All of the girls filed back into the dining room. Waiting for them was pots of coffee and pitchers of iced tea. There were also some snacks of fresh fruit and cookies. Some of the girls began partaking what was available, while others continued on out to the hall. Marcia followed Laura out, and saw on the opposite side of the hall a door labeled Women's Lounge. She then followed Laura into it.
The room was what any woman would love to find in something called a Woman's Lounge. Not only were there extremely comfortable looking lounges, but also the room was decorated with floral patterns and plenty of actual flowers. No man could walk into this room and think he belonged.
Marcia then asked Laura, "So what's next? I am so emotionally drained after what we have covered so far, I don't know how I am going to deal with anything more."
Laura looked back at Marcia as she appeared to be heading towards a row of four doors on the far wall. "It's hard to say exactly. I know they will cover the hierarchy of the kingdom and how it is religiously inspired." Then as she opened the door on the far left she said, "One thing I do recommend is that everyone use the bidet." As she said this she pointed to one in the small room that she just opened. This was an obvious toilet room with a sink, and a bidet.
Laura then said loud enough for the other two girls in the room to hear "When Mistress Jennifer says to freshen up she's telling you others are about to get very intimate with you, so I would advise you get as clean as possible."
With that, she entered the room, and closed the door. Marcia took the door to the right, and then silently thanked her mother for showing her how to use a bidet.
Later on, Laura and Marcia were drinking some water, and eating an apple at the dinner table, and taking about a controversial softball game they had played against each other. All the other girls were also sitting around the table enjoying the refreshments. At Laura's warning, each of them had 'freshened up.'
Lady Jennifer stuck her head in the room, "OK girls, let's get back at it." Then pulled back into the parlor.
Marcia thought it was a rather somber group that filed back in. She knew for sure one girl was about to be spanked, 'and maybe the rest of us too,' she thought.
Lord Jacob and Lady Jennifer had already taken their seats, and as the girls sat in their previous spot, Lady Jennifer spoke. "You girls have already been exposed to much of our kingdom, and we have taught you the major points of our religion, so now a question needs to be asked. Do we believe that for anyone to be a proper next generation Christian they have to form a patriarchal kingdom that has rejected monogamy and has a propensity to spank its women? From what you have learned so far, is this required?"
Lady Jennifer looked around the room, and saw a lot of confused expressions. She then noticed Marcia raise her hand, which Lady Jennifer nodded towards her.
Shaking her head, Marcia replied, "No, Mistress Jennifer, it is not."
"Very good, Marcia. That is the right answer." Then to the group she continued, "I saw a lot of confused looks on each of you, when there really shouldn't be. I don't blame you, because you all have a lot learn. While our kingdom is religiously inspired, our kingdom is not our religion. It's is better described as our culture. It is how we choose to interact with each other.
"We view religion as an absolute, yet we view life as an experiment. Religion is about black and white, yet we live in a world of mostly varying shades of gray. What little black and white we encounter comes from experimenting with those shades of gray.
"Far too many people believe that the only aspects of the world you should partake is what is religiously permissible, but this model only works if the purpose of religion is to follow orders, and if all you are doing is following orders, then understanding will never happen.
"Again, we do not believe that God cares about what we do. He only cares about who we are. For many, following God's commandment 'Thou shall not kill' is good enough for them, but not for us. We need to understand why."
Lady Jennifer added quickly, "Now don't worry girls, we don't engage in human sacrifice to find out why we shouldn't kill. But this does lead into an excellent line of reasoning concerning abortion. Jacob, do you want to take it from here?"
"Certainly," he replied to his wife. Then to the others, "We in this kingdom do not blame the Roe vs. Wade decision for the abortions that occur in this country. We blame the Christians. Just as we blame the Christians that gathered in Nicea for the Dark Ages, we blame the Christians who insist that people do as they are commanded for the majority of abortions today.
"Outlawing abortions is just treating a symptom to a problem, not the actual problem. We need to get all people, not just women, to see the sanctity of life. This is a very daunting task, because you have to go all the way back to why so many women, particularly liberal women, see having children as a life limiting experience.
"As daunting as a task this is, it is made even harder by the previous generation Christians who stand outside Planned Parenthood clinics with their huge posters of dismembered fetuses. These fools are as delusional as the street preachers, and do what they do for the same selfish reasons. They'll point to the occasional girl whom they have talked out of an abortion to justify what they are doing, and at the same time, dismiss the many more whose hearts they have harden with their hate and disrespect.
"All they really care about is demonstrating to God just how wrong they think abortion is. Actually ending abortions is not their concern. This is a distinction between the street preacher and abortion protester. The street preacher will change what he is doing, or stop all together, if he is not getting any results at all. The abortion protester will continue what he or she is doing whether there are any results or not.
"So not only do we have to deal with why liberals consider children to be a burden, but we also have to do it through the damage these fools have caused. They cannot understand that you can never teach others to respect life without first respecting them, and they will always be blinded to this as long as they focus on believing that everyone should do as they are told, instead of first understanding why."
Sandra Nelson's hand shot up at this time. She appeared to have an urgent need to ask a question, so Lord Jacob decided to indulge her. "Yes Sandra?"
"Master Jacob, can I assume from what you just said that abortion should be legal?" asked Sandra.
"The answer to that question is quite complex…." began Lord Jacob, but before he could continue Sandra spoke up again.
Sandra's words may have been confrontational, but her tone was more anguished. "Master Jacob, you are equivocating. I asked you a simple yes or no question. Do you believe abortion should be legal?"
Lord Jacob took a few moments to gather his thoughts, and then responded, not in a condescending way, but definitely as a parent would talk to a young child. "The way you just interrupted me would normally warrant punishment, but I'll let it go this time because I share your agony of living in a society where someone must be born in order to be afforded the rights of a person.
"That said, you must understand how your emotional response is working against you. People who ask 'simple yes or no' questions are not interested in learning what the other person has to say. They are only interested in pigeonholing people into preconceived frames of thought.
"I know exactly what meaning you have assigned to the yes answer, and exactly what meaning you have assigned to the no, and guess what, neither meaning is even remotely correct.
"What I was about to say is that the best short answer I can give you is that as long as women are not getting pregnant just so that they can have abortions, then I'm not going to waste my time trying to outlaw them. If that ever changes, I'll reconsider it."
Lady Jennifer then added, "And the way things are developing in the stem cell debate, the moment of reconsideration could be fast approaching."
While she still had everyone's attention she decided to carry the lesson for a while. "I want you girls to realize that we do not question God's commandments because we doubt them. We question them so that we can properly implement them. When we just go through the motions, and just do as we are told without understanding why, we are as more likely as not to cause more harm than good.
"So what we have done is taken this questioning attitude to everything in the Bible by looking for the real meaning behind what is in there. To begin with, we threw out all of our preconceived notions, and looked at everything with a fresh perspective.
"Some things were obviously good, like keeping the Sabbath holy. Our efforts to understand why we should do so enriched our lives much more than the meager benefits, if any, we would have gotten if we had just gone through the motions.
"Others appeared obviously bad, such as God's commandment that men should dominate women, but our analysis has led us somewhere else. But before we get into that, let's look at something that appeared obviously good, but in fact wasn't, and that is monogamy."
Lord Jacob said to his wife. "Jenny, we have not proven monogamy wrong, we just haven't proved it right either." Then to the girls he said, "If the issue of monogamy had been settled it would be part of our religion. It hasn't, so the rejection of monogamy is only part of our culture."
Lady Jennifer continued with the girls, "I stand corrected…. or sit corrected as my logically minded husband might insist.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2py5q9/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch03_marcia