Is this too much religious idealogy?

[thenewageriseth]

I was enjoying my time in Peoria, IL. with my relatives. It was between two houses-Sherry's house and my aunt and uncle's house (her parents). Well, it was Christmas. I was helping fix stuff in the kitchen. Washing greens, doing the cake. I was talking to Sherry about certain parts of my series. It started when she mentioned that I should draw my characters Kenya and Stanley with wedding rings or bands if I'm going to draw them in an intimate or close way. So I'm like "cool". I agree there.
It would be more "holy" or whatever.
So I mentioned kissing in my series and holding and she said that Corinthians 7:1 mentions that it's best for a man not to touch a woman, unless married. So that kinda put me in a personal dilemma. Like, how the heck can I abstain from kissing my guy? Pshhpfft. :scratch: :eek:

So for the series, I decided to edit those parts out, gradually accepting the small edits..

Then I mentioned some of Stanley's "New Age/New Thought" practices (Astrology, numerology, psychic/prophetic powers, telepathy)

she said she would do more research on telepathy, but she cringed when I mentioned telepathy. lol
I can't take that out of the story-it'll alter parts of my story, SEVERELY. I think it actually depends on what parts though. :P lol

Lastily, I mentioned the sapphire necklace Kenya uses to transform. I mentioned that she was an angelic superheroine and a magical girl in one, and every time Sherry hears "magic" she almost plotz...O_O
She said she'd have to pray about it, but wasn't sure if we could use it. My alternative was a cross necklace-but she wasn't sure if I could use the symbolism or whatever, because it was so-called heavily tied with witchcraft. Yeah right.

She also mentioned that the birthstone thing may be evil too in so many words. But that birthstone deal is very vague in my series. Kenya does have a sapphire stone though, cuz she's a Virgo born in September.

I'd be darned if I had to change the whole storyline, because of a little thing like that. There should be ways to go around the fact that she transforms with the necklace and that the necklace draws power from God, not any demonic source. Furthermore, I mentioned that sometimes exorcists use amulets and necklaces to help them. She still wasn't completely convinced. I suppose she has to pray about and all and do more research, but I don't want to have to go back and change my storyline a tad because of the necklace thing.

Magical girls should be acceptable in Christian society. They shouldn't be spat upon because of the magical overtones. Not everything is evil and demonic. If they use magic for good then why isn't it good?
It makes me sad that I have to put up with this kinda thing whenever dealing with serious Christians. :cry:
Makes me want to throw in the towel sometimes.

What do y'all think? Am I complaining too much?

[Nadiine]

I was enjoying my time in Peoria, IL. with my relatives. It was between two houses-Sherry's house and my aunt and uncle's house (her parents). Well, it was Christmas. I was helping fix stuff in the kitchen. Washing greens, doing the cake. I was talking to Sherry about certain parts of my series. It started when she mentioned that I should draw my characters Kenya and Stanley with wedding rings or bands if I'm going to draw them in an intimate or close way. So I'm like "cool". I agree there.
It would be more "holy" or whatever.
So I mentioned kissing in my series and holding and she said that Corinthians 7:1 mentions that it's best for a man not to touch a woman, unless married. So that kinda put me in a personal dilemma. Like, how the heck can I abstain from kissing my guy? Pshhpfft. :scratch: :eek:

So for the series, I decided to edit those parts out, gradually accepting the small edits..

Then I mentioned some of Stanley's "New Age/New Thought" practices (Astrology, numerology, psychic/prophetic powers, telepathy)

she said she would do more research on telepathy, but she cringed when I mentioned telepathy. lol
I can't take that out of the story-it'll alter parts of my story, SEVERELY. I think it actually depends on what parts though. :P lol

Lastily, I mentioned the sapphire necklace Kenya uses to transform. I mentioned that she was an angelic superheroine and a magical girl in one, and every time Sherry hears "magic" she almost plotz...O_O
She said she'd have to pray about it, but wasn't sure if we could use it. My alternative was a cross necklace-but she wasn't sure if I could use the symbolism or whatever, because it was so-called heavily tied with witchcraft. Yeah right.

She also mentioned that the birthstone thing may be evil too in so many words. But that birthstone deal is very vague in my series. Kenya does have a sapphire stone though, cuz she's a Virgo born in September.

I'd be darned if I had to change the whole storyline, because of a little thing like that. There should be ways to go around the fact that she transforms with the necklace and that the necklace draws power from God, not any demonic source. Furthermore, I mentioned that sometimes exorcists use amulets and necklaces to help them. She still wasn't completely convinced. I suppose she has to pray about and all and do more research, but I don't want to have to go back and change my storyline a tad because of the necklace thing.

Magical girls should be acceptable in Christian society. They shouldn't be spat upon because of the magical overtones. Not everything is evil and demonic. If they use magic for good then why isn't it good?
It makes me sad that I have to put up with this kinda thing whenever dealing with serious Christians. :cry:
Makes me want to throw in the towel sometimes.

What do y'all think? Am I complaining too much?

Well, I'm sure EVE asked, "why can't i just take have this piece of fruit for pete's sakes, how stupid!".
And we all know the end of that story & what that gave Satan by way of power & dominion over us.

As far as the occult - all of it is from the source of Satan. ALL OF IT. There is no such thing as doing GOOD with Satan.
So are you ok with saying, "I'll use stuff that's satanic when I see some good use for it"?
To tread on his territory traps YOU and puts you into bondage. Is that worth the "good" it might do? (temporarily?)

If you don't like hearing the truth, that's fine, maybe someone else will read the posts and accept the warnings.
There's lots of books written by converted pagans & Christian warfare leaders who deal with this that testify to the dangers of
going to satanic territory.

[thenewageriseth]

But taking out the the necklace messes up the story. She said she'd have to pray about it, however.
She always mentions "the truth" when talking about these things.
Well, they ain't never lied when they said that the truth does hurt.
Also, the truth is that I should have made Kenya ordinary from the get go or a superheroine in a more or less "magical way"

I'm cool with editing out some of the parts about New Age so it is not to offend someone or whatever-I can dilute those parts out some more, pending. But the necklace thing is gonna make me have to work extra hard and I don't want to do that. I want to get this project out on the shelves possibly before 2012. (Long story why...but yeah)

Yup. I don't want to work extra hard looking through 280 pages of manuscript for the word "necklace" and related words. No fun. O_O Anything like that hinders my progress.

[thenewageriseth]

And I still hold on to some of those beliefs, cuz it's a part of my personality. Can't throw that away. A pastor once said that you shouldn't try to please people. And he never lied, either. I've stopped trying to please everyone. >_< If they don't like this magical girl idea, it's their little red wagon. It's cool. But don't weigh me down with endless scripture about the Occult this, occult that. Fantasy and new age/new thought mixed with Christianity things are a passion of mine. To completely throw away 50% of that, in my personality, would be overkill and murder and it would break my heart to have to take apart this story because of something as trivial as this necklace business. And the necklace draws power from God, not Satan, not an outside force. She is so serious and left-brained. O_O No offense. Left-brainedness leaves little room for fantasy daydreams and more room to deal with the harshness of life. :(
Fantasy is the best-much better than reality.

[CrazyforYeshua]

Why would she need a necklace to get power from God? If your heroine is a Christian, she has His power already.
As far as mixing the different beliefs, you can't. It's either Gods way, or satans way. No fence walking there.

[JTLauder]

Don't know what your story is about, but why not make things interesting and the characters more complex. You can leave all the "questionable" items in your story but then have them become challenges for the characters.

For example, the girl can believe her magic powers comes from her necklace. But then something happens where she loses it and she's in a desperate situation where she needs her "magic" and then comes to realize later on that the true source of her power didn't come from her necklace at all. Then it can become a life lesson not only for the character, but for the reader too that one shouldn't depend on physical matters.

Remember, the strongest component moving any story forward is conflict, not only conflict the characters become involved in, but internal conflict too, which often times can be even more compelling to read.

[thenewageriseth]

Why would she need a necklace to get power from God? If your heroine is a Christian, she has His power already.
As far as mixing the different beliefs, you can't. It's either Gods way, or satans way. No fence walking there.
Cuz she's supposed to be a magical girl type protagonist, like Sailor Moon and them...
I love adding magical girls to the mix
The necklace draws more power from God than from the character herself

[thenewageriseth]

Don't know what your story is about, but why not make things interesting and the characters more complex. You can leave all the "questionable" items in your story but then have them become challenges for the characters.

For example, the girl can believe her magic powers comes from her necklace. But then something happens where she loses it and she's in a desperate situation where she needs her "magic" and then comes to realize later on that the true source of her power didn't come from her necklace at all. Then it can become a life lesson not only for the character, but for the reader too that one shouldn't depend on physical matters.

Remember, the strongest component moving any story forward is conflict, not only conflict the characters become involved in, but internal conflict too, which often times can be even more compelling to read.
Oh yeah there's a lot of conflict. That's an interesting idea. But she knows that the power comes from God. God created the amulet. Marina, her guardian angel gave it to her.