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the living, the dead. And all things are subservient to limitlessness. Limitless intellect, and limitless mind - also exists...

 

[estragon]

Pat and Debbie are in my prayers daily. I ask for continued prayers and thoughts for Luna.

English Lady, didn't somebody once say "But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another"? And if my old memory isn't faulty, He also said "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."

 

[blue4lu]

Wow! What A Thread

Well, so far so good. I need to bring up my writing with the vicar to check if it's going to be okay long term but I didn't want to start my conversation. 'Hi, I'm Victoria and I write smut.'

I am so glad to discover this thread. There are so many pages of it I will have to make time to go through all of them, but I will. What a brave woman you are EL, to even start this, (now years ago). I thought your quote, (above), was really cute. I too have written stories here. Yes, it says I have made only three posts but I have been away from here for awhile and when I came back, changed my username.

I must make time however, to read all the comments as soon as possible to see how many of us here have "struggled" with mingling sex with our Christian beliefs. I too was once Catholic but have found peace at another church. Like you were in your former one, I hold a high profile place at my new home, (but still keep my erotica secret). I still struggle with what I call "being bad", maybe naughty would be a better term but maybe that is because of having "mortal sin" drilled into me so young and for so long. Kudos to you for this thread. I must get busy and read all the posts.

 

[SydneyBlake]

Have you been following the whole Chik-Fil-A controversy over here? I posted the Jim Henson Co.'s response (they pulled their products from Chik-Fil-A) on my real FB page and got *no* responses. LOL! That is, until yesterday, when my SIL sent me a text saying "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." (Ahem, yes, He did....)

Anyway, I liked these articles about this subject:

What does Jesus think about homosexuality?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derek-flood/jesus-homosexuality_b_1442195.html

What did Jesus say about homosexuality?
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/o...2/what_did_jesus_say_about_homosexuality.html

 

[lovecraft68]

The guy from chik whatever has a right to say he is against gays. Freedome of speech works both ways.

So while everybody is floating happy on the PC boat think of all the jobs the jobless in Boston could have if their drunken slob of a mayor didn;t tell them to stay out of Boston.

Yeah you go you fat slob. Enough with this shit. The klan and all racist groups exist in this country under the same freedoms that protect us.

Oh, and by the way? You know where the best place to go is where people tell you what you can/can't do can/can't say and can/can't believe

Church, the biggest most powerful supremacist group ever created is organized religion

Take your judgements of this man elsewhere hypocrites.

Yet he who is without sin cast the first stone. Seeing we're all posting on a porn site I think I'll walk away confidently knowing there is no one without sin here.

I'll take my leave now before my skin starts smoking.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

He he, gotta luv that

Oh lovecraft68... Have you not yet observed how many Christians here do not by any means equate porn with 'sin?' Or even sex and sex practices with sin.

I completely agree with you though that if you hold stock by the concept of 'freedom of speech' then indeed the thing cuts both ways.

One of the most obvious points that flows from much of the posting on this thread is that intelligent people make the distinction between the forceful assertions of a political or self-important group taking control of a human system based on someone else's original ideas, and the original ideas themselves.

One can look at any human group or organisation and see that 'Judas'-type figures exist in them regularly - and they are very powerful and dangerous.

And the other thing I ought to underscore again, and taking a quote from the recently-departed Gore Vidal - whose name appears on another current thread - concerning his recollection of the Roman Polanski 'rape' incident: "First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn't resemble anything that we're now being told."

And, that is what I would say about my own personal recollections of representatives of the mainstream Christian Churches from at least dating back to in the early Sixties, and I therefore presume, would have applied to the Fifties too: I do not know where all this anti-sexuality prudery comes from now. It doesn't come from any mainstream Christian church I knew of back then. Certainly not from official ideologies expressed by the church intelligentsia of the day.

There is a hint in my mind too, that now, gay and lesbian interests have been overtaken by a strong moneyed and commercial interest and one that is driven also from inside ruling politics.

In short, you want to watch out every single time any type of liberating philosophy comes to the surface somewhere, for sure as eggs, the hidden hand of important and selfish powerful interests will take the thing over soon enough and tell you what to think and believe. And that also applies now, to the gay rights movement. I cannot spew enough venom of disgust for what Germain Greer did to women's liberation - having sold out to the exact interests, the mercantile English middle classes and their trumped up academia at Oxford and Cambridge, who would continue to suppress the non-complying women of the world.

Intellectual woman? I'll show you Virginia Woolfe; did NOT go to OxCam. Learned priest? I'll show you de Sade. Period. Honest aristocrat? I'll show you Charles II, paid for the Royal Academy of Science - father had is head cut off by the same louts who run London Town today.

What is the 'sin' Christ himself committed, that so exercises those who would shout against real Christianity?

I must add though that I find virtually everything you just said, lovecraft68, justifiable. And possibly correct. But I stop at the 'porn' is sin bit, althougn I recognize it was a clever extemporaneous thing to say. Okay, you can think that it is, if you like. Others may feel guilty that they are sinning, too. But it is not a sin. Some - many, organised religions would say that it is a sin. But why is it a sin?

 

[estragon]

LC68, no one said they were without sin. Why would we be Christians if we didn't need Jesus' self-sacrificing redemption? He Himself said that He came to save the sinners, not the righteous. Even you; even me, though as to myself I haven't any idea why He should have done so.

Mr Cathy can say whatever he likes, wherever he likes; and I will do likewise. And so can everybody else.

 

[HankDolworth]

I wish that Cathy had extended his rough remarks, instead of ending with 'I don't think it's right to shake one's fist at God, and say I want my way. (paraphrase, possibly inaccurate)

He needed to continue it to say, 'we all shake our fist at God, that's why we all need a Savior.'

But the temptation to beat one's chest and say, "Thank God I'm not a sinner, like they are!" was too great.

A lot of giving into pride on both sides, IMO.

 

[ImWrite]

The guy from chik whatever has a right to say he is against gays. Freedome of speech works both ways..

He didn't say he was against gays. Just doesn't support gay marriage. And no you don't have to support a particular organizations political agendas 100% in order to be for them.

I'm for minorities but don't always see eye-to-eye with their political agendas. I'm for the disabled but don't support all their political agendas...

I'm really tired of homosexuals labeling a person homophobic if they don't support every single one of their political agendas.

 

[English Lady]

You could always show your new vicar the letter I wrote for your old one.

You don't write 'smut'. You write romantic literature that is more explicit than Barbara Cartland. (Almost any author of romantic literature is more explicit than her!)

Aw, Bless you, Og. But I write smut and I am proudly working to reclaim the nam smut for good. I've got Smut by the Sea and Smut in the City anthologies coming out soon and I have a Smut by the Sea event in Scarborough next June. I'll do a thread on that, actually. Some folk might like to come and enjoy a lit meet at a smut event. *l*

I'm afraid all the churches around here are like that, oggbashan. It's another reason for me not to go back. As long as I don't harm anyone, I don't see why I have to stick to what was written almost 2000 years ago either.

It's a sad state of affairs, but you can have communion with other Christians online now, that is pretty cool. I'm thinking of starting a G+ bible study/house group.

Critics talk a lot about 'faith' and 'belief' but they don't understand that these things mean demands upon god for action. And frankly, if your god doesn't answer you satisfactorily, then you're entitled to abandon him/her/it - as far as I'm concerned. The only god I know of is one who is unlimited - he/she is not limited by gays, politicians, idiots, evil, satan, or any other thing. Meaning, I don't think god is going to be exercised or adversely concerned because of such small matters; because they are small and people make much of very very little indeed.

I love your post and this bit especially stood out for me. God is not limited at all, we limit God by our own limitations, that is all.

 

[master_chay]

Catholic Porn

Catholic porn ...

Should be more hardcore than anything else.

You write it, you go to confession.

Slate clean.

Write the next one ...

So very, very perfect ...

 

[English Lady]

Well, so far so good. I need to bring up my writing with the vicar to check if it's going to be okay long term but I didn't want to start my conversation. 'Hi, I'm Victoria and I write smut.'

I am so glad to discover this thread. There are so many pages of it I will have to make time to go through all of them, but I will. What a brave woman you are EL, to even start this, (now years ago). I thought your quote, (above), was really cute. I too have written stories here. Yes, it says I have made only three posts but I have been away from here for awhile and when I came back, changed my username.

I must make time however, to read all the comments as soon as possible to see how many of us here have "struggled" with mingling sex with our Christian beliefs. I too was once Catholic but have found peace at another church. Like you were in your former one, I hold a high profile place at my new home, (but still keep my erotica secret). I still struggle with what I call "being bad", maybe naughty would be a better term but maybe that is because of having "mortal sin" drilled into me so young and for so long. Kudos to you for this thread. I must get busy and read all the posts.

Thanks for popping in. I struggled when I first posted as to whether i should or not but I have had no end of blessings from this little old thread so I am glad I did.

There are many posts on struggles to line up erotica and Christian Faith, it seems to be a constant struggle many of us go through.

I'm out, so to speak, as an erotica author. It's not necessarily easier but I feel better not keeping it a secret!

Have you been following the whole Chik-Fil-A controversy over here? I posted the Jim Henson Co.'s response (they pulled their products from Chik-Fil-A) on my real FB page and got *no* responses. LOL! That is, until yesterday, when my SIL sent me a text saying "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." (Ahem, yes, He did....)

Anyway, I liked these articles about this subject:

What does Jesus think about homosexuality?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derek-flood/jesus-homosexuality_b_1442195.html

What did Jesus say about homosexuality?
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/o...2/what_did_jesus_say_about_homosexuality.html

Yes, I saw all that. It saddens me that anyone feels the need to hate another person, it grieves me greatly that some Christians do it in the Name of God!

I was pleased to see so many stick up for gay rights, though. That is the best thing to come out of it.

The guy from chik whatever has a right to say he is against gays. Freedome of speech works both ways.

So while everybody is floating happy on the PC boat think of all the jobs the jobless in Boston could have if their drunken slob of a mayor didn;t tell them to stay out of Boston.

Yeah you go you fat slob. Enough with this shit. The klan and all racist groups exist in this country under the same freedoms that protect us.

Oh, and by the way? You know where the best place to go is where people tell you what you can/can't do can/can't say and can/can't believe

Church, the biggest most powerful supremacist group ever created is organized religion

Take your judgements of this man elsewhere hypocrites.

Yet he who is without sin cast the first stone. Seeing we're all posting on a porn site I think I'll walk away confidently knowing there is no one without sin here.

I'll take my leave now before my skin starts smoking.

We're all sinners here, love. It's also okay to debate such things. Yes, folks have the freedom to say what they will but that also means web have the right to express our views against them. It might be a right to express your negative feelings about gay folks...doesn't make those feelings right.

We need to discuss more, talk more, debate more. Think more. Christians especially. We've got used to being told what to believe. We need to seek it out for ourselves.

Organised religion can be a bitch, lovecraft, I agree there. It can also be a force for good.

Oh lovecraft68... Have you not yet observed how many Christians here do not by any means equate porn with 'sin?' Or even sex and sex practices with sin.

I completely agree with you though that if you hold stock by the concept of 'freedom of speech' then indeed the thing cuts both ways.

One of the most obvious points that flows from much of the posting on this thread is that intelligent people make the distinction between the forceful assertions of a political or self-important group taking control of a human system based on someone else's original ideas, and the original ideas themselves.

One can look at any human group or organisation and see that 'Judas'-type figures exist in them regularly - and they are very powerful and dangerous.

And the other thing I ought to underscore again, and taking a quote from the recently-departed Gore Vidal - whose name appears on another current thread - concerning his recollection of the Roman Polanski 'rape' incident: "First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn't resemble anything that we're now being told."

And, that is what I would say about my own personal recollections of representatives of the mainstream Christian Churches from at least dating back to in the early Sixties, and I therefore presume, would have applied to the Fifties too: I do not know where all this anti-sexuality prudery comes from now. It doesn't come from any mainstream Christian church I knew of back then. Certainly not from official ideologies expressed by the church intelligentsia of the day.

There is a hint in my mind too, that now, gay and lesbian interests have been overtaken by a strong moneyed and commercial interest and one that is driven also from inside ruling politics.

In short, you want to watch out every single time any type of liberating philosophy comes to the surface somewhere, for sure as eggs, the hidden hand of important and selfish powerful interests will take the thing over soon enough and tell you what to think and believe. And that also applies now, to the gay rights movement. I cannot spew enough venom of disgust for what Germain Greer did to women's liberation - having sold out to the exact interests, the mercantile English middle classes and their trumped up academia at Oxford and Cambridge, who would continue to suppress the non-complying women of the world.

Intellectual woman? I'll show you Virginia Woolfe; did NOT go to OxCam. Learned priest? I'll show you de Sade. Period. Honest aristocrat? I'll show you Charles II, paid for the Royal Academy of Science - father had is head cut off by the same louts who run London Town today.

What is the 'sin' Christ himself committed, that so exercises those who would shout against real Christianity?

I must add though that I find virtually everything you just said, lovecraft68, justifiable. And possibly correct. But I stop at the 'porn' is sin bit, althougn I recognize it was a clever extemporaneous thing to say. Okay, you can think that it is, if you like. Others may feel guilty that they are sinning, too. But it is not a sin. Some - many, organised religions would say that it is a sin. But why is it a sin?

I agree. I could use more words than that but I'v waffled on enough already so I'll leave it at that for now.

LC68, no one said they were without sin. Why would we be Christians if we didn't need Jesus' self-sacrificing redemption? He Himself said that He came to save the sinners, not the righteous. Even you; even me, though as to myself I haven't any idea why He should have done so.

Mr Cathy can say whatever he likes, wherever he likes; and I will do likewise. And so can everybody else.

Yep, I'm a sinner and glad to confess it to receive Jesus' love.

I wish that Cathy had extended his rough remarks, instead of ending with 'I don't think it's right to shake one's fist at God, and say I want my way. (paraphrase, possibly inaccurate)

He needed to continue it to say, 'we all shake our fist at God, that's why we all need a Savior.'

But the temptation to beat one's chest and say, "Thank God I'm not a sinner, like they are!" was too great.

A lot of giving into pride on both sides, IMO.

I wonder why people can be so reticent to be honest with God. To tell him you're pissed off at him for something. He's God, he can handle it and he knows how you feel but you expressing it means it can be worked on. I find it hard to yell at God but I am trying to be freer in my communication with Him because it is a good thing to let him in to every aspect of my life.

He didn't say he was against gays. Just doesn't support gay marriage. And no you don't have to support a particular organizations political agendas 100% in order to be for them.

I'm for minorities but don't always see eye-to-eye with their political agendas. I'm for the disabled but don't support all their political agendas...

I'm really tired of homosexuals labeling a person homophobic if they don't support every single one of their political agendas.

I think things get tricky when politics gets involved. I really do. Sometimes it would be good to strip all that away so people can get to the heart of the matter and discuss topics without fear of being labelled this or that. Seems that rarely happens, though.

 

[HankDolworth]

I wonder why people can be so reticent to be honest with God. To tell him you're pissed off at him for something. He's God, he can handle it and he knows how you feel but you expressing it means it can be worked on. I find it hard to yell at God but I am trying to be freer in my communication with Him because it is a good thing to let him in to every aspect of my life.

The Psalms are rife with missives of people angry with God, always an interesting perusal.

Be blessed.

 

[English Lady]

The Psalms are rife with missives of people angry with God, always an interesting perusal.

Be blessed.

Indeed! I love the Psalms!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

So is Ecclesiastes.

And there should be much debate about what Paul was really upset about. Was he actually against same-sex love or was he upset with men who went to pagan temples, performed oral sex on other men and gave the money they received to the temple? To me that would be a much greater reason for distress than two men just getting it on in private. Among the more mainstream denominations this discussion can get quite detailed.

Anyway, my latest story is about a pious bunch who got thrown out of their home country and sent to the stars. Midsummerfest, Chap 1.

 

[master_chay]

Don't Write Smut

I keep hearing this unfortunate term:

"I write smut."

I guess there are people who do and really get a kick out of it.

But you don't have to write smut if it makes you feel uncomfortable or compromised.

One can write erotica, that's what I do. I don't consider to write in order to make people hot or come to be "dirty." My hands are clean

Pornographic literature is another one or just pornographic writing. Sexually explicit writing.

Exploring human sexuality through fiction.

Many ways to think and FEEL about writing about sex.

Filthy dirty delicious SEX ...

 

[WaywardandLost]

English Lady I would like to thank you for starting this page. I became a Christian on March 14th 1986. I use to celebrate that day but now it usually comes and goes without my notice. I had an operation on my right lung a few years ago to take out a Carcinoid Tumor. I had it easy though compared to so many other people. I just had to have follow up X-Rays every six months. When I was first diagnosed I started coming unglued as the Doctor was running all sorts of tests to make sure the rest of my body was clean. I had always had problems with my place in this world but then the thoughts came more and more often. Why was I born? What is my purpose? Why did God create us? What's the point of it all? I have been struggling with my faith and and self worth on an highly acclerated level since that day. I feel guilty for feeling this way as so many people have it so much harder than I did and do. The Bible Scripture that would describe my frame of mind would be:


Ecclesiastes 1:2

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

 

[DG Hear]

The deck of cards

I just received a new version of this on u-tube, I like the original much more. Here it is to share. with Christians Friends.
DG

http://www.jacksjoint.com/deck_of_cards_bible.htm