Blogaround

1. If you've signed up for Bluesky, you've signed up for offloadable moderation. (January 1, via) "So instead of communicating, for instance, 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, report it to staff, and we'll take it down,' the BS stance on the matter is 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, use this optional feature to label it as racist, and other users can opt-in to your moderation judgment about that post while we as a platform continue to host it.'"

2. New Residency Based Tax Bill Introduced in the House of Representatives (December 18) Cool, this is a bill intended to help US citizens living abroad who don't owe US taxes but are still required to file every year.

Let me tell you a bit about what I have to do in terms of filing US taxes, as a US citizen living in China long-term: If you are a US citizen abroad, you have to file a US tax return every year, even if you don't owe anything. If you are outside the US for at least 330 days of the year (er, not exactly "the year", it's a bit more complicated than that, but to make it easier to understand I'll just say "330 days of the year"), then you can exclude all your foreign-earned income, and you do not have to pay US income tax on it. (I have an American friend in China who told me about how he had to carefully plan exactly how long his US vacations would be, otherwise he would owe tens of thousands of dollars in income tax, yikes. My US vacations have been short enough I haven't had to worry about this.) Anyway, I meet this requirement, so I don't owe any US income tax on my income from my job in China. I also have income in the US, just interest on bank accounts, nothing big, and that would be taxed but it's low enough that it's less than the standard deduction so I don't owe any tax on that either.

(I'm lucky since my parents have tax software and just do this for me. But I imagine it would be quite a pain to have to figure out how to file taxes on your own, and what's the point if you don't even owe anything.)

So, I'm glad to see this new bill which is aimed at simplifying all this for Americans living abroad. In practical terms, I'm not sure it will help *me* that much- looks like I will need to file anyway because I do have some US income, but at least I won't have to fill out the FBAR form, so that's nice. Seems like it will be most helpful for Americans who don't have any US income.

3. A Profile In Courage (December 18) "With so many terrible examples of how not to take on Trump, Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan shines a light on the correct way forward."

4. All right, I have no idea what to make of this, but the orange antichrist said that any international student who graduates from a US college should automatically get a US green card (I found this link via Jay Kuo).

Various thoughts that I have about this:

• He says a lot of things. Just because he says something doesn't mean it has any connection to what he actually believes or plans to do. So we shouldn't view this like it's an actual serious policy which is going to happen.
• I like this! Think about it: International students graduating from college in the US. They've already lived in the US for several years. They already have their stuff here. They're likely already renting an apartment, and have a US bank account. They already have experience speaking English and interacting with American society. And then when they graduate, they have to worry about if they'll be able to find an employer who can sponsor them on a work visa- they have a limited amount of time before their current visa expires. Why not just give them a green card so they don't have to be stressed about whether or not they'll suddenly be kicked out of the country due to the unstable whims of their employer? That would really be a huge help.
• This would be a huge change in immigration policy. Does the orange antichrist realize that? (I very much don't think this will actually happen, because it's such a huge change.)
• This video (I don't know the original date of it) has surfaced now, in the context of the conflict between the "just really racist and anti-immigrant" faction of MAGA and the "US tech companies need to be able to hire highly educated immigrants from Asia" faction of MAGA. (Please note that ELON MUSK IS AN IMMIGRANT. On some level, I've always been baffled by his support of the MAGA movement. I guess he's just so incredibly confident that he will be seen as "one of the good ones.") I try not to care that much about these internal fights where both sides are terrible.

5. Biden Commutes 37 of 40 Federal Death Row Sentences: WTF? (December 23) This is a post from Rev. Jeff Hood. He is a spiritual advisor to inmates on death row, and an activist who believes the death penalty should be abolished. He is not happy with Biden for commuting 37 out of 40 death sentences- why not all 40? He calls this "a moral abyss of federal sentencing that only pursues death sentences in rare cases, prioritizing some murder victims above all others."

Well, yeah, I agree that it doesn't make sense to commute 37 out of 40. When I saw the news that Biden had commuted 37 out of 40 death sentences, I was happy to see it because it's better than not doing that, but I do feel it's weird to not commute all of them. Feels like 3 of them were not commuted simply because they're the ones we've all seen in the news, that we have feelings about- but the 37 whose sentences were commuted are also murderers. If you read about them, wow, they've done really horrific things, it's not like they're "not as bad" as the 3 that you had already heard about. I think commuting these death sentences should be about an ideological belief that it's immoral for a society to have a death penalty. It's not about "oh these criminals don't really deserve the death penalty, but those other ones do."

6. I'm Suing Honey (January 3) Wow! Legal Eagle is bringing a class action lawsuit against Honey for stealing affiliate commissions.

7. Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M (January 3, via) "The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri's alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted (claims which remain disputed)."

8. As Trump rewrites history, victims of the Jan. 6 riot say they feel 'betrayed' (January 5) "'All these elected officials, they don't care about the officers - people like myself that put their lives on the line to protect them,' he said. 'We did our job and gave them the time to escape, to evacuate the building. And they seem to have forgotten the fear that Donald Trump's mob made them feel.'"

Recurring Donations

Clip art image of hands putting coins into a box for charity. Image source.

Heyyy it's January so it's time for my annual post about setting up monthly donations to charity!

I think most people don't really have much of a plan about donating to charity. If they happen to see something that makes them feel sad about some situation in the world, then they go donate, but they don't have a "rational" overall strategy for it. What I mean is, you should ask yourself these questions: How much money do I want to donate to charity this year? Which issues are important to me, which should be prioritized in my charity budget?

Pick organizations that are doing good work, and set up monthly donations to them. Even if it's just $10/month, that's great, charities like to have monthly donations. Do it this way so you can be really intentional about what your priorities are. Not haphazardly based on when somebody happened to ask you, or when you saw something in the news that made you sad.

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And I'll put a plug here for RAICES, which helps immigrants in the US with legal representation. If you're looking for a way to help immigrants, donate to them~

"Children of God Storybook Bible" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "Children of God Storybook Bible."

If you've been following my blog for a while, you will know that I don't like how bible stories are typically presented to kids, but also I want to read books to my son to introduce him to the bible. I've tried out a few kids' bible story books and reviewed them on my blog. Here's a review of Children of God Storybook Bible, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Content

This book contains 56 bible stories:

• 24 stories (43%) are from the Old Testament
• 32 stories (57%) are from the New Testament. (Of these, 27 are about Jesus.)

As for the actual bible, a quick google tells me that the Old Testament is about 75% of the bible. Now, from a Christian perspective you can certainly make a case that the stories about Jesus are the most important part of the bible, so maybe it makes sense to have these overrepresented in children's bibles. But, still, it misrepresents what the bible is. 

I think it's common that people learn about the bible through this kind of "telling stories to children" method, and so they never find out that the real bible is so much weirder and, frankly, ****ed-up than what we see in children's books. This bothers me greatly.

As for which stories were chosen to include in "Children of God Storybook Bible," mostly it's the ones you'd expect, you got your creation of the world, Joseph's coat of many colors, Moses and the burning bush, etc. But there were a few surprising inclusions and omissions:

Surprising inclusion: Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21). Wowwww I don't think I've EVER seen the story of Naboth's vineyard included in a children's bible! What were they thinking??? Here's the gist of it: King Ahab wanted to buy a vineyard from a guy named Naboth, but Naboth refused to sell. So Queen Jezebel arranged to have Naboth falsely accused of cursing God and the king, and executed. Then Ahab took his vineyard. Then God sent the prophet Elijah to Ahab to prophesy that he and Jezebel would be punished for this- that they would be killed. Ahab made a show of repenting, so God amended it to say this punishment would happen to Ahab's household in the time of Ahab's son instead.

WHAT? I mean, yeah, this is a good example of how most bible stories are like, WHAT? They're not cute little morality lessons. Why would you tell the story of Naboth's vineyard to little kids? My first thought when I saw this here was "oh, maybe this is good because it pulls back the curtain a bit and shows kids that the bible isn't a bunch of nice stories." But then the second thing I thought was, "imagine you're a little kid, and the way the bible has always been presented to you is as if it's a bunch of nice stories, and then you read this, and you have to force yourself to believe that this is a nice story- wouldn't you end up even more messed-up?"

Reminds me of my thoughts, when I was a little kid, about the story of Jacob stealing his brother Esau's blessing (Genesis 27). This is a common one in little kids' bibles (it is not in "Children of God Storybook Bible" though). Basically, Esau was the older twin and so there was a tradition that their father, Isaac, should recite a blessing for Esau. But Jacob put on Esau's clothes and pretended to be him (Isaac had bad eyesight) and tricked Isaac into blessing him instead. 

Hmm, sounds like what Jacob did was wrong, doesn't it? Also kinda messed-up that he took advantage of Isaac's bad eyesight and tricked him.

But the way these stories are told to little kids, Jacob is one of the "good guys" and Esau is a "bad guy." Many many times in the bible, the three patriarchs of the Israelite people are listed: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. Whereas, Esau, apparently God just didn't like Esau.

So when I was a little kid, and heard this story of how Jacob stole Esau's blessing, I didn't think "wow that was a really bad thing that Jacob did." I wasn't able to even have a thought in that direction, because I knew that Jacob was a "good guy" and Esau was a "bad guy." I remember I was a teenager when this dawned on me- hey, wait a minute, lying to his father and stealing the blessing which was really important to his brother, those are bad things to do, aren't they? Aren't they? Why has no one pointed that out before??? I remember asking myself, "wait a minute, all the times I heard this story in Sunday school, what cute moral lesson did they even claim it was meant to teach???" (I *think* it might have been, Jacob was a trickster, but God loved him anyway- how wonderful that even though we are all imperfect, we can still be part of God's plan.)

So my fear is that including the story of Naboth's vineyard is NOT going to make kids realize "oh, the bible is not a bunch of nice stories about how we need to love God, and God always saves his followers." Instead, kids are going to hear it as "we know the bible is a bunch of nice stories, and therefore this story about Naboth being falsely accused and executed is also a nice story which teaches us a nice lesson about God." And you twist your brain in order to make yourself believe that, and you end up with even more exvangelical trauma.

You may think I'm reading way too much into this. Maybe I am. I grew up evangelical and really took them seriously when they said the bible is "God's love letter to us" and we need to read the bible every day and apply it to our lives, we need to memorize the bible as much as we can, and the bible is inerrant. I really truly bought into all that.

I'm not raising my son in that kind of environment, obviously. So he can hear these bible stories and be fine and he won't get trauma from them, because to him they are just stories. No one is teaching him that the bible is meant to be an authority over his life and he has to force himself to believe it is THE moral standard.

Moving along:

Surprising omissions: "Children of God Storybook Bible" does NOT include the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac (Genesis 22), and it does NOT include the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6). These are staples of children's bibles; I'm surprised they are not here. But, also, holy crap, I HATE SO MUCH the way these stories are taught to kids. It's GOOD that they're not included in this book.

Abraham and Isaac- God tells Abraham to go up on a mountain and sacrifice his son. Abraham obeys, and just as he is picking up the knife to kill his son, an angel intervenes and says not to really do it, it was a test, and God is pleased with Abraham for passing the test, being willing to kill his own son at God's command. Hey, little kids, what a lovely story, it teaches us that we should always obey God. It was good that Abraham was willing to kill his son, this makes him a role model of faith (rather than a dangerous person who should be locked up, my GOD). Your parents should kill you too if God ever tells them!

Joshua and the battle of Jericho- After God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, God led them to the promised land, where people were already living, so obviously they needed to kill those people and take their homes. The first city they came to was Jericho. God told the Israelites to trust him, and that he would help them win their battles. And that they needed to march around the city for 7 days, and the walls would miraculously collapse. So they did that, and then they killed every person in Jericho- men, women, and children (except Rahab's family because she helped them). Wow, little kids, what a wonderful story! It teaches us that we should always obey God, even when God tells us to do something that doesn't make sense, like marching around the walls of a city, haha that was so silly, wasn't it? Such a good story, it teaches us that God keeps his promises. God promised to give the Israelites the land, and he did! And they killed everyone who was living there! Such a great story! Such a nice moral lesson for us!

You think I'm joking, but I'm not. It really is that bad.

So, it's surprising that these 2 stories aren't in this book, but also, that's a good thing.

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I don't like how each story ends with a little prayer

At the end of each bible story, there's a little one-line prayer. 

• Many of these are pretty typical bible-lessons-for-kids fare: "Dear God, thank you for giving us each other to love." "Dear God, help me to trust your promises."
• Some of them come across a bit more social-justice-oriented than what I have typically seen in children's bibles: "Dear God, help me to bring freedom to all of your children." "Dear God, let me love all people no matter where they come from." "Dear God, help me to protect the powerless." I like this!

But: I strongly dislike this framing device. It reads like each of these bible stories can be summed up into a tidy little prayer; like each bible story teaches us a nice little lesson about how to be a better person, or about some wonderful thing God has done.

To be fair, a lot of the stories about Jesus actually can be summed up that way. The stories about Jesus are much less likely to be problematic compared to the violent Old Testament stories. So I'm fine with presenting most stories about Jesus to kids as "here's a nice lesson we learn from it."

And actually, maybe the issue I'm having with "Children of God Storybook Bible" isn't so much that the individual stories picked for this book are problematic, but that I'm so extremely aware of which large sections of the bible have been skipped. (For example, there's nothing at all from the books of Joshua or Judges in "Children of God Storybook Bible.") See that's the difficulty with having a "children's bible" with content that spans the whole bible- it gives the impression of being a children's version of the bible, rather than what it actually is, which is an extremely careful and deliberate cherry-picking of individual bible stories which can be kinda-sorta salvaged into something like a nice kids' story, unlike the majority of the bible. That's why I feel good about the books I bought for my son which tell only 1 bible story each. If it's not pretending to be the whole bible, then you don't have the dilemma of "just skip the messed-up parts" vs "tell the messed-up parts to kids and pretend they're not messed-up."

(But actually, aren't I doing the same thing? I am very carefully picking books for my son, each book containing 1 single bible story that I deem appropriate for children. Once I accumulate a whole bunch of these books, won't I have a collection that spans the whole bible while also having giant glaringly-obvious gaps, just like "Children of God Storybook Bible" does? Uh. Yeah this is why I'm having such a hard time figuring out how to introduce bible stories to my son.)

Also, above the title of each bible story, there's a sort of summary phrase- for example, the story about Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden is titled "Leaving the Garden", and above the title there's the text "God loves us even when we do wrong." The story about Jacob's dream with the angels on a ladder is titled "A Wonderful Dream" and the text above it is "God speaks to Jacob." Sort of ... taking each story and summarizing it in a way that puts a positive spin on it. I also do not like this.

I feel like, if it was just telling the stories, maybe I can work with that. But summing each story up with a tidy little prayer- no, I don't like that.

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As an example, here's the story of Noah's ark, as told by "Children of God Storybook Bible"

God begins again

Noah's Ark

Genesis 6-9

Before long, people started fighting and hurting one another terribly. God wept that they were not enjoying the lovely earth he had made. Finally, he said, "I must make a new beginning. I will send a flood to cover the whole earth."

But one man named Noah was kind and did what was right.

God told Noah to build a big boat called an ark. Then God said, "Gather all your family and two of every kind of animal, bird, and insect." God sent the rain, and Noah led everyone into the ark. For forty days and forty nights it rained so hard that the water covered even the highest mountains.

Boy, did it smell inside the ark! And the noise! The ROARing and the BAAing, the NEIGHing and the MOOing! But-- amazingly-- everyone got along. Yes, even the lion lay down with the lamb.

At last the rain stopped. Noah sent out a dove in search of land. When the bird returned with an olive leaf, Noah and his family cheered. Noah thanked God for saving them.

God told Noah, "I promise not to send another flood to cover the whole earth." And God made a beautiful rainbow so people would never forget his promise.

Dear God, thank you for rainbows and for keeping your promise to us.

You see what I mean about how this is presented as a nice story that teaches us a nice lesson? God felt that everyone in the world- the entire population of the earth- was so evil they deserve to DIE (except Noah and his family), so God sent a flood to kill them all, and we tell kids that this is a good thing.

Meme that says "Am I the only one around here who doesn't want to teach my kid it's good when God kills everyone on earth?" Link to meme generator.

I want to teach my kid, if someone claims that an entire population, an entire city, an entire ethnic group, is so evil they all deserve to die, to NEVER believe that. That is NEVER true, and you should never trust anyone who would claim that. Even if it's God. (See also: If Thanos Tells You To Build An Ark, You Say No)

In Sunday school, Christians teach this story to kids, and they definitely tell kids that unfortunately everyone was so evil that God needed to kill them all, but then the Sunday school lesson glides right by that without questioning it, and moves on to the fun imagery of all those zoo animals together, and the nice lesson about trusting God.

Of all the bible stories which are commonly taught to kids, "Noah's ark" is definitely the worst one.

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The art is very good

Many different artists contributed to this book. Each bible story has a different art style, and the art is very well done.

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Lots of words on each page

My son is in preschool, and the amount of words on each page is a bit much for him. Maybe this is more of an elementary-school-level book. Most of the bible stories are only one 2-page spread. For a kid who mainly likes to look at pictures in his books, it's not a high enough pictures-to-words ratio.

This doesn't really bother me much because I can skip some of it if it's too long, or summarize it, or stop in the middle and ask him something about the story. To make it more interesting for him.

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My son's reaction

As I said, this book has a lot of words on each page, so I think he wasn't fully able to pay attention and understand most of the stories. At some points, though, he did ask some good questions. He asked why Pharaoh made the Israelites slaves. He asked why God parted the Red Sea. When I read about God giving Moses the 10 Commandments, my son pointed at Moses and asked, "Is that God?" and I said no it's Moses, God is everywhere but we can't see Them, and my son kept saying "why?"

So even though I'm all exvangelically thinking to myself "humph I don't like how this book presents the bible like it's a bunch of nice stories", when my son asks questions about it, inevitably I will reveal to him that many of these are not nice stories. Because my son is in an environment where we are treating bible stories as stories rather than morality lessons that have authority over our lives, this won't be harmful to him. So, as much as I'm complaining about the book in this blog post, I was able to read it to my son and make it a good thing for him... but I just wish I had a book that would just be a good thing on its own, without me needing to do all this, uh, overthinking.

And, sometimes the God of the bible is a bad guy. I think that will help answer a lot of the "why" questions.

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God's pronouns

This book uses he/him pronouns for God. Which is fine, because the bible does too. But, what's a queer Christian gotta do to get a children's book that calls God She or They?

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Conclusion

I'm not impressed with this book because, like all other children's bibles I've seen, it presents the bible as if it's a bunch of nice stories which teach us nice morality lessons and nice concepts about God. There are things this book does well- the art is good, and I like how some of the moral lessons were related to social justice concepts like protecting those who are powerless, and helping immigrants. But overall this isn't how I want to teach my kids about the bible.

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Related:

Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible 

2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids 

"Who Is My Neighbor?" (Kids' Book Review)

"Our God: A Shapes Primer" (baby book review)

"The Storm That Stopped" (kids' book review) 

"Jesus and the Lions' Den" (kids' book review)

Blogaround + Happy New Year!

1. Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots (December 20) !!! Very concerned about this.

2. There Are Many Programs Trying to Reduce Recidivism. This One Works. (December 19, via) "In the United States, the likelihood that a released convict will return to prison within five years is 45.8 percent. For the 750 GRIP graduates since 2012 who have subsequently been released, the figure is 1.71 percent."

3. The Lasting Legacy of Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100 (December 29) "He had decades of possibility ahead of him when he left the White House in 1981, and he chose to devote the latter half of his life to continued public service. In 1982, in partnership with Emory University, he established the Carter Center, an organization dedicated to promoting peace and well-being around the globe. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023 at age 96, famously volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for decades, and he brought to action what most presidents only speak about, says Claire Jerry, curator of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History."

4. Nasa makes history with closest-ever approach to Sun (December 27, via) Cool!

5. More Chinese Couples Are Choosing to Live Apart. Is It Worth It? (December 30) "The study found that commuter marriages are often a rational choice driven by career ambitions, financial instability, and a desire for long-term family security. For many couples, living apart is not a passive compromise but an active decision made to maximize opportunities in an increasingly competitive urban job market."

6. Facebook and Instagram to Unleash AI-Generated ‘Users’ No One Asked For (December 30, via) "But the implications of a Facebook where the majority of the activity is bots bouncing off one another are hard to grasp, even at a moment when artificially gamed exchanges are common on the social network."

7. Star Trek: Tik Tok (2010, via) Wow this is fantastic. It's Kesha's son "Tik Tok" with clips from "Star Trek" (the original series).

8. I Watched Every Disney Channel Original Movie (December 24) Here's a 6-hour video from Big Joel reviewing over 100 Disney Channel original movies.

9. JK Rowling Falsely Claims "There Are No Trans Kids" (December 30) "There is no evidence that transgender identities are “caused” by any external factor. Rather, transgender people have always existed as a natural part of human diversity. Transgender individuals comprise an estimated 0.5–2% of the U.S. population, and many of them have understood their identity from a young age." 

Blogaround

1. Carnival of Aces Round-Up: Sexual Healthcare (December 18) "As an adolescent and young adult, the messaging I heard was that these tests are very important, but that messaging seemed to take it for granted that all women are sexually active.  The messaging also claimed that the tests might be uncomfortable but wouldn’t be painful.  However, lots of women, especially in the asexual community, have never had sex.  And (as can be seen from the various posts about vaginismus), many women do find pelvic exams very painful."

2. Our Wedding, From The Woman Who Loves Zooey Zephyr (December 18) Congrats to Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr!

3. Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned (November 18, via) Yeah... there's this narrative in response to the election, that in some sense it's right that people who voted for such a bad president will now have to live under such a bad president. And, some forms of this narrative go so far as to say they'll see how bad it is, and they'll see how wrong they were. 

I personally found this a little bit comforting at first, but I shouldn't have, because if you think about it for a few seconds, it totally falls apart. The ones who will suffer the most from the orange antichrist's presidency are NOT the people who voted for him. And yeah many of his voters will be worse off too, because he doesn't actually have any good plans for how to decrease the price of groceries, but they're not going to suddenly realize "oh we were so wrong to vote for him." 

January 6 happened, you guys. I really thought that would be the end of his popularity. I really thought that when he took a stand against the peaceful transfer of power- which, I learned in school, was one of the key things that makes America great- when he tried to overthrow the US government, for no real reason, just that he wanted to be president... I really thought he would be done after that. I really thought everyone would realize how bad he was right then. But no, here we are 4 years later. Did everybody forget about January 6? "They got what they wanted" isn't going to show these people how wrong they were, if January 6 couldn't do it.

4. Donald Trump and His Allies Don’t Really Care What Kind of Leftist You Are (December 11, via) "Being 'the right kind' of progressive or feminist or socialist can easily become its own goal, rather than winning concrete victories that match the values and goals behind these labels."

Yeah... after the election, I received so many emails from every liberal/social-justice organization I've ever donated to, and overall it made me really uncomfortable. The emails were all like "We're going to do everything we can to FIGHT against Trump" and yeah if that's true, then it's great, I want to support that- but is it really true? Are they just using this moment to get more donations and collect more names for their email lists? *I* don't know how to fight him, but suddenly every single organization is confidently assuring me that they're going to do a stellar job of it, if I just send them money? 

I'm really unhappy with this situation because we need to all work together to fight against the orange antichrist, but I can't trust that all these organizations "on our side" are really doing that- they might see it as an opportunity for themselves to profit off their donors who are scared and therefore more willing to give money.

And, I mean, if they're "just using this moment to get more donations" that's not necessarily a bad thing. If they are truly committed to fighting him, then they will need money, and now is a good opportunity to fundraise. That's not a bad thing.

I guess the issue is, different people have different opinions on what strategy to use to fight him, and just because some organization emails me to say "we're going to do everything we can to fight him" doesn't necessarily mean that their strategies are ones that I think will be effective and I would want to support.

Personally, the kinds of strategies I want to support are: 

• Directly working with people "on the ground" who are in danger because of conservative policies- ie, helping trans people in red states get health care, providing resources for immigrants to help them get housing and jobs, etc. I like this because it's local organizations who really understand people's needs and how to help them in practical ways.
• Lawyers challenging those policies in court. I like this because during the orange antichrist's first term, we did have a lot of success in the courts delaying or blocking his anti-human policies.

That's my thinking right now, but I am interested in learning about other strategies that might be effective- leave a comment if you have an opinion on this.

5. Protecting the Rights of Syrian Refugees (December 19) "Within twenty-four hours of the regime’s overthrow, nine European countries suspended asylum applications from Syrians."

6. Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam (December 22) [23-minute video] I remember seeing some youtube videos where Honey was advertised, a while ago- apparently a LOT of youtubers have done ads for this. They described it as a browser extension which finds coupon codes for you when you shop online- and it's free, there's no catch, you get free money. I remember thinking it sounded suspicious that it just gives you free money and there's no catch, but I couldn't figure out what was actually going on.

So, it turns out, here's what's shady about Honey:

• The way they make money is by getting the affiliate commission from the sale. (If you don't know what "affiliate commission" is: If you're a blogger or youtuber or whatever, and you share a link where someone can buy something, it could be an affiliate link, which means that if people click it and buy the thing, *you* get a cut of the money. [I do this here on the blog.] So what Honey is doing is replacing a cookie with its own cookie, so it will get the commission- possibly taking the affiliate commission away from whoever posted the affiliate link in the first place.)
• Also, Honey claims that it will always find the BEST coupon code for the buyer, but this is NOT true. Turns out, Honey makes deals with online stores about which coupon codes Honey will give to customers. In this way, it discourages the customers from searching for better coupon codes- Honey assures them that they're already getting the best price. Extremely shady!

(And I haven't used Honey, but my browser has a built-in tool that finds coupon codes, so now I'm wondering if that one that I use is equally shady.)

6. Biden commutes most federal death row sentences to life in prison before Trump takes office (December 23) 

Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?

Abigail kneels down before David. Image source.

I've been reading Wilda Gafney's book, "Womanist Midrash," which is a womanist perspective on the bible. ("Womanism" means feminism from a black perspective.) I was really interested in her take on the story of David and Abigail, so let's talk about that.

This bible story in found in 1 Samuel 25. Let me summarize: This is before David became king. Saul is still the king, but there is a prophecy that David will be king eventually, so he is on the run from Saul. David and his men send a message to Nabal, a wealthy man, asking for him to give them some food. The message says that David's men had previously helped Nabal's shepherds and servants.

Nabal replies that he doesn't know who David is, and he's not going to give him anything.

In response to this, David is mad. He tells his men to get their swords, and they're going to go and kill every man in the house of Nabal. 

Nabal's wife Abigail hears about this. She gets a whole bunch of food ready, and comes out to meet David as he is on his way to attack Nabal's household. Here's what she does:

When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.

“Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel, my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.”

It works. She's able to talk David out of killing anybody.

David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

Then Abigail goes home, and Nabal is drunk, so she doesn't say anything to him right then. The next day, she tells him what happened. The bible says, "About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died."

When David hears that Nabal is dead, he sends messengers to ask Abigail to come and marry him. So she does. Also, David marries Ahinoam of Jezreel. And his first wife, Michal, was given to a new husband when David was on the run from Saul.

That's the story.

Now, this is not one of the really well-known bible stories that you always hear about in church, but it comes up if you ever do a bible study on the life of David. So I've read some Christian leaders' takes on it. Back when I was evangelical, here's how I viewed this story:

First of all, Abigail is the hero of this story. She was very wise and took action to stop David from overreacting and killing the men of Nabal's household. She was courageous, and she knew what to say to convince him. Good job. We love Abigail.

And Nabal- we don't like Nabal. He's rude to David. Abigail calls him a fool. He gets drunk and doesn't even know that Abigail is out there fixing the damage he's done and saving his life.

That's how the Christian commentaries I read long ago viewed Abigail and Nabal, and Gafney's take agrees with them. No issues there. The really striking thing is the difference in how they see David in this story.

I won't say "this is evangelicals' view on the story of David and Abigail" because this is not a well-known bible story, so most evangelicals don't have any opinion on it at all. But I remember reading a book about the life of David, back then, and reading bible commentaries. Here's what they said about David: When David announces that he's going to go and kill every man in Nabal's house, David is definitely in the wrong. Nabal was rude, and inhospitable, and that was a very serious thing in ancient near east culture- but you don't go on a murderous rampage because of that. Not cool, David. Good thing Abigail was there to talk him out of it.

All of us make bad decisions sometimes, and it's very important to have someone in your life- a trusted friend or partner, perhaps- who can call you out on it. It's so important to have someone like Abigail, who can see that you're making a bad decision, and has the courage to tell you (in a nice way) to stop. And you should have the humility to listen to them.

That's was how I viewed this story, way back then. David was in the wrong, but in the sense of "we all make bad decisions sometimes, and the lesson we learn from this story is that we should listen to wise friends who call us out on it." David is still the hero of the story- the good guy, though he clearly has flaws- and Nabal is the bad guy.

But then I read "Womanist Midrash," and I'm like, why did I think David was the good guy?

It is chilling as a modern woman to hear the beloved David of Scripture prepare to blame Abigail and God for the lethal violence he would have inflicted upon her in mere moments if she had not the God-given sense to hurry to him with gifts and obeisance. As a womanist, I am reminded of the ways in which batterers blame their victims for their assaults, sometimes invoking religious justifications. Abigail is not a romantic. The valorization of Abigail's buying her life and those of the servants and/or slaves on her husband's estate with her self-abasement and his pilfered goods overlooks her vulnerability to David. The union of Abigail and David is no more romantic than those of battered women who do and say anything to calm their abusers in the hope of preventing today's beating. Abigail's generosity and submission is a last-ditch, desperate gamble masked in charm.

!!!!

She's right.

When Abigail goes and bows down and apologizes to David and offers him a bunch of food, people's lives are in danger. I always read this story like it was about "is David going to commit a very bad sin or not" but that's not it at all. It's "there is a violent group of men coming to attack us, what can I do or say to save our lives?"

From Abigail's perspective, if her family is killed, it doesn't matter if they're killed by a "bad guy" or by a "good guy who has flaws, none of us are perfect ya know."

And Abigail's whole speech about "oh I know you're such a good guy and God has chosen you, and wouldn't it be such a shame if there was a black mark on your name for committing mass murder"- none of that is genuine. She is just saying whatever she needs to say to get him to not kill her people.

Like an abuse victim, being sweet and nice in an attempt to talk a violent man out of hurting her. Even when it works, when he calms down and says "I was wrong," that's still not a good relationship. It hasn't actually solved any problems. It just means that he won't hurt her this time.

Why did I think Nabal was the bad guy in the story, and David was the good guy? David asks Nabal for food, and Nabal says "who tf is David"- that was bad, so Nabal is a bad guy. David responds by announcing to his army, "LET'S KILL HIM," so David is... well we love David, David is a good guy, but he wasn't perfect, as you can see here.

Isn't David worse than Nabal in this story? Why did I think Nabal was the bad guy and David was the good guy? Aren't they kind of... the same?

"Womanist Midrash" says:

Abigail may have learned how to negotiate with a violent man in her own home. ...

She is clever and savvy and knows her way around a power-hungry man's ego.

The way I used to view this story is like... superhero morality. You ever watch a superhero movie, and the hero kills a bunch of the bad guy's minions without even thinking about it, and that makes him so cool and badass, and then the villain kills the hero's best friend, and the movie treats that as such a big deal? We know and understand the hero, so his actions may be wrong or violent sometimes but we still love him and see him as a good guy. And we don't care about his victims.

That's fine when it's a fictional story, but evangelicals believe that these bible stories really happened. That there really were innocent servants in Nabal's household, that David was going to kill- and don't their stories matter just as much as David's?

At the end of 1 Samuel 25, Nabal dies, and David sends messengers to ask Abigail to marry him. I always viewed this as a happy ending, like "oh it's so great that she doesn't have to be married to that jerk Nabal any more, now she can be with David, who is a good guy!" But, was David a good husband? Why do we think he would be better than Nabal? 

And did she even have a choice? David asks Nabal for free food, Nabal says no, and David's response is "LET'S KILL HIM." I wonder what would have happened if David asked Abigail to marry him and she said no.

Why did I think David was the good guy in this story? It's a result of a view of the bible which holds up certain characters as heroes, role models of faith, and we believe we should learn from their example. And we say "he wasn't perfect, he did bad things sometimes, and we should also learn from that, it shows us what not to do" but where's the compassion for his victims? It's all about what actions an individual should or shouldn't take, to be a good moral person, with very little awareness of how his actions affect other people.

I'll end by posting this tweet from 2021. (The tweet is related to the story of David and Bathsheba, which is not the one I discussed in this blog post- David rapes Bathsheba, murders her husband, and then marries her. Then the prophet Nathan comes and tells him that was wrong. The typical Christian framing of this story is "well clearly David did a bad thing, he wasn't perfect, but isn't it so wonderful that God used him anyway?")

Imagine how Christians would respond to sexual abuse in our ranks if we had been taught that the Prophet Nathan modeled true leadership because he risked his life by rebuking the king for his abuses of power instead of being taught that King David is the model for leadership.

— Rev. Benjamin Cremer (@Brcremer) February 12, 2021

When Abigail's servants' lives were in danger, it didn't matter if David was "a man after God's own heart." It didn't matter to Abigail, who said whatever she needed to say to talk him down. Why did I think David was any better than Nabal in this story?

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Posts about the book "Womanist Midrash" by Wilda C. Gafney:

Womanist Midrash 
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus 
The Second-Worst Bible Story 
Michal wasn't here for David's worship, and now neither am I
Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?

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Related:

For Rizpah (or, a post about human sacrifice in the bible)

"Christians Aren't Perfect" When It's Convenient

Blogaround

1. Sarah McBride Wasn’t Looking for a Fight on Trans Rights (December 1, via) "I always knew that there would be some members of the Republican caucus who would seek to use my service representing the greatest state in the Union in Congress as an opportunity for them to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no real policy solutions for the issues that actually plague this country. And, in some cases, to grab headlines themselves. I was not surprised that there was an effort to politicize an issue that no one truly cares about—what bathroom I use."

2. Why Queen Vashti Should Be Considered a Hero (December 11) "She was one of the first recorded instances of a woman saying, 'I refuse to be treated like a sex object, because that is not what I am.'"

3. Judge rejects sale of Alex Jones’ Infowars to The Onion in dispute over bankruptcy auction (December 11) I really don't understand any of this. 

Okay let's start with this: Alex Jones spread the conspiracy theory that kids were not really murdered at Sandy Hook and they were acting. Why? Why? Why would anyone say such a thing? It's hard to imagine a worse way to respond to a mass shooting, my god. What is the motive here? I guess I always assumed it's because this type of liar always says whatever wild thing will get their followers riled up, without any consideration of whether it's true- but this is unusual in that he's defaming very specific people rather than just, ya know, general scaremongering and racist urban legends that are typical of that genre. There are loads of liars out there spreading conspiracy theories along those lines, and you can't really hold them accountable because what they say is vague enough you can't actually point to any specific harm they are doing in a literal legal sense. Why on earth didn't Jones just stick to that kind of hateful nonsense? Why did he start conspiracy theories about very specific people, who really do exist and can easily prove that he's lying and directly harming them? Is he just so used to saying whatever ridiculous thing passes through his mind, without caring one bit about whether it's true, that he didn't realize this lie could actually get him in trouble? (And also how awful it is, just on a basic-human-decency level?)

Anyway, then a judge ordered that Jones owed the families of Sandy Hook victims $1.5 billion, and he will have to sell all his stuff to pay them. Good. He deserves to lose everything. Some people lost their children, and then Jones was cruel to them in the worst way, saying their children weren't even real, my god, I can't even imagine what would make someone say something like that.

And then Infowars was auctioned and the Onion came to buy it, and I also didn't really follow what was going on there, but it seems good because the Onion has the support of the Sandy Hook families, and plans to, ya know, not continue to run Infowars as a hateful conspiracy theory machine.

And then a judge said actually that auction was invalid and the Onion can't buy it- why not? What's the issue? I've seen people on the internet saying this judge is on Jones's side and that's why he ruled this way, but I can't get my head around that either- I truly can't fathom anyone being on Jones's side here. (I guess Infowars has a lot of followers- yeah I don't understand that either...) I can't believe that that's the reason this judge ruled this way, because why on earth would anyone want to support Alex Jones here? Surely there was some different reason? Some legal technicality? And then the lawyers will just get that cleared up and continue the process and yes Jones will lose everything, like he should, right?

I've been feeling this way about a lot of news stories I read lately, actually. I read what happened, and then I read some people on the internet talking about why it happened and what the motives are, and I mean, it's just speculation by random people on the internet- you can't rely on that. I have many questions and not really any good way to get to the bottom of what's going on. (This is something I hope to blog about more.)

4. Metal musicians perform "O Holy Night" (2023, via) Wow this is INCREDIBLE.

Usually in December I post a roundup of my favorite Christmas songs. I'm not doing that this year- please refer to this 2023 post because I still like the same songs: Christmas Music Round-up.

"Our God: A Shapes Primer" (baby book review)

Book cover for "Our God: A Shapes Primer."

I got this book for my baby: "Our God: A Shapes Primer", by Danielle Hitchen. I got this because I'm interested in getting Christian books for my kids. Here's my review of it.

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Overview of the book's content

This is a board book, with durable pages for babies who try to tear or suck on everything (babies less than 18 months old, more or less).

Each 2-page spread shows a shape, an object that is that shape, and a bible verse about how God is metaphorically like that object. For example, the first page has the word "circle" inside a circle, and then has a circle-shaped rock and the bible verse "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:4"

This book is part of a series of board books called "Baby Believer," a name which I side-eye because how can you expect your baby to be a Christian. They are just a baby. What on earth.

---

I love this book

Okay, I love this book so much, because the concept is just extremely funny to me. I've got a small baby who drools constantly and just wants to put everything in her mouth, and this book's got me reading bible verses to her? It's a hilarious, surreal experience, my baby with her little grabby hands, pulling the book toward her slobbery mouth so she can bite the edge, and I'm sitting there like "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." This is so funny, I love it.

Also, many of the objects corresponding to the shapes are kind of a stretch? The triangle is a beam of light from a flashlight. The circle is a big rock- like, I guess a rock can be a circle, but... usually not really??? The semicircle is an ear. (Why are we teaching babies about semicircles? That doesn't feel like one of the standard shapes that babies learn.) I also find this extremely funny.

After I first read this book, for the next few days whenever I saw a semicircle, my brain was like, "God is like a semicircle" and I cracked myself up.

So, I don't know if my baby is learning anything at all from this, but I love the entire experience of reading it to her.

I guess when she's a little older, she'll be able to learn the shapes. As for the bible verses with metaphors about what God is like, I don't know if it makes sense to put those in a baby book. But like I said, I love this for how bizarre it is.

And I like the bible verses that have been chosen for this book, so that's cool.

---

Conclusion

If you want to read a Christian book to a baby, this is a good one. But maybe you should also step back and ask yourself, "Why do I want to read a Christian book to a baby?" I mean, I'm enjoying this because I like the bible and also the hilarious juxtaposition of serious theological ideas and a baby whose main goal is to put every object into her mouth. So if you also love that, then I recommend this book.

Blogaround

1. China’s Facebook Goes Dark, Taking a Generation’s Memories With It (December 4) Wow! Renren, China's version of Facebook, has shut down. I had a Renren account, long long ago. But it's been years since I thought about Renren. Totally forgot it existed.

But one important takeaway from this is to not trust websites like this to store your photos/ whatever other data forever for you. I keep all my photos on my computer or external hard drive- with a cloud service (that I pay money for) as a backup. I don't trust any clouds- maybe someday those big companies will suddenly change their policies and make it massively inconvenient or impossible to access your photos, and when you complain about it and try to tell them how irreplaceable those photos were, they will be like *shrug*.

If a family member posts a good photo on Facebook, I save it to my computer. I don't trust that Facebook will always exist and will always have a way to easily find old photos. Everyone should do this! It boggles my mind that some people look at photos of themselves that their friends posted on Facebook- for example, your friends who attended your wedding posted photos- and then don't download them, and just believe that those photos will always be there on Facebook and they can look at them any time. !!!!! I don't trust any clouds.

2. How South Korea’s Robust Protest Culture Shut Down Martial Law—For Now (December 7) 

3. Why RFK Wants to Ban Fluoride (December 2) 

4. Liveblog! Trans Lawyer Chase Strangio Badgers SCOTUS For 'Health Care,' 'Equal Protection' (December 4) "Strangio represents the families and is the first out trans lawyer ever to argue before SCOTUS. This very minute is fucking historic, y’all."

5. Advent Calendar Advent Calendar (December 2) lolllllllll

6. TikTok Ban: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (November 21) "And again, I am not giving TikTok a pass here. I'm just pointing out that its behavior is pretty consistent with Silicon Valley's own very shitty standards."

7. President Bashar Al-Assad Has Fled Syria and His Brutal Regime Is Finally Over (December 8, via) "Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Assad has gone to brutal lengths to cling to power—including by deploying devastating chemical attacks on civilians, including children. All told, by 2022, more than 306,000 civilians had been killed in the war, according to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner."

8. If you're interested in obscure features of the fossil record which can't be adequately explained by young-earth creationism, here are 2 blog posts for you:

Millions of Moroccan Mosasaur Teeth Create Dental Crisis for Flood Geology (November 29) "If all these teeth were deposited in a single year during the Flood, why are they concentrated in specific layers and not scattered throughout the geological column?"

Flood Geology Can’t Explain Dino Droppings (November 30) 

And a third one also from Joel Duff: Building Truth on Sand: The Hidden Cost of Sharing False ‘Evidence’ for Creation (December 4) "I found no evidence that this behavior exists at all in any ant species"

9. Peaceful Solutions (December 8) "The tens of millions of people who have been financially ruined and who have died suffering needlessly from engineered systemic neglect also were human beings, just as Brian Thompson was, and they also had families that loved them, just as Brian Thompson did. By the tens of millions, the survivors also mourn the killing of their loved ones—whose deaths, while enacted by deliberate choice and with clear motive, are not deemed murders, because the decisions that caused their anguish and death were legal, and, more to the point, were extremely profitable."

Persecution

Rainbow flag. Image source.

Here's something that happened in the queer community in Shanghai. I wrote this post a while ago and I'm just publishing it now.

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Event 1

So, I was part of a group of queer people that was planning an event. We were holding it at a gay bar in Shanghai, which I will call Kevin's Bar for the purposes of this story. The bar owner, Kevin, is great, he's done a lot to support the queer community in Shanghai, and some of my friends have held events at his bar before.

In the planning for our queer event, we were working on making images and writing a description to advertise for it. These would be posted on WeChat, the texting/ social media app that everyone in China uses. Here's what Kevin told us about our advertising: We shouldn't use keywords like LGBTQ, queer, rainbow, and so on. Because, the Chinese government can read everything you post on WeChat, and we don't really want to draw their attention.

So we put a lot of rainbow colors in our images, and we wrote that the event was about "celebrating our identities" or something like that. If you read it, you understand it's talking about being queer, but a computer looking for keywords is not going to catch it.

When we made announcements in person to advertise for our event, we said it was about being LGBTQ, but we didn't say that when we advertised on WeChat.

Also, the information we got from Kevin was that we can bring pride flags to the event, but not the rainbow flag specifically. I guess he was thinking about our audience members taking pictures and posting them on WeChat, and the rainbow flag makes it way too obvious what kind of event it is. He doesn't want that in the pictures.

So we did all these things like Kevin said. He's the bar owner and we don't want to put him at risk.

Anyway, at the event itself, the first thing we did was show off our flags and see if the audience could identify them. Fun! After that, I hung my asexual flag on something on the stage. I was really excited about having my ace flag there- I'm not really "out" so it feels good for me when I'm in a queer space where I can be "out."

Later, in the middle of the event, Kevin quietly came and took my ace flag and folded it up and put it away. I was kind of unhappy about that, but later I figured out it was because he didn't want the attention from the Powers That Be if they see photos on WeChat with any kind of pride flag.

---

Event 2

Well the first event went well and the audience liked it, so we started planning a second event, also at Kevin's Bar. We brought our flags, just like the first time, but then while we were setting up, Kevin told one of our group members that he didn't want us to use the flags, so we didn't use them.

I have to say, I kind of wondered why Kevin wanted us to be so careful, when I often saw WeChat posts from Kevin's Bar, advertising other events, and those posts were very obviously gay. But, we have to do what Kevin says because he's the bar owner and he knows the situation better than us. 

I've heard of gay bars in Shanghai getting fined or shut down because the police falsely claimed that people were using drugs there. I have no idea how true any of that is, but... yeah it's definitely true that there is risk, owning a queer bar in Shanghai.

It's like... the government doesn't *really* like the queer movement, but we're not doing anything that's actually illegal, so for the most part the government doesn't really care. Just keep doing queer things, but low-key, and the government won't care enough to do anything about it. Just don't be too obvious about it. And it's not at all clear what "too obvious" would mean- Kevin thought that posting photos with queer flags on WeChat would be too obvious. That's where he drew the line. But since there's no actual rule about it, and we aren't doing anything that's actually illegal, it's impossible to say what exactly we are or aren't allowed to do.

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Event 3

Then we thought, for our next event, let's do something really big during Pride Month! We did a lot of work planning a really cool event for Pride Month.

But then, about 1 week before the event, one of our members (let's call her Wanda) was visited by the police. (Wanda quickly deleted our group chat from her phone as soon as the police came.) The police officer had a whole bunch of questions about our group and what the event was about. Wanda kind of gave vague answers- don't lie to the police, but you can give vague answers- and said it was about people telling personal stories from their lives- but didn't mention it was about being queer.

Apparently she talked to Wanda for a long time. Apparently the police officer said nice things, like how it's nice that we're doing events to encourage people and build community. And she mentioned that June is Pride Month, and Wanda was like "oh huh yeah I guess it is." The police officer also said it's great that China no longer classifies homosexuality as a mental illness. Basically it's like the government wants to have this image like they accept queer people, but don't push it. (Please note that China does not have same-sex marriage.)

Wanda told us about all this, and as a group we decided we needed to cancel the event. (Later we found out that Kevin had also been visited by the police.) Because, what if we do the event anyway, and the police are watching us, and they take issue with something that we say there? Who even knows what kind of thing they might take issue with? And we don't want to get Kevin in trouble, and also all of our group members (planning the event) are immigrants in China... the government has the right to not renew our visas. We don't want to get in trouble.

We were all really discouraged when this happened. Asking "why do we even bother trying to do queer events like this in China?" We posted on WeChat to tell everyone the event was cancelled (we wanted to be very obvious about cancelling it, so the police would lose interest in us). 

Some of the audience members from the previous events messaged me on WeChat to ask why it was cancelled. I said it was because of "the situation" and "I can't talk about it on WeChat" and they basically got the point.

This didn't just happen to us; this happened in the context of a wave of increased scrutiny from the Chinese government, towards all events like this. (Not just related to queerness- I know of other events that got cancelled around this time too, for fear that the government might not like them.) That year I didn't see any Pride events advertised on WeChat at all.

Basically, this is the way it goes: normally in China, the government doesn't really care, and you can hold queer events and whatever. Maybe the government doesn't like it, but if you keep a low profile then they won't care enough to actually do anything about it. But every once in a while, they suddenly "crack down." And for a few months, you don't do anything because "it's sensitive" and you don't want to take the risk. But slowly the situation goes back to normal, slowly you can start doing public queer events again.

The thing that really makes me sad is this: I'm fine because I have a good group of queer friends here. Even without a public event, I'm still connected to the queer community. But what about other queer people, who are alone and wish they could meet queer friends? If there aren't public queer events, how will they ever find us?

Because there were no Pride events in Shanghai that year, one of my friends (let's call her Tasha) decided to put together a performance of a play with queer characters and themes. I wasn't involved in the planning for it, but a bunch of my friends were. It was very secretive. They told their friends about it in person- "we're working on doing this queer play"- and then when they had figured out the time and place and wanted to officially invite people, they sent out messages on WeChat that said it was a "party," trusting that the invitees would understand what it actually was, even though we can't talk about it on WeChat. 

I went to the play. At the beginning, Tasha made an announcement to tell the audience "this is a queer play, don't post about it on WeChat" etc. There was even a backup plan- if the police come, we are going to pretend we are all watching a movie together. I enjoyed the play; they did a good job even though it was very hastily thrown together. At the end someone said happily "we didn't get raided!" So, success!

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What persecution is

I wanted to blog about this to show how persecution actually works, and how it's so much different than what American evangelical Christians think. Christians in the US have all sorts of ideas about how the "evil" Chinese government persecutes Christians. When I first moved to China, I worried about whether it was safe to tell people I'm a Christian. Like, the minute I say it, will police pop up out of nowhere?

No, it's not like that at all. 

Here's what I've seen, about how the queer community is persecuted in China. And I believe it's similar for Christianity in China (because my first trip to China was a mission trip, and the pastors and missionaries we met on the trip basically told us similar things). The government doesn't really care that much, as long as you don't make it too public and visible. There are churches in China- very easy to find a church- there are gay bars in China, and it gives the impression that the government has no issue with it at all. The average Chinese person would be totally unaware of any persecution. But the leaders of the churches/ queer groups know there are invisible restrictions. You don't know exactly where the lines are, but you know there's a risk that if you do too much, too publicly, the government will come and ask you questions. So you're held back by your own fear and uncertainty, rather than any explicit action from the government.

When conservative Christians in the US think they're being persecuted, they make a big deal about it, posting on social media "I'm being persecuted!" That's not how persecution actually works. Instead, it's keeping a low profile by not posting rainbow flags in your event ads on WeChat. It's being careful, being unable to say or do what you want to say or do, even though you're not doing anything illegal- because you don't know at what point the police will be unhappy with it and find a way to accuse you of something. It's the fear of being fined or deported- being powerless to fight back if that happens, and so you just don't take the risk. It's finding each other through word-of-mouth, because it's too risky to have public events.

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