Yoga Spam
Superstitious gobbledygook can be found in most, if not all of Christendom; the line bewtween sacred and secular, a thin one. When I sat down to study the bible, I searched for how to lead a God honoring life, and scripture was my plumbline. As a child the rules were simple: don't use the Lord's name in vain, honor your parents, don't steal, and (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX. Pretty basic, as you can see, the perfect recipe for Godly living. Enter puberty...
The bar for christian boys is pretty low: don't lust, don't fiddle with your twig and berries, and (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX, oh... almost forgot... be a leader. Girls, well you are pretty much responsible for causing boys to lust, so: COVER YOUR BOOBIES, make sure your undergarments hide your nippies, nothing says "erotic" more than erect nippies; be soft spoken, long hair is a sign of godliness, dress modestly, don't fiddle with your... never mind... good christian girls don't masturbate..., always SUBMIT, and whatever you do (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX. The groundwork for godly manhood and womanhood has been laid.
Biblical morality was never just a matter of do and don't, you had to be on guard. The lessons that were taught at church, Sunday school, youth group, etc... would shed light on the slippery slope of:
Secular Music- sexually charged lyrics and a beat that might cause you to gyrate in lust. You didn't just have to worry about refrences to sex in music, but also the occult.
TV shows and movies:
Identifying sexual overtones was easy, but the occult? No worries, your teachers will point out all kinds of occult references for you. Seeing a pentagram will leave you feeling like Satan has just breathed down your neck.
Books:
Do not read Harry Potter, Rosemary's Baby, and especially not Stephen King. The list list of banned books in Christendom is infinite compared to Nazi censorship.
Your spirit is your hard-drive, containing who you are at your core. Your personality, your intelligence, and emotions are eternal. Exposing yourself to sexual innuendo, religious symbols, non-christian traditions, even Yoga...can have an affect your spirit, similiar to spyware, cookies, and spam on your computer. Oblivious or not, your spirit could become corrupt and you wouldn't even know it until you had completely strayed from your relationship with God.
During my Koolaid-drinking days, one of the books I read in our homeschool library blew the lid off my understanding of the Sacred vs Secular; Assumptions That Affect Our Lives by Christian Overman. His premise was, there is no secular vs sacred. He emphasised the need to understand both the historical and cultural context of scripture, and the danger of cherry-picking scripture to fit your narrative. It's not that I had never been introduced to these concepts, I had, but there was such an emphasis on "being in the world but not of it", that I felt more secure broadening the divide. I wanted my allegiance to God to be evident in everything I said and did. In the process of drawing closer to God, I alienated friends and family, mistaking self-righteouness for Godliness.
The bar for christian boys is pretty low: don't lust, don't fiddle with your twig and berries, and (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX, oh... almost forgot... be a leader. Girls, well you are pretty much responsible for causing boys to lust, so: COVER YOUR BOOBIES, make sure your undergarments hide your nippies, nothing says "erotic" more than erect nippies; be soft spoken, long hair is a sign of godliness, dress modestly, don't fiddle with your... never mind... good christian girls don't masturbate..., always SUBMIT, and whatever you do (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX. The groundwork for godly manhood and womanhood has been laid.
Biblical morality was never just a matter of do and don't, you had to be on guard. The lessons that were taught at church, Sunday school, youth group, etc... would shed light on the slippery slope of:
Secular Music- sexually charged lyrics and a beat that might cause you to gyrate in lust. You didn't just have to worry about refrences to sex in music, but also the occult.
Identifying sexual overtones was easy, but the occult? No worries, your teachers will point out all kinds of occult references for you. Seeing a pentagram will leave you feeling like Satan has just breathed down your neck.
Books:
Do not read Harry Potter, Rosemary's Baby, and especially not Stephen King. The list list of banned books in Christendom is infinite compared to Nazi censorship.
During my Koolaid-drinking days, one of the books I read in our homeschool library blew the lid off my understanding of the Sacred vs Secular; Assumptions That Affect Our Lives by Christian Overman. His premise was, there is no secular vs sacred. He emphasised the need to understand both the historical and cultural context of scripture, and the danger of cherry-picking scripture to fit your narrative. It's not that I had never been introduced to these concepts, I had, but there was such an emphasis on "being in the world but not of it", that I felt more secure broadening the divide. I wanted my allegiance to God to be evident in everything I said and did. In the process of drawing closer to God, I alienated friends and family, mistaking self-righteouness for Godliness.
Your posts are such a riveting mixture of humor and intensity, Jen! I always wondered: how does all this fear of sex reconcile itself to all the sexual activity in the Bible? But now I know - ie) evangelicals and #LIARINCHIEF.
ReplyDelete