"This leads right into the other significant difference we have. We do not believe that God cares about what we do. We believe that He only cares about who we are. When this is told to a previous generation Christian, they claim that this is not difference at all, but when it's explained that this means that we do not believe in sacrifice at all, they then start to back track.
"For most Christians, sacrifice is a big deal. In fact, for them, the more you sacrifice, the better a Christian you are. We, on the other hand, see no sacrifice in being a Christian. Quite the opposite. We believe it is a sacrifice to not be a Christian.
"The principle of sacrifice is to do something that you would normally not want to do. In other words, to do something that you would prefer not doing. As my husband stated earlier, we believe God only wants us to do things we should want to do any way, and if what He requires of us can be considered a sacrifice to us, then there is something wrong in us that needs to be fixed.
"As you all should know by now, because we make this quite plain in our church, we abstain from physical pleasure on the Sabbath. Specifically, no sexual conduct that leads to orgasm, including masturbation; no eating of meat; no alcohol or tobacco use; no candy or chocolate; and while you may not call it a physical pleasure, we abstain from television use, unless it is part of a group activity. The only concession we make that causes debate within our kingdom is that we allow coffee and tea drinking.
"Marcia, since you brought it up earlier, why do you suppose we do this?"
This caught Marcia off guard, and took her a few seconds to respond. "I'm not sure why, Mistress Jennifer. I suppose because those things are wrong in some way."
"Not at all," replied Lady Jennifer. "Let's try this. Why did you vow to abstain from physical pleasure? Why do you suppose your parents honored it?"
"I guess I did it because it was the right thing to do, Mistress Jennifer. And my parents honored it because they believe it is the right thing to do," replied Marcia.
"Really?" Lady Jennifer asked. "I just stated that we do not believe in sacrifice. Why would your parents believe it's the right thing for you to do?"
Marcia was clearly puzzled by this turn in the conversation, and Lady Jennifer could tell she was deeply troubled, which is what she wanted Marcia to experience all along.
"The reason you did it," Lady Jennifer continued, "is because you respect your parents, and you see your parents doing it. You also see that your parents do not require it of children, so you naturally associate it with proper adult behavior.
"I'm going to explain the reasons why we abstain on the Sabbath in a minute, but I first want you to consider yourself. Look deep into yourself, and ponder your motivations. Your reaction earlier that something was being foisted on you was a childish reaction, and goes to the heart of why we do not explain this to our children.
"When we first started our abstention practice, we would explicitly prevent children from participating until they became adults. Yet like you, our children began to see this as what it meant to be an adult, and we did not want to limit or restrict their development to adulthood, so we allowed them to abstain also.
"Eventually though, we began to see a side benefit; one that is directly related to why we teach you to believe in Santa Clause. Now that you are an adult, we want you to seriously consider why you believe, what you believe, is right or wrong.
"Whether you want to admit it or not, as an undeveloped, or immature mind, you believe what is right or wrong based on what the people you respect believe, and not based on some absolute definition of it.
"When we practice or talk about abstaining from physical pleasure we never use the word sacrifice. Even when we hear people who go to our church, but are not members of this kingdom, use the word sacrifice to describe what we are doing, we make no effort to correct them. It takes an adult mind, one that is willing to apply reason to what he or she believes, in order to grasp what we are doing.
In order to give his wife a break, Lord Jacob continued, "We believe that God gave us the gift of physical pleasure for us to enjoy on Earth, but like all his gifts, none of them should be abused. Even the act of worshipping God can be abused. And yes, we view worshipping God as a gift from Him to us.
"Take for example the Muslim requirement to pray five times a day. This is clearly a case of quantity over quality; style over substance. The idea that your life can be made better by stopping what ever you are doing to kneel on the ground five times a day is ridiculous. Worshipping God does make your life better. Sticking to some arbitrarily defined prayer schedule does not — and this schedule is arbitrary because if five times a day is good, would not six be better? How about seven? Would I be a saint if I did it eight times?
"So why exactly do we abstain from physical pleasure on the Sabbath? There are many ways to abuse almost anything, and most of those abuses are easy to see. If you abuse candy too much you wind up fat, or a diabetic. Yet it is OK to eat and enjoy candy as long as you don't abuse it, and the most insidious form of abuse is identification. If you believe you need candy in order to be happy, then you identify with it. It becomes part of your definition. It becomes part of who you are.
"Our abstention from sunrise Sunday morning to sunrise Monday morning is about proving to ourselves that we do not identify with physical pleasure. Now, the actual act of not engaging in physical pleasure proves nothing.
"Again, I go back to what my wife said that started this line of reasoning. God does not care about what you do. He cares only about who you are. So if who you are finds that abstaining from physical pleasure one day a week to be a sacrifice, then who you are has identified with it. Physical pleasure is now part of your definition.
"So anytime you believe you need to sacrifice something, you should think long and hard about it. Is this something you should reject, like some voice telling you to kill your child, or is this a calling to change who you are? In either case, when it comes to religion, sacrifice is either bad, or it points to something bad in you."
Like a well-oiled machine, Lady Jennifer and Lord Jacob were hitting their stride. It was now Lady Jennifer's turn to continue the lesson. "In the Bible we learn that God has commanded of us to keep the Sabbath holy, but why? More importantly, how does one keep the Sabbath holy? As we have stated many times, we believe that God only commands of us what we should want anyway.
"So, what should we do? A twenty-four hour prayer vigil seems silly, so what exactly should we do? We believe that on the Sabbath we should focus our lives on why we were created, which is to engage in relationships — relationships with ourselves and with God through Christ.
"All physical pleasures are about pleasing ourselves, not about pleasing each other. While we present to those outside of our kingdom that we abstain from physical pleasure on the Sabbath, inwardly we focus on pleasing each other, not ourselves. So for us, the Sabbath is not about what we are not allowed to do, but what we should want to do all along."
Marcia raised her hand, and Lady Jennifer acknowledges her with a nod. "Mistress Jennifer, you stated that we are supposed to abstain from sex, yet isn't sex about pleasing each other, and not about pleasing ourselves?"
"Great question. Part of the problem in living in a society that has so many conflicting attitudes about something like sex, is that it is often very hard to know exactly what we mean by that word.
"We are sexual beings that need physical contact, and this kind of behavior is OK in the terms of what we are trying to abstain from. It is orgasms that are prohibited, and this includes sexual contact with intent of bring either ourselves, or someone else, to an orgasm. No matter how you slice it, when you have an orgasm, it is about pleasing yourself. Just because someone else helped you there, doesn't change that.
"Part of the reason for abstaining from physical gratification of a sexual nature is to make sure we understand this difference. The most obvious example is that we should never have sex with our children, yet we should enjoy physical contact with them. We should enjoy hugging, and holding them. Especially things like having them sit on our laps while reading them a story.
"Parents who confuse physical contact with sex are the types of people who will take a standoff approach to their children, and this isn't good for the children or the parents. We want the members of our kingdom to focus on the physical contact that is good to have with children, because that is the best kind from a spiritual stand point. Does that answer your question?" asked Lady Jennifer.
"Yes it does, Mistress Jennifer," replied Marcia.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2pxrx5/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch03_marcia