Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Happily Never After: The Curious Case of Love and Respect (Deep Dive) (February 5, 1-hour-15-minute video) This is a deep dive into the book "Love and Respect," which is the best selling Christian marriage book. The overall thesis of the book is that women need love and men need respect. If your husband is not treating you right, you can solve all your marriage problems by respecting him more. By never disagreeing with him. By never bringing up any problems. As it turns out, this is extremely bad advice. (This is part 1 in a 3-part series.)

2. No ID, No Support, No Plan: Michigan's wrongfully convicted launch app to fill reentry gaps (March 5) "Unlike parolees, who often have months of notice before being released and access to reentry services, exonerees may be released with as little as a few hours' warning and no support at all."

3. New NHS England Review Excluded 97% Of All Trans Studies To Say Care Doesn't Work (March 11) "These 10 reviews are not science. They are the machinery of a government that has decided to eliminate transgender healthcare and is working backward from that conclusion."

4. Technical Debt Collectors: China’s Coders Count Cost of AI Errors (March 12) "When programmers point out an error, the AI will apologize and acknowledge the problem, Wei says. But the new code it produces often introduces new bugs somewhere else, and the process repeats."

5. What Do We Owe the Insufferable? (January 30, via) "Liberals and leftists, committed to deinstitutionalization and autonomy, respond by 'pretending that mental illness never results in antisocial behavior, much less violent crime.'"

6. Home Remedies (March 9) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Photos from Iran and across the Middle East as the war enters Week 2 (March 10)

2. Thousands in New York City must work to keep SNAP food benefits. ‘The pressure is on.’ (March 3, via) "But a measure pushed by Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration will require about 123,000 New Yorkers to prove that they are working, volunteering or in school beginning in March. This now includes veterans, homeless people, youth aging out of foster care, and parents with children older than 14. It also means that some seniors who had retired under the old rules will now have to go back to work to continue getting food benefits."

3. NYU Langone faces Wednesday deadline to resume gender-affirming care for minors (March 11) "But state officials said NYU Langone’s move violated New York’s sweeping human rights law, which bans discrimination based on an individual’s gender identity. Attorney General Letitia James’ office gave NYU Langone until March 11 to resume the procedures."

4. Statue depicting Trump, Epstein as Jack, Rose from 'Titanic' appears on National Mall (March 11)

5. The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Trump Officials Scrapped It. (March 10)

6. Is the US Military Trying to Bring Back Jesus? (March 14) "I absolutely 100% believe that some military leaders are using Evangelical Christian end times prophesy to generate excitement for troops to go into battle. That’s been happening for years, and they need it now more than ever considering that the past few wars in the Middle East were actually popular, while this one is not."

7. House GOP leadership silent as more members post anti-Muslim statements (March 14)

A church for a small population of Christians

A church in Shanghai. Image source.

I recently went to an international church in Shanghai, and I have some thoughts about what church is, what we want to get out of church, and how that looks different when Christians are a small minority, vs a majority.

But first, a basic overview of churches in China. Americans have a lot of misconceptions, so here, let me fix that. I'm not involved with any church group in China now, so I don't know the whole picture, but I have at least attended different kinds of churches in China.

Also, this is specifically about Protestant Christianity. In China, Catholicism is categorized as a different religion from Protestantism, and I don't have any experience with the Catholic churches in China. (Except the one in Sheshan, which I visited one time because it's a landmark of interest for tourists.)

Here are the 3 types:

1. Chinese "3 Self" churches. These are the government-approved churches. In my experience, it's very easy to find them. You can just, like, search for "教堂" [church] on any map app. The church buildings look like obvious church buildings. It's not like "oh we have to be sneaky, we're not allowed to be Christians in China" like American Christians imagine.
   These churches are supervised by the Chinese government, so I know there must be some kind of restrictions on what they're allowed to say and do. But to an average churchgoer, you wouldn't notice there are any restrictions. I know that American evangelicals would be concerned "these churches are only allowed to say what the Chinese government lets them say, so they're not preaching REAL CHRISTIANITY" but I've attended church services at Chinese churches and I never noticed anything being censored. Like, I never noticed anything that was like "they're not preaching the REAL GOSPEL, they're preaching a censored version of it." All the doctrines that were preached were basically within the range of what I've heard in American churches.
   I'm sure that the leadership of these churches is aware of being watched by the government and maybe not being allowed to do some things, but without any clear rules. I once heard a Chinese pastor talking about feeling like "are we allowed to have a Sunday school? We don't really know... let's just start doing Sunday school and see if the government says anything."
2. International churches. These churches are required by law to check people's ids, and only people with a foreign passport (or Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ Macao id) are allowed to attend. (Yes, people from Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ Macao are explicitly allowed by the Chinese government to attend international churches, whereas citizens of mainland China are not. Make of that what you will.) It must be the case that international churches have more freedom in what they're allowed to do, compared to Chinese 3-Self churches- but I am not familiar enough to know any details on this. The Chinese government always says their main concern about religion (and the reason why there is persecution of Christians) is that foreign groups will come and influence Chinese people. So, if your church does not allow any Chinese citizens to attend, the government is not as concerned about what exactly you're doing in there.
   When I first heard about churches literally barring an entire demographic of people from attending, I was like, wtf, that doesn't seem like what Jesus would do. I guess there's sort of a trade-off- if you follow this rule, your church has more freedom in what you can do. And maybe it's not that big of a deal because Chinese citizens have other churches they can go to.
3. Underground churches. I don't really know anything about these because they're secret, obviously. American Christians have the idea that all churches in China have to be underground churches, but wowww that's not true!

So these different types of churches exist in a sort of ecosystem, and I think each type has a valid role. I think American evangelicals might totally write-off the 3-Self churches and say they're just worthless and totally misguided because they're only teaching what the Chinese government approves of, and the only real church is the underground church, but that's vastly oversimplifying it. 

SO ANYWAY. Recently I went to an international church here in Shanghai. Why? Well, I don't want to be a member of a church. I don't want to attend regularly. But just on that one particular day, I wanted to experience a kind of churchy atmosphere. So I did.

The greeter at the door made me show a photo of my US passport- because only non-Chinese are allowed to attend. It was nice to not be racially profiled in China for once! Hooray! Everywhere else I go, everyone assumes I'm not a Chinese citizen, because I'm white, but at this church they explicitly asked. 

(It has not escaped my notice that, as a Chinese citizen, my husband would not be allowed to come to this church. He's not interested in church anyway, but that's one of the reasons I don't really want to get that involved.)

This church was extremely diverse. Wow. Just a huge mix of people, from different countries all over the world- Africa, Asia, etc- people talking with different accents, people expressing themselves in different ways during the worship songs. 

And so it made me wonder, how does it even work, having such a diverse church? These people are all coming from different church systems in their home countries. Different flavors of Christianity, with different beliefs about what it even means to be a Christian, what the non-negotiable Christian beliefs are. What do they do about the question "are women allowed to be pastors?" Or "are same-sex relationships sinful?" These are questions that, in the US, frequently cause half of a church to split off and go start a new church. (And who knows what issues cause church splits in other countries?) But that doesn't really seem like an option here in Shanghai- the population of international Christians is so small, you can't sustain that many different churches for every little niche.

And so, doesn't it follow that the model of what a church *is* has to be different, when we're talking about a place like Shanghai where international Christians are such an extremely small percentage of the population, and you need to cast a wide net and gather a very diverse group of people, in order to have a church, compared to a place like the US, where there are lots of Christians, and large swaths of them are culturally similar to each other.

In my experience with evangelicals in the US, when people are "church shopping," they're looking for a church that agrees with them on all of the big doctrines that they consider essential to Christianity. Evangelicals believe that many many churches are not preaching "real" Christianity, the real gospel, biblical Christianity, but have been led astray by our sinful culture and are just preaching nice things that people want to hear, rather than real Truth. So, you have to find a church that's "really preaching the gospel." You might have to filter out quite a few churches, if they have a belief about something, which you feel is not the "correct" belief that Christians should hold. Or, filter them out because they *don't* have an official belief on some issue, they think different Christians can have different opinions, and you think that's unacceptable and there's only 1 right answer. 

And then you would also have additional preferences about music styles, how well you get along with the other churchgoers, etc. And that's how you choose a church.

It's based on a model of church attendance where the church is in charge of you. You carefully research churches and find one that believes all the correct things, and then you commit to them, and you are subject to their teaching. (And perhaps at some later point, something happens that causes you to have concerns that this church is not "really" preaching the "real" gospel, and so if that happens, you leave and look for a different church.)

But that's not really possible for me in Shanghai, and actually, I don't think it is possible for *most* international Christians in Shanghai. You're not going to find a church that explicitly agrees with all the beliefs that you personally consider essential to Christianity- there just aren't enough churches for that.

So, under these circumstances, church has to be something different. It can't be "the church is in charge of me"; it has to be more like... there are certain things I am looking to get out of this church, and that is why I choose to attend, but I'm in charge of my own beliefs and my own spiritual life- I know that I'm not going to agree with everything the pastor says, and that's fine because I'm not expecting the church to be in charge of me.

It seems like the church's overall approach has to be, this is a group of Christians who want to have a church. And they can't really get extremely specific about "here's our official position on this or that controversial issue." Yeah, sure, the church should have some standard "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth" and so forth, the abstract doctrines that are the foundation of Christianity, but different Christians understand those doctrines completely differently, and so your church policy can't really get into those specific details.

The church can't really take a stand on any of the "controversial issues", but instead has to be inclusive of a wide range of opinions on what Christians are supposed to believe. And therefore even if you choose to be a member of this church, you can't really look to them as an authority on the "controversial issues" that you think are very important. So, your motivations for attending the church have to be something other than that.

(I guess? This is my speculation, upon seeing how extremely diverse this church was.)

So if, as a churchgoer, you're saying to yourself "there are certain things I am looking to get out of this church, and so obviously if the church isn't giving me those things, then there's no reason to attend"- wow, I find this very interesting. You have to understand yourself and your own desires, and what kind of church would be worth attending. And everyone's answer is going to be a little different. 

This is a completely different mindset from the evangelical view on church- there have been so many articles posted on conservative Christian sites about how it's terrible that people are going to church less and less, that Christians think it's okay to not go to church, that Christians think it's okay to have requirements about what they want from a church, and to stop going if those aren't met. These conservative organizations, scolding us all and telling us how wrong and sinful it is to not go to church. Listicles about excuses people give for not going to church, and why all of them are invalid. You have to go to church.

So it seems like, if you're in Shanghai and you're looking for an English-speaking church, you have to see what churches are available- there aren't that many- and kind of see how they are and what you're able to get out of them, and decide if it's worth your time to attend. You have to be in charge of your own religious life, because you won't find a church that perfectly fits your ideals about what Christianity is supposed to be. It's not like I always conceptualized it when I was evangelical- that you find a church that is preaching "real" Christianity, and then that church is "in charge" of you (unless you ever determine that they have stopped preaching "real" Christianity)- and that Christians are all obligated to do this.

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Related:

Persecution

Churches in Xiamen, China

So I've Discovered That (For Me) Church Culture Causes Depression 

I Did Easter in English This Year

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Cleft Lip: The Long Road to Repairing a Smile (March 5) "When I saw other children like me for the first time at the hospital, I began to feel less alone."

2. The Gender Politics of Abandoning Your Girlfriend on a Mountain (March 3) "For that reason, there’s a warning sign posted that tells climbers 'If it took you more than 3 hours to get here, turn back! Your life depends on it. Expect major difficulties from here on!' It took them nearly SEVEN hours to get there, but they decided to continue, as Plamberger stated they still felt fresh."

3.  The Mundane Misery of MAGA's Bluey Copycat (January 19, 1-hour-59-minute video) "No one in their right mind is going to be like, you know what I want my kids to watch? Something associated with political commentary. Conservative political commentary."

4. Why people fail at learning languages (January 3) "The goal in learning a language is to acquire so much of this tacit knowledge that the illusion becomes so strong that you can’t encounter these sounds or these symbols without associating them with a meaning."

I speak Mandarin Chinese as a second language, and I have some opinions about language learning and how American culture views language learning. Maybe I'll write about that some time. Basically the strategy I used was, talk to actual Chinese people, make a lot of embarrassing mistakes. If your goal is to be able to talk to people, you need to learn by talking to people. 

Contrast this with the French classes I took in high school, where I thought the point was to get everything correct and never make mistakes. Sure, you do well in class with that approach, but then the moment you encounter native speakers or a French movie or whatever, you feel like "they're talking too fast" and you understand nothing and have no confidence.

5. Here's a fun little game about how well you can remember colors (via)

6. We Know What’s Killing Loons and How to Stop It. So Why Are They Still Dying? (January 2, via) "In nearly every place—from the Maritimes to Minnesota to Washington State—lead poisoning is the leading cause of death for adult loons in freshwater habitat."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. How to Resist Like Minneapolis (February 6, via) "These will be the people in the encrypted chat."

2. Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after mounting criticism (March 6)

3. She’d Never Changed Her Gender Marker. Kansas Invalidated Her License Anyway. (March 3) "Once Ellis arrived at the DMV, she presented the letter to a confused employee."

4. Caught in the Middle East, Chinese Tourists Scramble for Way Out (March 6) 

5. A Courthouse Arrest, a Surprise Pregnancy, and One Family’s Shattered Dreams (January 7, via) "The other family members were determined to keep fighting for their asylum, but they’d already accepted that Daniela wasn’t coming back, and Andres’ little family would be separated before it could even begin."

6. Jan. 6 plaque honoring police officers is now displayed at the Capitol after a 3-year delay (March 7) "The plaque was placed on the Senate side of the hallway because that chamber voted unanimously in January to install it after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had delayed putting it up."

7. U.S. Tomahawk Hit Naval Base Beside Iranian School, Video Shows (March 8, via) "A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed."

8. Bodycam video contradicts ICE claims in fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas (March 7)

9. Thrift-Store Bibles and the Execution of Renee Good (January 15, via) "Flipping through roughly 1,300 pages of pink-accented ancient Near Eastern religious literature reveals numerous quizzes, including one (image below) to help determine whether you’re a 'Diva, Doormat, or Dream Date.'"

This is so real- bible publishers make all these little niche bibles, targeted at different groups, usually gendered. It's the entire text of the actual bible, plus little text boxes inserted all throughout, to tell readers from that specific subgroup what the bible is supposed to mean for them. 

I've always interpreted the message of these bibles as, 'We don't read the actual text of the bible. That's boring. We have to print it all here, because Christians are supposed to own a bible, but we don't expect people to actually read it and notice how jarringly different it is from the cutesy little messages we've stuck in here.'

Like, take whatever message you want, and tack it onto the text of the bible. Nobody will notice it has nothing to do with the bible- Christians treat owning a bible as an identity marker, but it's not like they're actually going to spend time reading it.

Retconning the Old Testament

Text written in Hebrew. Image source.

The Christian bible is divided into 2 parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The New Testament is the part about Jesus- but, you know Christians, we try to make everything about Jesus. We try to make the Old Testament about Jesus too.

In this post, I'm going to call it the Hebrew bible, instead of calling it the Old Testament, because I want to make the point that it belonged to Jewish people first. It was already a thing, even before Jesus was born. It already meant something and could stand on its own- it wasn't incomplete, waiting for Jesus to come along so it could finally make sense.

The way Christians tell the story, though, is that the Jewish people were waiting for so long, looking forward to when the messiah would come. There were prophecies, there were signs that pointed forward to Jesus. And finally Jesus came, and lived and died and rose again, and this ties the whole story together. Now it finally makes sense, and the whole bible is about Jesus.

This is a retcon. As originally written, the Hebrew bible is not about Jesus. Christians read it through the lens of Jesus' life- and yes, I'm a Christian and I do this- but that's putting our own spin on it, and we shouldn't forget that. Our Christian take on the Hebrew bible is not its "real meaning."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Can Complementarians Please Stop Using the “You’re Equal to Your Boss” Analogy? (March 2) "When complementarians say, 'Well, that’s what the Bible says' it is fair to answer them back, 'Well, either you are wrong in your interpretation or God is sexist.'"

2. on the other trafficked girls in Esther (February 26) "All of them are captured by agents of the State— "deputies" – to take these girls from their families and get them to travel sometimes exceedingly far distances so that the king can decide if they "please" him."

3. Created to Die? Exploding Termites and the “Very Good” Creation (February 8) "It’s a familiar strategy: describe complexity, express incredulity, declare design."

4. The market for marriage (February 19) "The usual pattern is that pastoralists are inegalitarian, inequality drives polygyny, and polygyny drives male control of women."

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As a reminder, you don't have to read all the news links. But, *do* something. Check on your trans friends, protest, call your congress people, get connected to local groups, donate to groups that help immigrants.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Kansas Trans Drivers License Revocations, Bathroom Bounty Hunter Law (February 27) "The lawsuit is being brought by two anonymous plaintiffs, both transgender men. Both hold driver's licenses with male gender markers. SB 244 retroactively invalidates those licenses, which will 'forcibly out Plaintiffs as transgender.'"

2. Trump administration drops suits against law firms after judges find president's orders unconstitutional (March 3) "'This episode will be remembered as demonstrating the difference between institutions that had the ethical courage to uphold the Constitution and fight bullying and then won, and those that compromised their ethics and gained nothing,' Gupta said in a statement Monday. 'Let’s hope that media companies, universities, and other organizations pay heed.'"

Oh but wait, DOJ is [not?] dropping its appeals of losses in the law firm order cases. What is going on? (March 3) 

3. Who attacked a girls' school in Iran, and will there be accountability? (March 3) "As the death toll in the conflict passes 175, calls rise for an investigation into potential human rights violations and war crimes."

4. Before you share that story about how troops were told the Iran War is for "Armageddon," read this (March 4) Yes, we should fact-check and not believe everything!

5. Why supporting a shelter for women is now 'kind of radioactive' (March 4) "A global survey by U.N. Women published in October 2025 found that more than 40% of organizations working to end violence against women and girls had to scale back life-saving services or shut down completely in the past year because of funding cuts."

These MAGAs talk about how they're the ones "protecting women" by discriminating against trans people, and at the same time they're massively cutting funding for women's shelters. It's another example of the ideology I talked about in my post about being right vs doing good.

The Kingdom of Children: Comparing Religions

Symbols of different religions. Image source.

Chapter 6 of "The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology," by R. L. Stollar, starts out with this quote:

Unquestionably, the central Christian assertion about the identity of Jesus Christ has been that he is both fully human and fully divine. This characterization is unique among world religions.

- Kristin Johnston Largen

I involuntarily rolled my eyes.

It's not that I think this statement is false. I wasn't even thinking about that. The reason I cringed away from this statement is that I have lots of experience listening to Christians' descriptions of other religions and why those other religions are all nonsensical and bad and shallow, not like our faith which is super meaningful and reasonable and powerful.

So any time I come across a Christian saying "here's why our religion is different from all the others, and is better", ugh. Most of the time, it's a total misrepresentation of what other religions teach. It's spreading misinformation. It's a caricature, meant to show how silly those people are who believe differently than us, haha, how silly and misguided they are, believing things that are so obviously wrong. It's just mindlessly repeating talking points that we heard from other Christians, rather than actually listening to people from other religions, to genuinely understand what they believe.

Okay, but, turns out Stollar actually shares my feelings on this. From pages 98-99:

Growing up, I was always interested in other religions. I accepted Jesus into my heart as a young child, yet I was nonetheless fascinated by faiths not my own. Some of my favorite books were the D'Aulaires' books for children on Greek and Norse mythology. I loved the fantastical stories they contained. The images of gods and goddesses fighting and playing filled my imagination with wonder and inspiration.

But the conservative evangelical world I grew up in did not encourage me to pursue my interest in other religions. As I grew older, the only context in which I studied them was to learn how to attack them-- allegedly for the sake of Jesus. When I attended summer worldview camps as a teenager, for example, I was taught flimsy, cardboard caricatures of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. And even then, I was only taught those caricatures of other faiths in order to memorize catchphrases with which I could supposedly refute them.

Now that I am an adult, I have a greater appreciation for world religions. Part of my journey toward this appreciation was getting a master's in Eastern Classics at St. John's College, where I studied religions from China, India, and Japan. For the first time in my life, I appreciated freely religions other than my own. No one was telling me what was "wrong" with them. No one was interrupting my train of thought by insisting, "But Jesus!" I simply learned what other people and cultures think about the world.

I encourage you to give the children in your family, faith community, or religious organization the opportunity to learn about other religions. As I have argued throughout this chapter, learning about other religions is essential to teasing out both the very real differences and similarities between them. This pursuit helps us understand and embody our own faith that much more deeply.

This is so real. "Learning" about other religions, in a conservative Christian context, just to memorize arguments about why those other religions are obviously wrong.

So Stollar understands that, and that's not what he's doing in this chapter. What is he doing in this chapter, then? Well, it's about child gods- ie, religions that have a god character who is a child. Comparing these stories to the Christian story of Jesus being fully god and being born into this world as a human child- and pointing out aspects of these where the Jesus story is "better" than the stories from other religions. (For example, the Jesus story is "better" than the stories where the god had the appearance of a child but still had the mind and powers of a god- Jesus was an actual child, really, going through all the developmental stages. And the Jesus story is "better" than the stories where it is prophesied that the child will *someday* be the savior- Jesus was *already* the savior, even as a child.) I don't think the book actually uses the word "better" but that's how I'm summing this up.

It seems like we *should* be able to talk about this, right? I'm just really skittish here, as an ex-evangelical, ex-apologetics-nerd. But it seems like there should be a way to talk about, hey, I'm a Christian, so logically that means I believe there are aspects of Christianity which are "better" than other religions, there are things about Christianity which are true while other religions are false... ugh... I'm just... I just cringe so hard at this line of thinking. This sounds like an apologetics argument, and I don't do apologetics arguments any more.

I enjoyed reading this chapter of "The Kingdom of Children"- it does seem to be coming from a place of thoughtfully and respectfully seeking to understand the beliefs of other religions. And the parts where it talks about why the Jesus story is "better"- I guess we should read that as "well, this author is a Christian, so of course he believes the Jesus story is better than the other religions' stories, and these are his opinions about why" rather than reading it like... like he's saying you're not allowed to believe in these other religions because it's so obvious that Christianity is better.

Maybe I could try to write something like that. Maybe there is some way I could frame it which doesn't feel like a dishonest apologetics argument. Make it about why I'm a Christian, without making it about why you should be a Christian.

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Posts about "The Kingdom of Children":

"The Kingdom of Children" (a book about child liberation theology)
The Kingdom of Children: Comparing Religions

Related:

Taking My Kid To Church: "The Belief That Baffled the Best of the Buddhists" 

What is the purpose of apologetics?

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On 310 Yuan a Day, She Builds China’s Towers — and Streams the Struggle (February 25) "This is her sixth year bouncing between construction sites across China. As one of the few young women in a workforce dominated by middle-aged men, she stands out immediately — not just for her age or gender, but for her determination to survive."

2. Remembering the Mothers of Gynecology (February 28) "But like a lot of early heroes of medicine, Sims was an absolute monster."

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. A Chance To Establish The Run Against Authoritarianism (February 12) This is something we can do to help the families who have been hiding for weeks in Minnesota. Donate to funds to help with rent.

2. The U.S. Men's Hockey Team Failed the Locker Room Test (February 25) "I can’t help but wonder how many of these players have daughters—and whether they’ve told them that they can be hockey players one day, too. How many have told them that the women’s game matters just as much? Do they think their girls will still believe them after they hear their dads laugh?"

3. Deadline looms as Anthropic rejects Pentagon demands it remove AI safeguards (February 26) "For months, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has insisted that Anthropic's AI model, Claude, must not be used for mass surveillance in the U.S. or to power entirely autonomous weapons, such as a drone that uses AI to kill targets without human approval. He has described those uses as 'entirely illegitimate' and says they are 'bright red lines' for the company."

OpenAI announces Pentagon deal after Trump bans Anthropic (February 28)

4. A nearly blind refugee is found dead after Border Patrol agents drop him at Buffalo doughnut shop (February 27) "'A vulnerable man — nearly blind and unable to speak English — was left alone on a cold winter night with no known attempt to leave him in a safe, secure location. That decision from U.S. Customs and Border Protection was unprofessional and inhumane,' Mayor Sean Ryan said in a statement."

5. Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, And The Construction Of Political Crisis (February 21) [content note: child sexual abuse] "The broad Epstein files scandal is already salient. But the questions of how it will ultimately be understood, and where political accountability will fall, are still up for grabs. Is this mostly a story about elite impunity, bipartisan failure, bureaucratic incompetence and/or corruption? Or will it be just as much a story about how the country was deceived into electing a sex predator angling to cover up his own crimes and got caught. Where we look back and say there was a specific moment when the government had to decide whether there would be any consequences for this depravity, and we, the public, got to see in real time who tried to do the right thing and who sided with the dregs of humanity?"

6. Vanderbilt To Drop Major Gender-Affirming Surgeries For Trans Adults (February 24) "It was only after reaching out to VUMC that she received a message in her patient portal—a pattern seen across the country, where hospital gender care rollbacks have often been haphazardly announced through terse press releases from nameless hospital bureaucrats."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses (February 26) "The Kansas letters arrive amid an accelerating nationwide campaign to strip transgender people of accurate identification documents."

7. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed (February 28)

3 American troops killed, and Trump says more 'likely,' in war against Iran (March 1)

8. Federal judge blocks new DHS policy that would allow arrest of thousands of legal refugees (February 28) "'The Government’s actions in this case beg the question: Why?' Tunheim wrote. 'The Government suggests that they are looking for terrorists, but there is not a shred of evidence in the record that the Named Plaintiffs or the putative Class they seek to represent pose serious national security risks.'"

"This advice isn't meant for abusive relationships"

Silhouette of a man and woman holding hands. Image source.

[content note: abuse, rape, victim-blaming]

Here's a good post from Sheila Wray Gregoire: Why You Can’t Say: “This Advice Isn’t Meant for Those in Abusive Marriages”. Gregoire has written many blog posts and books criticizing the harmful marriage advice that is constantly being promoted in Christian spaces, pointing out how this advice is often so bad, it will make an abusive relationship even worse. And sometimes people respond by saying this criticism isn't valid because the advice was only intended for normal, healthy relationships, not for abusive relationships.

(Here's a link with a bunch of examples of Christian marriage books with this kind of unhealthy advice.)

In her post, Gregoire says this response doesn't make sense, because statistically, something like 25% of the readers of these books are in abusive relationships. And people in abusive relationships often don't recognize the abuse until years later. They just read these Christian marriage advice books, and try so hard to follow the advice and fix their marriages.

This is a really good point and I'm glad Gregoire is writing about it. I want to add a few of my own thoughts here.

All of My Book Review Posts

Books. Image source.

I've written a lot of blog posts about books, and I want to post all the links so they're easy to find.

First of all, kids' book reviews are here:

Reviews of Christian Children's Books

Reviews of Kids' Books

And here are all the grown-up books:

Bible:

Womanist Midrash by Wilda C. Gafney
Genesis for Normal People by Peter Enns and Jared Byas
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles edited by Caroline Vander Stichele and Hugh S. Pyper
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
Slaves, Women & Homosexuals by William J. Webb
The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs

Purity culture:

The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsy
Pure by Linda Key Klein
Damaged Goods by D. Anderson

Christianity and feminism:

Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey

Christianity and LGBTQ issues:

Transforming by Austen Hartke
Radical Love by Patrick S. Cheng
Torn by Justin Lee
One Coin Found by Emmy Kegler
Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill

Black Christian theology:

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone

Christianity and children:

The Kingdom of Children by R. L. Stollar

Christian apologetics:

The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel

Christian missions:

Runaway Radical by Amy Hollingsworth and Jonathan Hollingsworth

Evangelicalism:

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll
When We Were on Fire by Addie Zierman

Heaven and hell:

Love Wins by Rob Bell

Pregnancy:

Queer Conception by Kristin L. Kali
Expecting Better by Emily Oster
Give Birth Like a Feminist by Milli Hill

Abortion:

Life's Work by Dr. Willie Parker

Asexuality:

The Invisible Orientation by Julie Sondra Decker

Sex: 

Girls & Sex by Peggy Orenstein
Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

Relationships:

Boundaries in Dating by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

Emotional health:

Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

Feminism:

Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

Racism:

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Parenting:

Raising Mixed Race by Sharon H. Chang
Parenting Forward by Cindy Wang Brandt
Afraid of the Doctor by Meghan L. Marsac and Melissa J. Hogan

Autism:

Color Taste Texture by Matthew Broberg-Moffitt
Asperger's on the Job by Rudy Simone

Immigration:

The Case For Open Borders by John Washington

Global poverty:

Portfolios of the Poor by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven
When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas

Evolution:

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Queer fiction:

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann

Other fiction:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On “Asexual” as umbrella term (February 22) "Sometimes I hear newbies propose that there should be a separate asexual community that is *not* inclusive of gray/demi/etc. folks. I would go so far as to say that this idea is totally pointless."

2. Eliminating the Impossible (February 20) Very good point from xkcd.

3. Fix Your Hearts or Die (February 22, via) "Meanwhile men are finding out that they'd rather suffer loneliness than learn how to treat women as human beings instead of possessions, because treating a woman as a possession is domination, which means that it is seen as not just masculine, but core to masculinity. Treating a woman as a human being is gay, which is the least masculine thing of all."

4. Gaza death toll for first 16 months of war far higher than reported, says peer-reviewed study (February 18) "'The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,' the authors of the study, a team including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist and survey specialists, wrote in the Lancet Global Health."

5. Does Waiting for Marriage for Sex Increase the Chance for Painful Sex? (February 23) "Because for so many women, the first sexual encounter doesn’t happen because her body wanted it—it happened because 'time’s up.'"

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Former top general calls military's removal of trans troops a costly mistake (February 21) "I'm completely qualified to serve. I'm good at my job. The Navy has paid for me to be good at this. If we really are preparing for deployment or combat, why can't we just focus on doing our jobs and doing them to the best of our abilities?"

2. The Battle Of Minneapolis (February 22) "Think about that: You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth."

3. In Crackdown On Worst Of Worst Children, ICE Raids Kids Who Wrote Letters, Deports Sick Two-Month-Old (February 20) "Besides, before going on to whatever job she’ll have at a right-wing think tank, or in Hell itself, departing DHS propaganda minister Tricia McLaughlin explained to the Independent that it’s perfectly normal to dump sick infants across the border in the middle of the night, especially if you can do it before an interfering federal judge can stop you."

4. I posted a link about this same story last time, but this one is also worth reading: A Presidents' Day lesson from Philadelphia (February 17) "Instead, she wrote, 'It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves.'"

5. I Love Illinois. I Love America. I Refuse to Stop. (February 19, via) "I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party. We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness — or one rooted in cruelty and rage." From Governor JB Pritzker.

6. UN experts condemn US executive order imposing fuel blockade on Cuba (February 12) "They expressed deep concern about the foreseeable humanitarian consequences of restricting fuel supplies to Cuba through the coercion of third States. 'Cuba is already experiencing severe energy shortages, due to previous U.S. sanctions, with blackouts lasting up to 20 hours in many areas, affecting refrigeration for food and medication, and contributing to public health crises.'"

7. Maine immigration observers sue over Trump admin "domestic terrorist watchlist" threats (February 24) "Addressing their interactions, the lawsuit put it bluntly, '[T]he message of intimidation was express and clear: Plaintiff Hilton’s lawfully protected First Amendment activity, and that of her fellow observer, would result in them having their personal data captured and being placed on a ‘domestic terrorist watchlist.’'"

8. ICE Whistle Blower (February 24) "'Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,' he said. 'Incredibly, I was being shown this memo in secret by my supervisor, who made sure that I understood that disobedience would cost me my job.'"

9. We Can Beat Gavin Newsom (February 18) "If you are committed to progressive policy, Newsom is shit. If you want a Democratic leader who will relentlessly fight the right, then Gavin 'I want to praise Charlie Kirk at every opportunity' Newsom is also shit."

10. A U.S. veteran adopted an orphan from Iran. Decades later, ICE is trying to deport her (February 24) "But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the woman, who's now in her 50s and lives in California, is not American. Instead, she's an immigrant who overstayed her visa since she was a toddler and therefore, subject to deportation. She spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because she fears speaking publicly will complicate her immigration case."