#Christian encounter

[carlocarrasco]

Reject Halloween, Stand With God

In my old life, I used to be fond of celebrating Halloween. Having been Born Again, I realized my true purpose in life under God the Father and His Son Jesus. That being said, I realized how wrong it is to celebrate Halloween which is essentially evil and unholy for any Christian (including those who practice idolatry which itself is sinful). Halloween will take Christians away from the Lord and…

[koshercosplay]

alrighty folks buckle up for the fifth year of menorabilia ratings! I've scoured the internet (and my eyeballs) so get ready for the best and worst chanukah merchandise of the year

okay first I just need to get these fuckin gnomes out of the way. ideally permanently. this guy's hat has so much going on I don't know where to begin. the menorah? not kosher. also wrong. the dreidels? certainly have,,, something written on them. everyone knows reindeer love chanukah, the lighting fires holiday. 5/10 at least it's got SOMEWHAT of a cuteness factor

turning old CDs into fake sufganiyot is certainly creative bc that's the only explanation for those monstrosities that I'll accept. please don't spin your spontaneous combustion menorahs on top of your dreidels. it won't bring the next season any faster. 4/10 I'll put up with a lot if you're offering to pay for my netflix account

they are Setting That Torah On Fire. is that why there's an oil jug next to a candle menorah. 6/10 the פ instead of a ש‎ on the dreidel is because the miracle is just the torah not bursting into flames

this really puts the messy in messianic. it's got the wrong amount of branches. why is the shamash just two stacked cups. the cross looks like an airplane. oh god it also has the jesus fish. -76162802492/10 never knew a single image could contain so much No.

some of these menorahs are kosher and some are not which really spices things up. what a fun little game of I spy for me. I enjoy the addition of various happy animals celebrating chanukah but were the santa hats really necessary? 7/10 that bottom dreidel has two נ‎s. none dreidel with left coins.

I can acknowledge that it's an attempt to jewish-ize a christmas thing but tinsel is, unfortunately, occasionally, pretty. weird choice to have all the menorahs have נ‎s but sure. what's that? those are dreidels? wrong. take a look at the helpful next image of this item.

do you see it yet? here let me help.

clearly those are menorahs. we light them on fire and spin them as fast as we can. first one to die loses. 5/10 google is your friend

move over fiddler on the roof chassidim with bottle balancing skills, here come some cats with impressive candle dexterity. this may not be a kosher menorah but their TAILS are the BRANCHES. 7/10 I am easily won over by the presence of cats okay

canon jewish representation, a spinning dreidel, a kosher menorah, some chocolate gelt, and they're eating fresh latkes. I needed these yesterday. 10/10 rugrats my beloved never lets me down

(previous years 1, 2, 3, 4)

[she-is-loved]

I've felt drawn to God for years but I always pushed Him away because of the hate many Christians preached. But one morning, I woke up suddenly and heard a voice say to me "You have to take Jesus back"

And in that moment I knew I couldn't let their hate drive me away from my savior. So I gave my life to Jesus. And the rest is history

So here's your reminder: That we can not let hateful Christians overpower the love of Jesus. Let our love and grace be louder than their hate.

[xiaq]

Your first pride story was touching and all but you still married a man.

Yeah, bisexuals do that sometimes.

[journey-to-the-attic]

au where this was how ik and diavolo met for the first time when she was like seven

[mothtaire]

guys I was reading out some valvert scenes from my book to my classmate who didn’t believe that it was that homoerotic how I brought it up, and after that she was flabbergasted how right i was and told me how this book has a ‘’yaoi that is socially approved’’ since its a classic

[larks-art]

Finished the picture of Moses! Super happy with how this turned out- I think I do want to practice drawing animals a bit more, though.

[widowshill]

— And do you or do you not have difficulty remembering such simple instructions? — Only during thunderstorms, sir.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) / DARK SHADOWS (1966)

[idiopathicsmile]

the hardest part of growing up Unitarian Universalist in a small, conservative midwestern town was that pretty much nobody outside the church had any idea what it was.

i know this is not the case in parts of the east coast, and probably parts of the west coast too, but in rural illinois, when i said i wasn't christian but unitarian, the default assumption was that i was part of some weird cult.

i would try to explain the basics of my religion—no creed, no requirements to believe in any deities (but you can if you want), the emphasis is on kindness and acceptance of others and finding the spiritual path that works for you—but it's a pretty esoteric thing for a child to try to verbalize, particularly to other children.

kids on the playground would get as far as "wait, so you don't believe jesus christ is your lord and savior?" then they'd drop me in the "going to hell" bucket and be done with me.

one time in middle school, one of my closest friends said "oh hey, what is it that you believe again?" and when i was about halfway through my little elevator speech, i said something about tolerance of difference and she threw a significant look at three of my other closest friends because the four of them had gotten really into the Left Behind books and turns out that in that particular series, "tolerance" is one of the favorite words of The Antichrist. that's why they'd asked.

the fucking antichrist.

on the other hand, the funniest part of growing up Unitarian Universalist in a small, conservative midwestern town was that pretty much nobody outside the church had any idea what it was.

in sixth grade, we were supposed to wear heavy, gloppy foundation and blush and eye shadow to be extras in the school play. i knew from other school plays that it irritated the hell out of my skin, and so, figuring that alone would probably not spare me, i told the adult in charge that i couldn't wear stage makeup because it was "against my belief system."

she was like, "oh yeah? what's your religion?"

when i said "Unitarian" not a single adult in the room knew what that meant well enough to push back. i went on stage bare-faced.

i looked like a ghost up there but the thing about being UU is that even as a kid, you get to decide for yourself what is spiritually important to you. and on that day i decided that part of my personal, cosmic, holy truth was exploiting loopholes to avoid itchy rashes all over my face, amen.

[o-uncle-newt]

I just got a bit more time in my schedule and I'm hoping to get started on a Sayers-and-Jews reading list, if anyone has any suggestions! I just really feel like I've never seen anyone talk about how WEIRD the apparent received wisdom is of "Sayers was in a relationship with a completely secular Jew who tried to convince her to have premarital sex she was religiously uncomfortable with, which NATURALLY made her start writing about Jews, but a totally different kind of basically fetishized ultra-conservative type than Cournos was." There are clearly missing links there- not an obvious or intuitive connection at all- and I have my own ideas of what they are and am so curious if it's already been written about.

[carlocarrasco]

2025

Happy New Year to everyone! 2025 is finally here. So much has happened in 2024, particularly in the Middle East and in America. Israel clearly led the war against Islamic terrorists who were led by the terrorist state of Iran. The good news is that Israel made tremendous gains against the terrorists (example: the elimination of Yahyah Sinwar) which tremendously weakened the axis of evil of…

[dramoor]

"God arranges for us to meet certain people so that we could pass on the good given to us by God and enrich each other's souls."

~St. Theophan the Recluse

(Icon via orthochristian.com)

[sherpafrankiefreddiesteviegeorge]

Evangelical Christians are the worse because they can't have a normal conversation. I can't talk about being queer without it turning into a very loud debate about human rights but it's okay for Christians to feel comfortable telling me and people like me should go to Hell.

I just wanted a coffee, why do you have to give me a sermon I didn't ask for!

[crippled-peeper]

sorry for being very opinionated about some weirdly specific topics like chiropracty and homeopathy because I was raised by a type 1 diabetic and a 4th-5th generation atheist so I live with the persistent need to want to learn the actual nature of things instead of letting my intuition and feelings guide my choices and kill my disabled ass in the process. like. I’m not dying for your feelings

[theshoesofatiredman]

I'm revisiting a part of The High School Survival Guide: Making the Most of the Best Time of Your Life (so far) by Adam Palmer. It's a Christian book despite the fact that the title makes it seem totally areligious, and I read parts of it when I was in high school. It was the first time I ever read about being gay in a book. I found a free version online and while I didn't think the Bible could shock me anymore my mouth dropped open at this:

Apparently the MSG version of this passage really says the quiet part out loud. Gay people aren't even human / lose the knowledge of how to be human. Not sure how that works. There's such a dissonance between the tone of this verse and the tone of the text in the book too.

GEE I WONDER WHY??? How strange that Christians, who believe their sacred text claims that homosexual acts strip people of God, love, and their humanity, view homosexuality as 'icky' and 'gross.' In fact, I would think they'd think much worse in that scenario and treat gay people far worse. In fact, it kinda seems like you're downplaying the absolutely brutal treatment and systemic discrimination of gay people that was carried out in the name of Jesus.

And all of this is being aimed at (presumably Christian) teenagers who think they might be gay. There's no real advice here other than to surrender to god and to seek accountability.

I was keenly aware as a gay Christian that I was at the center of a culture war I did not want to be a part of. People out beyond my religious community were fighting for an acceptance and celebration of homosexuality that I thought was harmful and sinful. People inside my religious community had all kinds of incorrect ideas about gay people and I didn't think there was much space for me to be "out of the closet" even if I stayed single, celibate, and god-fearing. And I had no idea what to do about any of it.

I didn't come out to anyone until after high school. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, and the weight was still heavy. God did not make it easier, did not lift the burden of homosexuality from me. I had plenty of accountability in my life, constantly watched by helicopter parents with Internet filters, confessing sin regularly in men's groups (both before and after I started to tell people I 'struggled with same-sex attraction). 'Accountability' only served to intensify my shame.

The only time things got easier was when I started to take God out of the equation, when I started to see my sexuality as a part of myself to embrace rather than excise. Christians will drone on and on about how Christ sets people free from their sins. In my experience, to be free of my sin I had to first be free of Christ.

[macksartblock]

What possible energy am I giving off that makes random old men talk to me about God