"Contributing to the Problem"

Book cover for "Boundaries in Marriage"

I read Boundaries in Marriage, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend (published in 1999), and I'm not going to write a whole review of it, but there was one part that I want to comment on. (Little-known fact: I don't write a blog post about every book I read! Sometimes I have opinions and just don't tell anyone.)

One of the things this book mentions is that if you think your spouse is not acting right, and you want them to change, you also need to look at the ways you are "contributing to the problem." Here's an anecdote they give on page 223 to explain this:

Pam and Al illustrate this point. Al, on the one hand, bossed Pam around and disregarded her point of view in decision making. She, on the other hand, would become quiet and withdraw love from him. For example, Al didn't like a dress Pam was going to wear to a party. He said abruptly, "I don't like that on you. Put another one on." Pam complied. However, she didn't say more than ten words to Al at the party or for the rest of the night.

Cloud and Townsend then discuss how both Pam and Al need to change their behavior. Al should stop bossing Pam around, and Pam should stand up for herself more. Even if your spouse doesn't change, you should still do your part to change.

I wanted to discuss this because I think the concept of "contributing to the problem" can be interpreted 2 different ways, and the way Cloud and Townsend mean it is likely not the way a lot of their readers will interpret it.

Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Artwork showing Jesus being detained by ICE. Image source.

Here's a quote from page 8 of "Beyond Welcome." This chapter is about "assimilation", about the idea that immigrants' cultural backgrounds shouldn't matter, America is a big melting pot, etc. The author says now she doesn't believe in that at all, and it is important to seek out perspectives from a diverse range of people, because people's experiences really are different.

Strangely, this idea had never even presented itself as a possibility in the church. We talked so much about our identity in Christ, and yet all our leaders, authors, and theologians were white men. Never was I even given a framework for considering my own experience as different and in need of processing. In all our conversations about racial reconciliation, not once did I hear a Christian leader suggest that I would experience God differently through my gender, culture, and language-- that God would meet me as an immigrant woman of color. In fact, looking back I see that though these leaders meant well, our conversations never amounted to much except to make white Christians feel better without having to give up power or be uncomfortable.

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Posts about "Beyond Welcome":

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)
Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Related:

Judges 19

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Texas Christians and ‘biblical literacy’ (November 2) "They have eyes to see and ears to hear, but not to see and hear this. They have a baseline of biblical literacy that teaches them to tithe their dill and cumin, but neglects the weightier matter of justice."

2. ‘Star Trek’ Actor Wil Wheaton Tells Stephen Miller to Keep Patrick Stewart’s Name Out of His ‘Nazi Mouth’ (October 31) "'Stephen Miller, on behalf of Star Trek, and everyone who knew and loved him, keep my Captain's name out of your f–king Nazi mouth,' he wrote. 'He despised you, and everything you stand for.'"

3. “Believing Victims” - A Primer (January 22) "There is a huge gulf between the spaces where the advice of “believing victims” sprang up and the kinds of places where it is invoked now. I first started to hear this language in college when I was doing bystander intervention training to prevent sexual assault, or to assist someone who has been the victim of a sexual assault. If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, investigating whether or not they were is not your job (unless you are a law enforcement agent). Your job is to provide them with care to make sure they get the help that they need quickly, and resources to make a decision about what they will do next. Of course in this situation you should operate from a posture of belief. You should not refuse to take your friend to the hospital because you are not convinced they were raped (do you really need me to say that?). Take them to the hospital. The truth of what happened is not the immediate concern."

4. Journal Club: Christian Women make sense of sexual pain (October 25) "If people like intercourse more than other kinds of sex, that’s one thing. But these are specifically women who have experienced pain during intercourse, so maybe they should reconsider whether it should be the primary kind?"

5. Take the elevator up (2023) My younger kid has been watching a lot of Ms. Rachel. This song perfectly captures what it's like to live in a big city.

6. Newsom moves to clear out California’s 548-person death row in largest such clemency act (November 6) "Notably, and unlike former President Joe Biden’s clemency grant to most people on federal death row at the end of his time in office, Newsom made no exceptions to his clemency on Thursday."

7. Salon, internet’s oldest general interest publication, shuts down after 31 years (November 5)

8. ‘Every day, someone loses a hand or a leg’: the brutal reality of India’s textile recycling industry (November 6) "During numerous visits to spinning units and factories, the Guardian did not see anyone wearing any kind of safety gear. None of the workers interviewed reported having safety training."

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Links related to the antichrist, also election news:

1. Mike Rogers' Religious Bigotry Threatens All of Michigan’s Jews (October 26, via) "It’s the same sort of fact-free fearmongering that has led to the greatest tragedies of the last century. It lurks in the dark heart of every blanket accusation against George Soros. It courses through the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that now animates the Trump State Department and echoes the propaganda of Nazi Germany."

2. US midterms voters said: enough is enough. Is this the beginning of the end for Trump? (November 4)

Impeach him! Seriously, no messing around- I want the Democrats to take action and charge people with crimes if they committed crimes for him. Who's covering up the Epstein files? Who is giving training to ICE officers that they don't need to respect people's rights? What did DOGE do with Americans' personal data? What about members of the government ignoring court orders? No one is above the law. Charge all these people with crimes if there is evidence.

3. Democrat James Talarico turns Texas Senate seat blue, defeating Ken Paxton (November 4) !!!!! Texas!

4. This post from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 4) "In 1860, an enslaved man named Sheppard Peek was listed among the possessions of William Peek, a white man in Crawfordville."

5. Iowa Democrat who quit race wins seat anyway (November 4) Good job!

6. Minnesota Provider Essentia Health Violated Equal Rights Laws By Dropping Trans Youth Care, Lawsuit Alleges (October 30) "'Nobody should receive a major health care access update ‘through the grapevine,’' a statement from Gender Justice said. 'Essentia’s failure to communicate with families wasn’t just cruel. It put patients at increased risk by creating confusion and giving families a limited timeline within which to find alternative providers.'"

Also from Erin in the Morning: A Stunning Rebuke Of Anti-Trans Politics: Republicans Spent $200 Million Attacking Trans People And Lost Everything (November 4) "It was also a big night for transgender candidates. Washington state will have the first out Black transgender woman elected to a state legislature in Jaelynn Scott, and Michigan will have a trans woman legislator as well in Joanna Whaley. But perhaps the most stunning result when it comes to transgender people winning their elections was Allison Montgomery, who won in a relatively conservative suburban Huntsville, Alabama, district."

And: Don’t Mess With Blexas: Anti-Trans Ads Fail To Stop Texas’ Blue Tsunami (November 6) "'I have people [telling] me they can visit family again, that they would consider moving back,' wrote Gwen Howerton, a Texas culture reporter, on Bluesky. 'It’s early but I cannot really overstate how much the bleeding on LGBTQ+ rights in Texas has stopped essentially overnight.'"

Evangelicals have always been suspicious of empathy

Image text: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9 KJV" Image source.

I read this post from Wonkette and I have some thoughts: Evangelicals Pretty Sure That Jesus Wants You To Be A Sociopath! Apparently, this is a thing that right-wing people are saying in public now- that empathy is bad and dangerous.

Basically what I want to say is, this idea that "empathy is bad" isn't new. Back when the big issue was marriage equality, in 2010ish, I was also concerned that there was something wrong with my feelings of empathy.

Back then, the evangelical position- which I believed- went like this: So, obviously, God says marriage has to be 1 man and 1 woman. God says nobody is allowed to have sex outside of this '1 man + 1 woman' construct of marriage. For people who "struggle with same-sex attraction", they should dedicate themselves to God- maybe God will change them to be straight. They need to either be single and celibate forever, or marry an opposite-sex partner. If they accept their gay identity, and get into a same-sex relationship, that would be really unhealthy for them. You see, God created sex and marriage, God knows the correct rules for sex and marriage, and if we don't follow these rules, it might feel good at the time, but it's really bad for us in the long term.

(See these posts for my current opinions on why it's not just "obvious" that this is the "correct" structure of marriage, straight from God: The Bible and "Purity" and The Bible and Polygamy)

Believing in this ideology is doable if you don't know any gay people, and you just believe the evangelical propaganda about how gay people are all creepy and obsessed with sex, and probably want to abuse children, and they all hate God and want to destroy marriage, etc.

But, outside of the evangelical bubble, you may happen across the fact that gay people are just, like, trying to live their lives. They want very normal things, like to have rights, to be with the person they love, to accept themselves, etc. And so you might start to feel empathy- you might start to feel sad about the way *your* religious group is hurting them and fighting against their rights. *Your* beliefs are actively hurting people.

You may start to think, maybe these beliefs are wrong, and we should just listen to people and believe them when they talk about their needs.

But the answer to this, in evangelical ideology, is: watch out! Don't be deceived by empathy! Jeremiah 17:9 says "The heart is deceitful above all things"! We already *know* the truth, which is that the only correct kind of romantic/sexual relationship is 1 man + 1 woman, and if we stray from this model, there will be all kinds of terrible consequences (heartbreak, STDs, going to hell due to sin, etc). Don't abandon God's truth just because you, like, feel bad for people. If you condone their sin, you're not actually helping them in the long run! What they truly need is to commit themselves to following God.

So, in 2010ish, the situation for evangelicals who truly wanted to care about gay people was like this: our conscience and empathy struggled against our faith. "Faith" meant holding on to the "truth" that God told us: acceptance of same-sex relationships is wrong, it's just wrong, it just is. Even when everything around you, the reality you can see with your own eyes, is telling you differently, you have to have faith, keep believing in God's truth. Even when you can see how much damage these beliefs are doing to gay people, and you can see how much better it is when they accept themselves- have faith, have faith! Don't be led astray by your heart! Don't be like the serpent who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, saying, "Did God really say...?" It's off-limits to even wonder if those rules might perhaps not really be from God.

Long story short, I lost my faith. 

So my point is, this has always been a *thing* in evangelical ideology. Trying to enforce our rules on other people's lives, seeing how damaging it is, wanting to care about that, and then insisting that we can't let our feelings take us off course- we already know the right answer from God! We already know these rules are the right rules for everyone!

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Related

ICE and Hell

Maybe I had more faith when I was complementarian, and that's a bad thing

Gag Reflex (a response to TGC)

"Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" (What is this book actually about?)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Walter Koenig obituary (October 28) "A year later, he was cast in the programme as Ensign Pavel Chekov, the baby-faced navigator of Russian parentage on the bridge of the starship USS Enterprise."

Sulu and Chekov, from the original "Star Trek" tv series. Image source.

2. Remembering Patrick Stewart, the Ham (October 30) "The history of Star Trek is just full of ham actors, and is so much the better for it."

3. The schedule of every evangelical marriage retreat, ever (October 29) "WITH YOUR REGISTRATION: Wives get a syllabus and discount code for 25 books on being more Christ-like. Husbands get a free porn-blocking app."

4. For voters from immigrant families and new citizens, voting is bigger than themselves (October 30) "'Being a first time voter here in the United States is something that's profoundly personal and emotional for me because I understand the power of what a vote can do in service of the greater good, in service of the community, in service of the of the future that you want to see for your community, your state and your country.'"

5. Like dinosaur eggs in the sand: the pterosaur museum built to thrive in the Gobi desert (October 16, via) "Despite the intimidating conditions, building the museum in the area is important from a scientific perspective because this is where the fossils were buried and found, Xiaolin says. Keeping the fossils local protects the fragile relics and lets visitors see them in their geological context, he adds." This is really cool!

6. Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 1 (October 2) "I think the uncomfortable possibility remains that Flynn and Botner really did read their Bibles and pray together and came to the conclusion that they were supposed to be together. And I think Flynn really did fast and come to believe God was prompting him to kill his wife. I don’t think he was insane. I don’t think he was hallucinating. I think this just fit with his belief system. But how?"

Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 2 (October 2) "They will tell you that God forgave David, that David was sorry, and God continued to use David and restored him to his former glory. God’s grace is so powerful, they will tell you, that God could overcome David’s sin and still use him for his purposes. That’s not the story. That’s not what happened."

Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 3 (October 4) "This is where things get a little darker. The ubiquity of “but King David” language, and the ease in which it is deployed in the face of even staggeringly dark acts, is beyond the claim “God can forgive anyone” or “There is hope for anyone.” It’s a preemptive narrative explaining why some men (and it is always a man) have a right to do anything and be rewarded for it."

And part 4 and part 5

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Judge tosses Trump's attempt to block Alaska Senate results if GOP incumbent loses (November 1) "'The absence of any explanation from the United States as to how its requested relief could redress its alleged injury while simultaneously maintaining the secrecy of the ballot is telling,' wrote Gleason, a nominee of former President Barack Obama."

Judges 19

Artwork showing the woman laying on the doorstep, and her husband finds her. Image attribution: "By Gustave Doré - National Library of Poland, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=182444497"

[content note: rape]

I have some thoughts about this post, Fearless Ones and Fallen Sparrows: A Meditation on Judges 19 by Helen Paynter. I came across it via this post by Sheila Wray Gregoire, PODCAST: Why Is the Old Testament So Cavalier About the Abuse of Women? feat. Helen Paynter.

Let me first give a summary of the bible story in question, Judges 19. Trigger warning: It's about a brutally violent gang rape, and the victim dies from her injuries. It's about a man (referred to as "a Levite" in this story) who was traveling with his concubine, and one night, the place where they were staying was surrounded by a group of men, telling the owner of the house to send the man out so they could rape him. But instead, he told them they could rape his concubine, and sent her out to them. They raped her the whole night, and she died. Then the man cut her body into 12 pieces and sent them out to various places in Israel, to publicize what had happened. This continues on into chapters 20 and 21 with a violent battle, and then men being very proud of themselves for their clever plan to capture a bunch of women and force them into marriage.

So the whole story is terrible.

Before I clicked on the link to Helen Paynter's post, I was thinking about what it might say. From the perspective of Christians who believe in the bible, well, what do you do with this story?

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. AOC Rebukes Anti-Trans Democrats, Calling Them “Shameful” And “Wrong” For “Scaring So Easily” (October 23) "She then went on to fully defend transgender people, calling the attacks on trans people an attempt to demolish Title IX: 'So this administration, in focusing and trying to gin up hatred against trans Americans, the Trump administration, while everyone was focused on that, quietly defunded the civil rights division of enforcement in the administration on Title IX. And so understand that when they attack trans girls in sports, they’re also attacking all women’s ability to stand up against their abusers, their rapists, and their assaulters on campuses across America. And that’s why I think it’s very important for all of us to understand and to feel and to know that our fight is united. It really is united.'"

Also from Erin in the Morning: Iowa Dem Josh Turek Releases Anti-trans Ad Calling For A Federal Funding Ban On Trans Care (October 26) "But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive."

And: Don’t Vote For The Worst Anti-Trans Democrats (October 26) "What I am asking is that transgender people, and the people who care about us, find the line they would draw on any other fundamental human rights issue, and draw it here: do not give the worst anti-transgender Democrats your vote. Leave that line blank, vote for every other candidate, and make sure the story of 2026 is not that the Democratic Party has to accept anti-transgender policy in order to win."

2. The Jewish and Pagan Mythological Origins of Revelation 13: The Beasts from the Sea and the Earth and the Fear of Nero’s Return (April 24) "These coins featured the portrait of Nero, sometimes with additional elements depicting the emperor as divine. Before long, it would have been difficult or impossible for Jews and Jewish Christians in Palestine to engage in commerce without handling these new coins."

Interesting article about how "the mark of the beast" could have been "idolatrous" images on Roman coins.

3. Reel to Real: The ‘Voy Boys’ and the Movie That Never Was (October 27) "Blind football [soccer] uses a modified ball with bells inside, allowing players to locate it by sound, and is played on an enclosed 40-by-20-meter pitch. Each team fields four visually impaired outfield players, all in blackout eye masks, and one sighted or partially sighted goalkeeper. Teams can also use a sighted off-field guide to call and direct players toward the goal."

4. Asexual Portals and Dank Feelings: Review of Debbie Urbanski’s Portalmania (June 3, via) "While reading the collection, I was hit very hard by this ace character and the unbearably punishing tension she experiences as a result of the presence of permissible ongoing sexual assault by her husband, bolstered by a rape culture of friends, therapists, and family who continually excuse it by pathologizing instead asexuality."

5. Patrick Stewart, a perceptive patriarch in 'Star Trek' and 'X-Men,' dies at 86 (October 29) As a Star Trek fan, I love him.

Captain Picard, the character that Patrick Stewart played on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Image source.

6. Pope Leo will vote from the Vatican, by mail, in Illinois midterm election (October 30) Love to see Americans voting from abroad!

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Vivek Ramaswamy discovers that voters have their limits (October 26) "Now, with the torrent of media coverage that has resulted, anyone who sees the ad won’t say, “Jeez, if her own mother says she’s a liar, I’d better not vote for her.” Instead, they’re more likely to say, “Oh, there’s that ad with Amy Acton’s mother, the one who let her daughter get raped by her dirtbag husband. What the hell is wrong with Vivek Ramaswamy thinking this is going to make me want to vote for him?” And even those who will never see the ad know all about it."

2. The Stakes of What’s Happening at Christianity Today (October 24, via) "A journalistic enterprise that caves under a complaint from one pastor is doomed."

(Sometimes it's hard to sort which links are "related to the antichrist" and which aren't. This one, I decided, *is* related, because it's a direct result of the way evangelicalism has sold its soul to him.)

3. Former Miss Switzerland Beatrice Keul Alleges Donald Trump Raped Her at the Plaza Hotel in 1993 (October 26)

And the full report, published by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, with accounts from 5 women who "have directly accused Trump of raping or sexually assaulting them in Epstein’s company or direct physical presence": We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ's Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)

I read the book Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration, by Karen González (published 2022).

I really enjoyed this book. It's about how we have to move beyond a viewpoint where "we" are helping "them," as if immigrants are helpless and can't do anything and don't have anything to teach us. Instead, we need to learn from them, value their perspective, read bible passages through the lens of immigration rather than centering a white American point of view, have immigrants in leadership in our churches and our outreach organizations, etc.

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About the author

González was born in Guatemala and immigrated to the US as a child. There are many places in the book where she talks about her own experiences, her identity as a Latina woman and as an immigrant in the US, her feelings about what it means to be an immigrant, and how those feelings have changed throughout her life. (For example, her ideas about what it means to be a "good" immigrant, and her ideas about assimilation, and how those views have changed.)

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Assimilation vs integration, in the bible stories of Joseph and Moses

The book discusses many bible passages through the lens of immigration. I think this is great; this is something I want to pay more attention to when I read the bible. I think, in my experience, it's easy to feel like all the bible characters were over there in the desert in the Middle East, as if it's just all one culture. We don't realize the ways that bible characters might have felt out of place when they moved to a different country, the ways they tried to fit in, difficulties with foreign languages, etc. There is a LOT of migration in the bible. There are a lot of interactions between characters from different nations- much of it is conflict and war, but also we have characters like Ruth. She was a Moabite woman who came and lived among the Israelites, and Boaz (an Israelite man) made sure she was allowed to gather food from his field without anybody bothering her, and eventually they got married, and this is a great romantic story that everyone loves, even though God commanded the Israelites not to "intermarry" with other nations.

I think, for white American Christians who have never had the experience of being a minority, feeling out of place in an unfamiliar culture, struggling to understand the language that everyone else is speaking, they often don't even notice when bible characters are in situations like that. Immigrants notice that kind of thing. We need to learn from immigrants when we read the bible.

Here's an example from the book: In Genesis 37 and 39-50, we read the story of Joseph. His brothers sold him as a slave, and he was taken to Egypt. In Egypt, he eventually worked his way up to being second-in-command to Pharaoh, because he had the ability to interpret dreams, and predicted that there would be 7 years of famine, and so Pharaoh wanted him to be in charge of storing food to get ready for this famine. A lot of things happen, I'm just giving a short version here, eventually his hometown is also affected by the famine, so his brothers come to Egypt to buy food, there is some drama, and eventually he reunites with his family.

In Genesis 47, we're in the middle of the famine, and the Egyptian people are desperate because they've already spent all their money to buy food. So they tell Joseph to take their livestock in exchange for food, and he does that. Then, later, they need food again, so they tell him to take their land, and take them as slaves, in exchange for food, and he does that.

(To me this reads not like a true story, but like somebody asked "why is it that Pharaoh owns all the land in Egypt, except for the priests' land?" and then somebody made up this origin story.)

What Joseph did was, uh, kind of messed up. Authoritarian dictator behavior. He exploits the Egyptian people, during the famine, forcing them to give up everything and even sell themselves into slavery. Even though it was their food in the first place, that the government had collected during the 7 years of plenty, that he was then selling back to them.

"Beyond Welcome" asks, why would Joseph do this? Could it be because, even though he had lived in Egypt for a long time, and had basically assimilated, he still felt that he needed to prove his loyalty to Pharaoh, or else people would think he wasn't Egyptian "enough"? As immigrants, there is pressure to fit in, to go along with unjust systems that exist in the country you have immigrated to. You don't want to stand out. You don't want people to see that you're different. So you don't take a stand and challenge things that are clearly wrong.

Then the book contrasts this with the story of Moses (starting in Exodus 2). Moses was an Israelite, born during the time when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. As a baby, he was saved by the daughter of Pharaoh, who then raised him as an Egyptian. But when he grew up, he saw that his people were suffering, and (okay I'm simplifying the story a little bit) he took action and went to Pharaoh and said "let my people go" and brought them out of slavery.

Moses was not Egyptian, but he grew up in the world of the Egyptians, and totally understood how to navigate that world. But he also maintained his identity as an Israelite, and made the choice to help the Israelites, taking a stand against the oppression of Egypt. This is called "integrating" rather than "assimilating"- learning about the culture of the place where you live, gaining the skills to live in that society, but still valuing your identity, from your place of origin. Don't sacrifice your identity and values just for the sake of "fitting in."

Immigrants can bring this kind of "outsider perspective" - they can see the problems more clearly, because they haven't lived their whole lives with the idea that all of it is "just the way it is."

Both Joseph and Moses lived a significant part of their lives in a culture where they were outsiders. Joseph "assimilated" and participated in the the Egyptian government's oppression of its people. Moses "integrated" and gained skills to navigate Egyptian culture, but also challenged the aspects of Egyptian culture which were wrong.

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This book had a lot of very insightful things to say. I plan to post some more quotes from the book in future blog posts.

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Posts about "Beyond Welcome":

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)
Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Related

"The Case For Open Borders" (book review)

What is a Queer Reading?

2026 Ace Community Survey

Heyyyyy the 2026 Ace Community Survey is here!

The 2026 Ace Community Survey is now open

It’s that time of year again - we are now recruiting participants for the Ace Community Survey!

The Ace Community Survey is run by the Ace Community Survey Team–a community-based volunteer organization.  It collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities. Participants also have the option to make data available to external researchers, or only to our team.

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or questioning. As long as you are 13 years of age or older, we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other potentially interested individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.

Click here to take the 2026 Ace Community Survey: 

https://forms.gle/s79nxyvNqnKWJsrM7 or https://tinyurl.com/AceSurvey2026

You will be able to view any published results from the survey at https://acecommunitysurvey.org. If you would like to receive an automatic email update when new results or announcements are posted, you can subscribe here.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. A Rickety Closet (July 28, with more discussion here) "If so, some would say that Elliot’s exalted reputation among evangelicals should be reevaluated. I think that they are right, but there is a bigger takeaway here: conservative evangelicals’ own lives testify to the untenability of their teaching. Even their most exalted teachers fail to embody the purity that they themselves demand. And this revelation, quite apart from any one individual’s legacy, is the secret that evangelicals want to keep in their closets."

There is a claim that Elizabeth Elliot (a writer who was very influential in evangelicalism and the purity movement in the 70's and 80's) had some kind of lesbian relationship. We have no way of knowing if this is true, and no details about what exactly happened- but the significant thing is how evangelicals don't want this to be true, don't want anyone to even suggest it or talk about it. 

Part of it is hypocrisy, and part of it is how evangelicals made same-sex relationships such a big huge deal, when they should just be people's own personal business.

2. Olivia Rodrigo - expectations (feat. Chappell Roan) (Official Music Video) (October 16) Hey this is pretty cool, the first verse is straight and the second verse is gay, and it's like, both are treated as normal situations to be in, like it's not a big deal.

3. ‘I’m Not Going to Have Blood on My Hands’ (October 14, via) "A few weeks after my last day, a former coworker sent me a link to ESPN’s website. They had posted an interactive gambling story—a primer on how to gamble on sports. I opened it and it literally made me sick to my stomach. The animations are bouncy and bright; it’s pretty much made for kids."

4. The Most Polarizing Books on Goodreads Aren’t Actually Polarizing (October 20) "A five-star rating can mean “I loved this book.” It can also mean “I love this author,” “I love this series and am excited for the next installment,” or “I support what this book represents.” A one-star rating can mean “This is a terrible book.” But it can also mean “I hate what this author represents,” “I am angry about something the author did,” or even “I am angry that this book isn’t out yet.” A rating, in other words, is not necessarily a rating of the book."

Somewhat related, I wonder a lot about the overall landscape of Patreon and GoFundMe. I bet there is a huge number of Patreons that have $0 worth of subscribers. 

5. Those Democratic fundraising texts you keep getting? They're scams (October 22) Maybe calling them "scams" is taking it too far- they *are* raising money for the campaigns, *but* only a fraction of your donation actually goes to the campaigns. 

Here's their advice on how to donate: "To donate, go to the candidate's campaign site and make your donation directly. That eliminates at least that scam fee. The candidate may ask you to donate to ActBlue: that's a reasonable, not-crooked choice. The candidate may let you donate via a credit card directly, usually through an online card processor like Stripe: If that's available, do that. The processor takes a small fee, on the order of 3-5%, but paying by credit card insulates you from most possible scams."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. How Trump’s FBI purge saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn from a bribery investigation (October 20) "Today, there is no one left to look into Kao’s explosive allegations, as the Trump administration has abandoned any pretense of prosecuting public corruption. The case is dead."

2. A letter from an ICE detention center: A pastor writes from inside (October 14, via) "They are fathers and sons. They are husbands and friends. They are people who are frightened. They are people who make mistakes. They are people who pray. They are people who need lawyers, information, medical care, compassion and sometimes simply another person willing to sit beside them when they believe they cannot keep going. They are human beings."

3. Supreme Court rejects Trump admin’s request to end trans-related care in prison (October 22) Some good news from the Supreme Court, for once.

4. U.S. measles cases more than double what they were last year as outbreak spreads (October 25)