Well, it is supposed to be the time of reflection on Christ’s birth. Awaiting. Anticipating. A quiet time.

Nah, it’s Madvent. Had a work party last two days — one at lunch, one at dinner, and walking away from seconds was hard. My body will thank me. Flying to be with family and have the annual holiday today, emailed the last project to the relevant editor yesterday (well my colleague did, who then came to the dinner with me).

But this morning, I looked at the lectionary and then got distracted at SSM’s. There is a line of cute, way cute clothing for Christian Girrlz that Britney would be embarrassed to wear. As SSM said, her husband was enjoying the photos a little too much. The clothes were skanky (Ladies, go to TC for some inspiration and beautiful dresses. Alte does post on fashion more than she will admit).

As Rollo said, this is marketing.

I have a term I use when discussing the dynamic of churchianity’s appropriations of “worldly” trends and sanctifying them for the Lord’s use – Christian Kosher.

I work in the alcohol/spirits industry and several of my brands are big sellers for the Jewish demographic. The only obstacle in selling to Jews however is in receiving an OU kosher certification from a licensed Rabbi. Once I get that for a brand and the little OU logo goes on the bottle sales generally skyrocket for the first few months and then level off.

There’s really nothing more to it than sending a sample bottle to the certifying Rabbi and then paying him roughly $500 to get the kosher classification. It’s just the price of entry into a niche market.

Evangelicals have also adopted this kosher certifying strategy, but as with everything churchy they go much bigger for their much larger niche market. When they see the ‘world’ enjoying some new music, art form or cultural trend, they usually wait 3-5 years (mostly spent decrying the evils of it), then adopt the trend, slap a Jesus Fish® brand logo on it and sell the cool new christian kosher version of it to their demographic.

If I could somehow find the evangelical equivalent of Manischewitz wine and slap a Jesus fish on the bottle, I wouldn’t be blogging anymore, I’d be on the beach in Aruba.

Now, I have no issue about girls wearing things that are pretty. But not skanky: one of the odd things I do when visiting the daughter is help with getting school clothes for her eight-going-on-fourteen daughter who lives for dance lessons. The most common word is “No”. If I can see it being worn in a Rap video, I say no. The kid should be a child for a while longer, particularly as she lives in the prairie provinces, which seem to celebrate young women as some kind of weird jailbait. Clothes should be practical. You need to be comfortable in them, because you will need to work in them.

Now, instead of looking at the very practical and feminine things women have worn for centuries (again, women, follow men here. There have been three inventions in male clothing during my life — non itchy (merino) underwear, lycra, and cargo pants. Only the first was not a disaster). The Christians are following the secularists into showing enough flesh to ensure, at least in NZ, you will get a melanoma.

[And we have done this before. When I was young, the standard running attire in Auckland, in summer, was running shorts, if male. No top. The girls wore a jogbra and shorts. (I know of one olympian who ended up with a melanoma after doing this for most of his life). You learnt to ignore the skin -- simply because we trained hard and when you are doing hill repeats you are not concentrating on how cute she is but keeping ahead of her. We now cover up. Hats, shirt, longer shorts. Sunburn gets in the way of your training. And in the South Island most of the time you need three layers anyway.]

When I pray for my grand daughter, I pray that she will enjoy her sports and school and dance — and remain a little girl for a while longer. That she may find a young man when she is old enough to choose to marry or to remain single. And that the structures her parents place around her will help with this. The current skank culture does not help. Neither does the church  when it doubles down, and says, in error, that Joseph and Mary were a blended family.

Mary and Joseph were betrothed when Mary told Joseph she was pregnant. A foreign word in today’s terms, betrothed was an even stronger commitment than engagement, one that required a writ of divorce to break.

It was during their betrothal when Mary went to Joseph, who was not sexually active with Mary, and told him she is pregnant.  I can imagine one of the first things that leapt into Joseph’s mind was, “It’s not mine,” and maybe even said to Mary, “Whose is it?”

We’re told that Joseph thought about leaving her, but he didn’t; he chose to believe Mary. Joseph’s friends questioned his decision to stay with his pregnant fiancée.

Um, no.  A blended family is when two adults, raising their children, marry. This will cause a considerable adjustment to both familes, as the children will at one level not only be resentful that Mom or Dad is in love with someone else (creepy) or in bed with them (gross) but that they are now expected to treat these new children as part of the family (who they hate).  It can be worked through, but it will cause problems.

Joseph was engaged to a virgin, and when he found she was pregnant he chose to follow the law and break the betrothal — by giving a writ of divorce privately.  God intervened, but as the Phineas boys say, Joseph’s plan would usually be correct.

This includes what God has set out for how people should live their lives. The normative action for a man who is following God’s plan for his life is to do as Joseph was to do with Mary. There will only be one virgin birth and one begotten Son of God, EVER. God’s plan is not for fornication, and especially not for the REWARD of fornication within His body, but for the chastity of sexual relationships to be confined to marriage.

Well, while the churchians slump into apostasy, we need to get on and live according to the clear teaching of the church — from the gospels and throughout the 2000 years since then. Some things are wrong: Theft, murder, covetousness (greed and jealousy). And fornication.  The classical teaching to women (and men) is that modesty is a charity — it makes it easier for those around us.  This, when young, may be exposing flesh, and when older, not being so overweight that you are repulsive.

Ladies, skimpy clothes follow the nudist beach rule: the only people who should be there are supermodels (either gender). The rest of us need clothes.