Sunday, February 15, 2026

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Psychics in Silicon Valley (February 5) "While it’s incredibly easy to do this with a single believer and even more so with a crowd of believers like those in the audience at a show (because any “misses” might be “hits” for someone else in the crowd), I’ve actually managed to do this even for skeptics who KNEW I didn’t have magical powers, knew that there’s no such thing as magical powers, but were still choked up because suddenly they were envisioning their own dead father standing there saying that he’s proud of them. It’s really convincing."

2. This extremely useful chart about dinosaurs.

3. Chinese Scientists Save Patient Using Pig Liver Outside the Body (February 9)

Also from Sixth Tone: As Services Expand, More Foreigners Seek Treatment in China (February 13) "'This was his only chance but no hospital in Mongolia could perform the procedure on an infant,' his mother, Khurelbaatar Nasantogtokh, told Sixth Tone."

How Chinese Millennials Are Reimagining Weddings (February 13) "From mountaintop elopements to music festival photoshoots, young people in China are transforming weddings from family obligations into personal statements about values and autonomy."

4. A daughter reexamines her own family story in 'The Mixed Marriage Project' (February 10) "And so many of them would say, 'I found out that I had to live in a colored neighborhood. I had to leave my white neighbors. I had left my family in order to marry this Black man and move into the Black Belt. I now couldn't even tell my employer my address, because if they found out my address, they'd know I must be living with a Black man.' Why else would a white woman be living in the Black Belt?"

5. It's a dangerous complication of pregnancy — but a new drug holds promise (February 14) Hey this is really cool- a new drug that treats pre-eclampsia in pregnancy. I had pre-eclampsia during my 2nd pregnancy, and as I understood it, it's very dangerous and there's no cure except to not be pregnant- hopefully you are far enough along in the pregnancy that you can deliver the baby and the baby will survive. If this new drug is able to treat it, that would be great news! Still very early though, so we shouldn't get that excited yet.

6. Kansas City illustrator turns library checkout cards into tiny works of art. She only gets 'one shot' (February 13) "A few decades ago, checking out a library book meant writing your name on a lined, 3-by-5-inch card that a librarian then stamped the due date on."

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Kidney transplant recipient in ICE custody is finally getting meds, wife and attorney say (February 9) "A kidney transplant recipient from Minnesota now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Texas is finally getting some of the his life-saving medications he needs to prevent his body from rejecting the donated kidney, according to the man’s wife and his attorney. But they say federal authorities still are not giving him the correct dosage and full regimen of the medications."

2. Hating the Game (February 8, via) "The Post's framing only makes sense if, as is often the case, the demand of white bigotry is being accommodated. You can be one of the most popular figures on the cultural landscape and it won't matter; if white racists don't like you, you're controversial and polarizing."

3. Former ICE Facility Worker 'saw people laying in feces' at Baltimore Detention Center (February 6, via)

4. 13 of the most questionable redactions from the Epstein files (February 10) "The draft indictment is particularly notable because it includes three co-conspirators that prosecutors apparently considered charging. The co-conspirators are described as being employed by Epstein, but their names are redacted."

5. DHS's investigation of a man who emailed a DHS lawyer is over — but not the concerns it raises (February 11) "This all began when Jon Doe, the pseudonym used to identify the man, wrote an email asking the DHS lawyer to “err on the side of caution” in addressing the asylum case described in The Washington Post article that Doe read."

6. The Children of Dilley (February 9) "Among them was a letter from a 9-year-old Venezuelan girl, named Susej Fernández, who had been living in Houston when she and her mother were detained. 'I have been 50 days in Dilley Immigration Processing Center,' she wrote. 'Seen how people like me, immigrants are been treated changes my perspective about the U.S. My mom and I came to The U.S looking for a good and safe place to live.'"

7. 5 things to know about the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security (February 14) "During two congressional hearings this week, the leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection told lawmakers their agencies would likely not see significant impact on their enforcement operations since both agencies received more than $70 billion from Congress last summer as part of the GOP's massive tax and spending bill."

8. DHS says immigration agents appear to have lied about shooting in Minnesota (February 13)

9. Pride flag raised again at Stonewall National Monument in NYC after removal by Trump administration (February 13)

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

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

Book cover for "The Kingdom of Children"

I've been reading The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology by R. L. Stollar. This book is great; I'm so excited about it. 

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I want to write down some of my thoughts about what I've read so far. And there will be more blog posts about this book, so stay tuned for that.

Monday, February 9, 2026

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Draco Malfoy becomes unlikely Lunar New Year mascot in China (February 4) Lol, this is very funny. So the Chinese translation of Malfoy's name is 马尔福 [mǎ ěr fú], where the 马 [mǎ] is the Chinese word for "horse" and the 福 [fú] means happiness and good fortune and is used all the time at Chinese New Year. So now, because it's about to be the Year of the Horse, apparently Malfoy is a Chinese New Year mascot.

Chinese culture is weirdly into puns, so I am not surprised that suddenly Malfoy is a thing for Chinese New Year. I haven't seen any of these decorations myself in the wild, but if I do I will definitely let you all know.

2. This xkcd about Groundhog Day. Also this one about proofs.

3. Purity Culture is Pedophile Culture (September 8, 2025, via Why It Matters that Jeffrey Epstein Recommended James Dobson) [content note: child sexual abuse] This is a blog series about how most child sexual abuse is committed by a father, step-father, relative, or family friend- this is true, we have statistics on this, and James Dobson knows this- but instead of doing something to help protect children from father/daughter incest, Dobson and other purity culture leaders teach an ideology where parents have total control over their children's bodies, where a daughter's virginity belongs to her father until marriage, where the father-daughter relationship is described in borderline-creepy romantic terms. Yikes.

4. How to be less awkward (January 7, via) "I learned an important lesson that day: when it comes to being awkward, the coverup is always worse than the crime."

5. How to Teach Textual Criticism To Fifth-Graders (July 23, 2025, via) "If Billy wrote his primary copy in pencil, though, and you feel like messing with them even further, get an eraser and do a fairly sloppy job of erasing everything he wrote."

6. Bad Bunny's Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show (February 9) I don't speak any Spanish, so I'm not really able to tell you if this is good or not. But I liked it.

7. They're cured of leprosy. Why do they still live in leprosy colonies? (February 7) "In fact, leprosy — also known as Hansen's disease — is one of the least contagious diseases there is. Ninety-five percent of humans are naturally immune and it's not easily contracted by the other 5%. Today, leprosy is easily cured with antibiotics, especially if detected early."

8. The vegetables on VeggieTales are not Christian (December 10, 2025, via) "Mike Asparagus is not a Christian; he is an actor who occasionally portrays Christian characters. You might compare Mike Asparagus to Mark Williams, who is not a practicing Christian, but still portrays the fictional character of Father Brown on TV[.]" I am so here for this.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Pardon the Corruption (December 2, 2025, via) "DOJ lawyers normally apply standard criteria for pardons, these include: post-conviction conduct, character and reputation; seriousness and relative recentness of the offense; acceptance of responsibility, remorse, and atonement; and need for relief. The ideal case was someone who had served significant time, especially for more serious crimes, expressed remorse, and faced real hardship because of their conviction. Now, the ideal case is a wealthy supporter of the President who would prefer never to see the inside of a jail cell for their crimes."

2. Lawyers allege Dept. of Homeland Security is denying legal counsel to Minnesota detainees (January 19, via) "'One ICE agent said if we let you see your clients, we would have to let all the attorneys see their clients, and imagine the chaos,' said another attorney who asked not to be named. 'And I said to that person, yeah, you do have to let all the attorneys see their clients. You do have to accommodate that. That’s the Constitution. You chose to put them here. I didn't bring this guy here, you did.'"

3. Epstein Files Reveal How Pathetic Richard Dawkins & Other Men Are (February 6, transcript here) The Epstein files give an inside look at some drama that was going on with sexual harassment in the atheist community.

4. Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting (February 1) So... this is strange and I don't know what to make of it. I saw this news a few days ago but decided not to share the link yet, because it was only ProPublica reporting it, so I wanted to wait and see if it would be verified by other big news sites, before I shared the link. In the article here, ProPublica says they found the 2 names by looking at "government records"- but I don't understand what these "government records" are and how they got them.

So I guess let's still be skeptical about this? I'm sharing the link now because this was published a week ago and there still seems to be nothing mentioned on the other mainstream news sites (except The Guardian), and I find that very strange.

5. The unfathomable Minnesota transcript that must be read, as it tells the reality of America today (February 5) "What -- what can the Court expect going forward, because this is obviously not workable, and it's certainly not an example of complying with the Court's order, unless you feel it is?"

6. Trump refuses to apologize after posting racist meme of the Obamas (February 7) "'It's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,' said Scott, who is Black."

7. Immigrant whose skull was broken in 8 places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked (February 7) "He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend's car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton."

Friday, February 6, 2026

My thoughts have changed on aces "pleasing their partners"

Asexual flag. Image source.

This post is part of the January/February 2026 Carnival of Aces. The topic is "second glance."

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[content note: it's about consenting to sex you don't like]

It's a common piece of info I've often seen in "asexuality 101" resources. "Some aces do choose to have sex, for various reasons. Like, curiosity. Or, because it feels good. Or, to please their partner." 

And way back when, that was also a reason for me. But now my thinking has changed on this. Having sex just because your partner wants to is much more complicated than the breezy way it's presented in Asexuality 101. It is, quite possibly, a bad idea

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. A few fun songs I recently shared with my little toddler:

Friend Like Me Song (from Aladdin) (Official Video) [High Quality] - Disney Songbooks - From the 1992 "Aladdin" movie

Sesame Street: Patti Labelle Sings The Alphabet (2009) Gospel cover of the ABC song.

2. China Bans Retractable EV Door Handles Over Safety Concerns (December 26, 2025)

3. Why these women break the law to sell their eggs for IVF (January 29) "'You've told yourself you've done something, but actually you've only made it worse,' she says, referring to the legislators who formulated this law. 'You've created a black market, which means the people participating in it have no protections — they have no bargaining power. If something goes wrong, they're already doing something criminal, something illegal. So who are they going to turn to for help?'"

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong (January 26, via) "No application of armed violence can make the men with guns as heroic as the people who choose to stand in their path with empty hands in defense of their neighbors. These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors—just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back."

2. 5-year-old Liam Ramos and father are back in Minneapolis after being released from federal custody in Texas (February 1) 

3. Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later (February 1) "'I wasn't even outside for mere seconds before I seen a masked person running at me full speed,' Hussen said at a news conference last month. 'He tackled me. I told him, 'I'm a U.S. citizen.' He didn't seem to care. He dragged me outside to the snow while I was handcuffed, restrained, helpless and he pushed me to the ground.'"

4. Anti-ICE protesters call for national action against federal immigration tactics (January 31) 

5. It Can Happen In Your City Too (February 1) "As she was on the ground, the agents dumped out her purse, found her U.S. passport and left the scene, according to SEIU."

6. Trump Pressures International Orgs To Disavow Trans Care, Social Transition Globally "At Any Age" With Funding Ban (January 27) "In practice, the rule would attempt to force groups receiving U.S. aid worldwide to adopt extreme discriminatory policies toward transgender people as a condition of continued funding."

7. Trump admin is trying to deport LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers to countries where they'd be killed, lawyers say (January 29, via) "Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, passed in 2023, prescribes life imprisonment for consensual same-sex relationships and allows for the death penalty in cases labeled 'aggravated homosexuality.'"

8. His mistaken deportation was thought to be unique. But 'the problem is getting worse' (February 3) "Sandoval-Moshenberg said he alone has a dozen other plaintiffs like Abrego Garcia. It's impossible to quantify how many such mistaken deportations are happening — as only a small subset of immigrants have lawyers to argue for their return."

9. Judge temporarily blocks axing deportation protections for Haitian migrants (February 3) "A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end deportation protections for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants, who are allowed to live and work in the US legally under Temporary Protected Status (TPS)."

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Top 20 Posts of 2025

Laptop computer. Image source.

Hi readers! Here's the post with the roundup of my top blog posts from 2025. 

In 2025 I published more blog posts than I have in any other year. About half of them were my "blogaround" link roundups- and when I was checking the page views I was actually really surprised to see a bunch of the top posts by page views were blogaround posts. Apparently a lot of people are reading them? Thank you to those of you who are reading and sharing the links~ always appreciate that.

In this list, I'm not including the blogaround posts because they are just links, not me saying anything insightful. But like, real talk, I do spend a lot of time on rounding up links. So I'm glad people are reading them.

Anyway, here are the top 8 posts by page views:

1. Motivated By Inerrancy Or Sexism? "So that's when it hit me- these commentary writers really don't care about women, do they? This is just blatant sexism."

2. This 93% Stat About Dads is Totally Made-Up "You would have to find a bunch of families (how do you define family, exactly? Do the parents have to be married? Are we only looking at families with minor children?) where all members are non-Christians, and then track them (for how long? Barr says 10 or 20 years, that seems about right). You would then check if any of the individuals in these families converted to Christianity (what does that mean, exactly- who defines what "convert to Christianity" means? Do they have to be active in a church for it to count?)."

3. "Pure": A Book About the Aftermath of Purity Culture "Like Muriel, I also was genuinely confused about how teenagers get pregnant. Just could not make heads or tails of anything- how my experience of sex was in a different universe from the way everybody else talked about sex."

4. Video Game Museum of CADPA (Shanghai, China) The photos I took at the video game museum.

5. God and the Overton Window "Our opinions, our understandings of our own identities, they are all anchored on the range of possibilities that our own culture views as possible. But God shouldn't be limited in that way, right? God is outside of all that? But what does that even mean, to be outside of society and culture- could They even have an identity that makes sense to us? Could They even tell us anything about morality, that we could understand? Could we even know Them at all?"

6. "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH) "But if you read a children's bible, it cleans all that up. In the universe of children's bibles, the bible is a nice story about God's love, and how we should live our lives as good people. ... This is not what the bible is, and I hate it."

7. "I Want a Popsicle" (a bilingual book for Asian children, about feelings) "The author's website says, 'We are on a mission to provide bilingual resources for Asian American families to explore and understand emotions.'"

8. ICE and Hell "The apologetics nerds know that we have signed on to worship a God who ordered a man to be executed for gathering wood on the Sabbath. We know."

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And here are the top 12 posts that I like but didn't have the most page views:

1. The Bible and "Purity" "Well, first of all, the bible does NOT teach that it is a sin for men to have sex outside of marriage, in the general case."

2. The Bible and Polygamy "Buckle up, I have receipts. We're going to look at polygamy in the bible, and we're going to see that it's NOT consistently portrayed as a bad thing."

3. "Elemental": a movie about immigration, culture, and giving up the life your parents built for you "I was very impressed with how this movie portrayed the sense of being out of place, of standing out in a foreign environment, of being constantly inconvenienced by societal structures which everyone else feels are normal."

4. On Living Far Away From One's Family For Financial Reasons "And, yeah, I believe it's a bad idea to marry someone if you don't want to. But I also think it's a bad idea to live in China as an illegal immigrant, but I can't judge because obviously I don't know what her situation was in the Philippines, and why she decided to come to China, and how long she initially planned to stay, and if her life is better in China than it would have been in the Philippines, and if she is earning money for the purpose of supporting family in the Philippines, etc."

5. Believing in the God You Want "I was never impressed with the ontological argument, but isn't this kind of the same thing?"

6. The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God" "I need some space away from God, to think my own thoughts and feel my own feelings. Let me be wrong, let me figure things out on my own, let me change and grow. I don't want to talk to Them."

7. "Maybe God Is Like That Too" (kids' book review) This is THE BEST Christian book for kids that I've read.

8. "The Case For Open Borders" (book review) "To treat someone as a completely different type of person- as an illegal immigrant with no rights- just because of some imaginary line- it's immoral. It's just straight-up immoral."

9. "Portfolios of the Poor" (book review) "The book emphasized how extremely important it is that options such as microloans from formal providers are available to poor people. This is something that helps them a lot. But it doesn't look like the glamorous stories that charities tell, about how everyone is going to be an entrepreneur and escape from poverty."

10. "Genesis for Normal People": Separating "what the writer meant" from "what is true" and "what it means for us" "It has made me realize how much those assumptions- that the bible is true and meaningful to our lives now- distort our understanding of the bible, causing us to read things into the story which totally aren't there, and to ignore what the writers were actually saying."

11. Why do we only talk about transvaginal ultrasounds when we talk about abortion? "I mean, forgive me if I find this sudden concern for people who can't tolerate transvaginal ultrasounds a bit fake."

12. What Would Abraham Do? (a bible fanfic) A little bible fanfic where Sarah notices that Abraham and Isaac have gone to the mountain to make a sacrifice, but didn't take a goat, and she wonders, terrified, if that means Abraham intends to sacrifice Isaac, and if he's the kind of person who would really go through with it.

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Also, did you know I have a Patreon? Thank you so much to the people who support me on Patreon~

My plans for the blog in 2026 are, basically just keep writing about everything, like I always do. I have so many ideas for blog posts in my drafts. In the near future, you can look forward to posts about R. L. Stollar's book "The Kingdom of Children," which I am reading now and enjoying.

Thanks for reading!


Thursday, January 29, 2026

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Journal Club: Does everyone have a gender? (January 27) "Gender detachment bears some similarity to agender, although we remarked on some differences."

2. 【分享】我真的很不錯 - 伍思凱 (2019) If you understand Chinese, this is really funny. The song and the dance are just so goofy, and the song lyrics are about "I'm really amazing."

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Clergy protesters in Minnesota. One is holding a sign that says, "'Are they legal?' is MAGA for 'Who is my neighbor?' Love your neighbor as yourself - Jesus" Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Inside the effort to organize clergy nationwide to resist ICE (January 23) "Do justice. Love kindness. Abolish ICE."

Timberwolves chaplain speaks out (January 26) "Peace isn’t what you ask for / when the boot is already on someone’s neck. / Peace is what the powerful ask for / when they don’t want to be interrupted."

Bondi’s injection of voter roll demands into Minneapolis ICE tensions draws claims of ‘ransom’ (January 27) "'They move into your neighborhood. They start beating everybody up, and then they extort what they want. This is not how America is supposed to work,' Fontes said in a social media post."

Image source.

2. Italian officials voice outrage at the presence of U.S. ICE agents at the 2026 Olympics (January 27)

3. Families of killed men file first U.S. federal lawsuit over drug boat strikes (January 27) "Neither man 'presented a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the United States or anyone at all, and means other than lethal force could have reasonably been employed to neutralize any lesser threat,' according to the lawsuit."

4. They ‘Had Done Everything Right.’ ICE Detained Them Anyway. (January 26) "As her 13-year-old son wailed and her older daughter produced paperwork proving her mother was in the United States lawfully, the agents shackled Ms. Mehari and took her away."

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

US Citizens Living Abroad: Register to Vote!

Image text: "Vote from Abroad .org" Image source.

Hi everyone, if you are a US citizen living outside the US, you still have the right to vote! You have to register to vote each year, and then your board of elections will email you your ballots for all the elections throughout that year.

There is a really nice website that guides you through all the steps to register to vote: VoteFromAbroad.org. Some states have primaries coming up in March 2026, so get on it!

The rules for each state are different- some require you to physically mail your voter registration, some allow faxing or emailing. The Vote From Abroad site has all the information about each state.

If you are from a state which requires you to mail it. Here's the information I have about the US consulates in China: They can mail these for us. Bring your completed FPCA form (ie, the form to register to vote), in an envelope, and drop it off at the US citizen services area of the consulate (bring your US passport). In my experience with the US consulate in Shanghai specifically, they are open 8:30-11:30 am, Monday to Friday. I've been told it will take 2-4 weeks to mail it to the US in this way. Do it early- I would NOT rely on the consulate to mail things if you're close to the deadline.

I only have information about the US consulates in China, but I expect that US consulates in other countries probably have this service too.

You can print an envelope here: https://www.fvap.gov/uploads/FVAP/Forms/fpca_envelope.pdf

Vote vote vote! If you know any Americans who are living abroad, send them the link: VoteFromAbroad.org

Monday, January 26, 2026

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. After 25 years, Wikipedia has proved that news doesn’t need to look like news (January 15, via) "Unless an article has been taken down entirely, just about every link to a Wikipedia page created in the past quarter-century still works. Its article on Nicolás Maduro is still in the same place it was when first created in 2006, 4,493 edits ago. How many news articles published online in 2006 still live at the same address? Vanishingly few."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ‘Call to Unity’ re-enactors on MLK Day (January 21) "And those other bullet points? The ones about this church having a pastor who 'is also the acting field director' for the federal occupation of their community in the name of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing?"

2. ‘It’s a damn shame’: Park Service crews dismantle President’s House exhibit on slavery (January 22) "The signage was part of the exhibition 'The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,' which was unveiled in December 2010. It provided information about the nine enslaved people who then-president George Washington brought with him to the Philadelphia presidential residence and Washington’s ties to slavery."


5-year-old Liam Ramos, a little boy with a little fluffy hat, being detained by ICE.

3. ICE detains 5-year-old Minnesota boy; school leader says agents used him as ‘bait’ (January 21) "According to Stenvik, masked agents apprehended 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his driveway on Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father."

How an errand for a 12-year-old immigrant in Minneapolis became an underground operation (January 21) "He's a single father, and he told NPR that over the last few weeks he's been so afraid of being picked up by ICE that he isn't going outside unless a volunteer can take him where he needs to go. This is how he gets to work. It's why he couldn't rush home to help his daughter when she called him."

The ICE surge is fueling fear and anxiety among Twin Cities children (January 22) "'We haven't gone outside for anything in almost a month,' the mother, A, says in Spanish. NPR is only using her first initial because she is an asylum seeker, and is afraid Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will deport her."

Videos and eyewitnesses refute federal account of Minneapolis shooting (January 25) "It's the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis by immigration agents this month, and once again Trump administration officials immediately defended the action as self-defense while blaming the victim — in this case claiming he was a 'domestic terrorist' intending to 'massacre' officers."

The ICE killing of Alex Pretti, the second in Minneapolis, prompts quick legal action (January 25) "It is an astounding order that reflects the Trump administration’s complete failure to govern for the people, a horrifying reality."

Thousands rally against immigration enforcement in subzero Minnesota temperatures (January 24) "Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota’s largest airport Friday, and several thousand gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown."

4. Here's how 'shared decision making' for childhood vaccines could limit access (January 25) "'These vaccines have clear evidence of benefit for all children,' says Jake Scott, an infectious disease researcher at Stanford University. 'So moving them to shared decision-making doesn't reflect the scientific uncertainty that the category exists for. It manufactures this sort of uncertainty where no uncertainty really exists.'"

Friday, January 23, 2026

Kinda Tired of Talking About the Greco-Roman Household Codes

Book cover for "Jesus Feminist"

Today in "books that Perfect Number heard about 10 years ago and finally got around to reading":

I read Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women, by Sarah Bessey, published in 2013. This book, it talks about a lot of things- but at the beginning, there's a part about the bible passages that say women should be subordinate to men. The book presents interpretations of these passages which make the case that the bible actually supports equality between men and women.

There's the verse that says women must be silent in church. In this book, Bessey explains that this doesn't mean women should be silent in all churches everywhere, but that there was a group of women in one specific church that Paul was writing to, who were disrupting the church meetings, and this is just referring to them. Indeed, it wouldn't make sense to interpret this passage as Paul saying that women should be silent in all churches everywhere, because Paul also commends women who worked with him as church leaders.

There's the verse that says wives must submit to their husbands. Bessey explains that these commands were given in a very patriarchal society, and actually were really progressive in that context.

And there are a few more bible verses discussed here, toward the beginning of the book. Bessey makes the case that these verses show that God actually intended for there to be equality between men and women. 

And I'm just like... can we not do this? I'm kinda tired of doing this. 

I mean, it's my own fault for reading a Christian feminist book from 2013. Obviously a Christian feminist book from 2013 is gonna go through these bible verses and give feminist interpretations of them. People in 2013 needed to hear that. *I* needed to hear that, back in 2010ish, when I first read these interpretations on Rachel Held Evans's blog. There are still people *now* who need to hear this. There are Christian women who are told that they are not allowed to do this or that role in the church, because the bible says women can't, and these Christian women believe that's something they need to treat seriously. There are Christian women in bad marriages, who believe the only thing God has to say about that is "wives submit to your husbands."

But it kinda rubs me the wrong way now, the way we have to "well actually" the bible, the way we have to walk through this bible study before we're allowed to be feminists. It's like, you're starting out with this chain of logic:

  1. We have to believe whatever the bible says
  2. The bible says men are the leaders and women must submit
  3. Therefore men and the leaders and women must submit

And then a case is made for this logic instead:

  1. We have to believe whatever the bible says
  2. Oh, look at this! The bible actually says that men and women are equal! When you interpret it correctly.
  3. Therefore men and women are equal

But I would like to propose this alternative:

  1. It's just obvious to anyone with a conscience and experience living in the world, that men and women should be equal
  2. (Optional) You can read the bible if you want I guess

Also, isn't it a little too convenient? We can explain it all perfectly, so the *actual* meaning of the bible isn't sexist in any way, shape, or form. We carefully separate the layers- the sexism of the culture where this was written, the sexism of the writer, and the intended message- and oh look, when you do that, you see that all the sexism was in the other layers, and none of it was in the "intended message" layer. Hooray! 

Yeah, kind of a little too convenient. Although, if you believe in inerrancy, that means you believe the bible is perfectly telling one good and consistent message all throughout, so it won't seem suspicious to you if things are "too convenient." (I do not believe in inerrancy.)

I'm a bible nerd. I love the bible! But can we let it just be what it is, rather than needing it to be a shining beacon of feminism, or else we can't believe in equal rights?

Like, do we really have to do all this? Can't we just say "oh, people were sexist back then" and then get back to the task of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God? Can't we just "love our neighbors as ourselves"? We're not allowed to "love our neighbors as ourselves" as it pertains to the issue of gender discrimination until we get to the bottom of whether or not the apostle Paul was sexist.

I no longer care if the apostle Paul was sexist. In the past, I believed that "these passages that Paul wrote actually support gender equality if you interpret them correctly" is the hill you gotta die on, if you're a Christian feminist, but now I'm like, can we not? So what if Paul was trying to say something sexist? Paul is not in charge of me. The bible is not in charge of me. 

I get the sense, from reading "Jesus Feminist," that Bessey is also tired of talking about it. She says, she doesn't want to keep arguing with the powers-that-be, about why women should have a seat at the table. Let's forget the table entirely, and go start a bonfire.

I like this quote from page 171:

I'm through wasting my time with debates about women-should-do-this and women-should-not-do-that boundaries. I'm out. What an adventure in missing the point. These are the small, small arguments about a small, small god.

And this Christian feminist apologetics lesson is just a section at the beginning of the book. I don't want to give the wrong impression- that's not what this book is about overall, but it was the part that stood out to me because I was annoyed by it. Maybe I shouldn't be annoyed, because people really do still need to hear those arguments. But like... isn't it kind of messed-up that Christians believe we can't support equal rights until we can come up with a biblical interpretation that says we're allowed to do so?

Let me tell you what was good about the rest of the book. There's a chapter about experiencing God in the context of pregnancy/ childbirth/ being a mother. If it's only men who are allowed to preach in the church, you miss out on this whole angle on the nature of God. Also, there were parts in this book about the missions work that Bessey did in Haiti. Christian feminism means going and *doing* things to help people. It's not about debating conservative men about what women are allowed to do. It's so much more than that.

So, is the part where we debate conservative men about the bible a prerequisite for the "going and doing" part? Ugh, can we not? What if we just, like, skipped that part?

You don't have to do that, to be a Christian. You don't! You don't have to believe the bible, or obey the bible. I love the bible, but it is not in charge of me. (I do think it's a positive thing for Christians to read the bible- but not like this.) My Christianity is not about that. My Christianity is about Jesus. It's about incarnation, Immanuel, God with us. It's about the image of God in every human, the thriving diversity of the image of God, alive, every flag in the LGBTQIA community, speaking every language, feeling the whole range of human emotions. It's about "love your neighbor as yourself." It's about "whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." It's about "the first will be last, and the last will be first." It's about #BlackLivesMatter and free health care. It's about bringing the kingdom of heaven to the earth.

But wait! Hold up! We can't do any of that until we figure out how serious the apostle Paul was about "women should remain silent in church." Umm, really? Really? No, let's not get stuck on this. You can read the bible if you want, but don't let it stand in the way of doing good and following Jesus.

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Related

"Mother God" (as a queer Christian, I am so into this book)

"Genesis for Normal People": Separating "what the writer meant" from "what is true" and "what it means for us"

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

It Doesn’t Actually Matter What Jesus Said About Divorce

Motivated By Inerrancy Or Sexism?

Men have no idea what it's like for women in complementarian churches

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