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."

---

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.

---

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!

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."

---

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."

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

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."

---

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.'"

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.

---

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

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. ‘It’s AI blackface’: social media account hailed as the Aboriginal Steve Irwin is an AI character created in New Zealand (January 15, via) "The choice to create an avatar of an Indigenous person has raised ethical concerns."

2.  Because of Who You Are - Vicki Yohe (2008) I like this worship song, but in a complicated ex-evangelical way.

Same thing for this video, of the song "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus."

I like the song. I like the singer's passion. I'm really into that. But seeing the crowd of Christians participating in this worship song, I just really feel unsafe in that kind of environment.

3. Chilean Cherries: Why Prices in China Plunge Every Winter (January 16) "To reach tables in China, Chilean cherries need to travel more than 19,000 kilometers, and for a long time, air freight was the only viable option. However, with the widespread application of cold chain technology, maritime transportation has become dominant in recent years."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. A Pregnant Woman at Risk of Heart Failure Couldn’t Get Urgent Treatment. She Died Waiting for an Abortion. (January 14) "As ProPublica has reported, doctors in states that ban abortion have repeatedly denied standard care to high-risk pregnant patients."

2. Rapid Response Networks in the Twin Cities (January 15) "When ICE operations switched to fast, random street abductions and door knocks, the only possible way to predict where they would act was to identify ICE vehicles as they approached, so people shifted focus to identifying ICE vehicles on the roads and staying on them. ICE needed to rely on surprise and ambush tactics, so responders employed noise—whistles and honking—to quickly give warning across distance. ICE officers don’t like to operate when outnumbered and don’t like to be surrounded, so patrollers amass cars and form impromptu traffic jam blockades."

Judge rules immigration officers in Minneapolis can't detain peaceful protesters (January 16) "The ruling prohibits the officers from detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles when there is no reasonable suspicion they are obstructing or interfering with the officers."

It’s The Videos (January 17) "Everyday citizens all over the country are racking up hundreds of millions of views with on-the-ground videos, and seem increasingly willing to film ICE agents on job sites, at traffic stops, and even on their doorsteps—even while being threatened at gunpoint. It’s a scrappy, diffuse content campaign against the Trump media machine, which likes to turn ICE arrests into highly produced hype videos that look as if they were produced by an SEC football program."

Minneapolis church has delivered more than 12,000 boxes of groceries to families in hiding (January 15, via) 

Dispatch from the occupation (January 17, via) "All of this means that the following dystopian scenario plays out in the open dozens of times per day in the Twin Cities: Multiple masked and armed agents in combat gear amass in unmarked cars outside a house or business. A bystander notices and alerts the neighborhood. A dozen or more neighborhood residents appear within minutes to legally observe, legally film the encounter, legally make sure the targeted people know their rights, and legally warn others by blowing whistles and honking car horns."

I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different. (January 21, via) "The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything."

3. Expand your vocabulary: the Dual State (January 19) "But your life goes on normally, until it doesn’t."

The Prayer That Jesus Taught Us To Pray

Image text: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Image source. 

I was recently thinking about the Lord's Prayer, and I realized that if I don't view it as "talking to God," I actually really like it. 

In my experience in Christianity, prayer is defined as talking to God. We believed that God is literally on the receiving end, listening to what we're saying in real time, having opinions about the things that we prayed about, making decisions about what actions to take in response to our prayers. As the Christian cliché says, God always answers our prayers with "yes", "no", or "wait."

But now that I'm ex-evangelical and the concept of a "personal relationship with God" really weirds me out, I don't pray. I don't want to talk to Them. I very much don't want to talk to Them. I don't want Them to be there reacting to my prayers in ways that steamroll my freedom to have my own opinions and think my own thoughts and make my own choices.

For many years, I've been saying "I don't pray." But just now I've thought of something, a whole different way to conceptualize what prayer is. Get this: What if prayer is a ritualized way to express our hopes and our understanding of our place in the world?

I think there are some subgroups within Christianity that view prayer something like this. Many many times, when I was evangelical, I encountered other Christians who prayed in ways that felt "fake" to me, like they didn't really believe an all-powerful God was right there listening and taking it seriously. Using language that's flowery rather than language that reflects the urgency and power of literally talking to God. A lot of sentences starting with "may."

Now I'm like, maybe there actually *is* something to that, and I shouldn't just dismiss it as "fake." I'm still coming from a very evangelical mindset on this. 

There's no way I'm the first Christian to come up with the idea "maybe we should conceptualize prayer in some way other than 'talking to God'" - but if I ever encountered this when I was evangelical, I would have dismissed it as fake Christians not taking their beliefs seriously. But here's an idea, what if there are Christians who pray in ways very different from how I did, because they have a well-thought-out belief system where that would make sense, not because they're "not taking it seriously." (Do leave a comment if you have experience with a thoughtful and robust belief system that values prayer but doesn't view it as "talking to God.")

So let's walk through the Lord's Prayer. (It comes from Matthew 6:9-13, but the language I'm using here isn't the exact wording from the bible, it's the wording that is traditionally used in churches.) I want to talk about how I understood this when I was evangelical, and how it now means something new and exciting and inspiring to me, if I view it as a picture of what I want the world to be like, rather than "talking to God."

Our Father, who art in heaven

When I was evangelical: God (he/him) is our Father, and we are talking to God. He is all-powerful, and he is listening and doing things in response to our prayers.

But now: In some ways, we can use the metaphor of God being like a father (also mother, also nonbinary parent). In particular, it means all humans are children of God; we are all equal, and all deserve to have a good life. We should care about people, all over the world, people who are different from us- we are all God's children.

Hallowed be thy name.

When I was evangelical: God's name is holy. We want everyone to recognize that God's name is holy. Ugh, isn't it terrible that people don't believe in Jesus, don't respect God's name, don't dedicate their lives to Jesus like they're supposed to?

We're talking directly to God here, saying, hey God, *I* know that your name is holy and deserving of respect, doesn't it suck that other people don't know that? Can you do something about that, God? Can you get people to believe in you?

But now: We want God's name to be honored. And so *we* as Christians need to behave in such a way that people see we are doing good, and they respect our beliefs because of that. Yeah, this is on us. A lot of Christians are acting like Christianity means we're better than other people, and we're gonna pick fights over displaying the ten commandments in schools, and other such nonsense. But imagine this, imagine if Christians were known for doing good. Imagine if people were like "oh, Christians, they're always feeding the hungry and fighting for equal rights for everyone." Imagine that. I think if that were true, then "hallowed be Thy name" would be true.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

When I was evangelical: In heaven, God is in charge, and everyone obeys God's will. That's the way it's supposed to be, and we want it to be like that on earth too. We want everyone to become a Christian and believe what they're supposed to believe, and obey God like they're supposed to.

But now: The kingdom of heaven is a world where there is justice and freedom and everyone is able to have a good life, and we need to do the work of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. This is something that *we* need to do. *We* need to fight for a better world. 

Give us this day our daily bread

When I was evangelical: We are dependent on God for everything, and we shouldn't forget that. We are pathetic and shouldn't feel like we are competent to do anything ourselves. We are nothing without God, and we should pray for even our basic daily needs, because we are dependent on God for everything. Yes, we should even be *asking God* to provide for our basic food needs. We worship the sort of God who is petty and might smite us if we aren't grateful enough.

But now: I feel like, I'm lucky that I have enough money that I'm able to take care of my needs. (I don't thank God for this, because that would imply that God chose to give me money and chose to not give other people money.) We should help other people who are in need. We want to live in a world where everyone has enough food.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

When I was evangelical: We are all sinners who deserve to go to hell. You have to forgive anybody who sins against you, no matter how bad it is, or else God might not forgive *your* sins and you'll go to hell.

Yeah, and we should directly ask God to forgive our sins, to remind ourselves that he's not obligated to do it, and we shouldn't take it for granted, because we're sinners who don't deserve that.

But now: We should have some grace and understanding for other people who mess up and hurt people in ways that we've also messed up and hurt people. Like, if someone gets mad at you over some little thing, they shouldn't do that, but also, you should think to yourself "well, there have been times I've gotten unfairly mad at people, and that was wrong" and so don't judge them too bad for it.

I *don't* believe we're required to forgive literally everything. What if someone's a murderer or child abuser or something? The teaching that victims always have to forgive is a big part of how sexual abuse gets covered up and allowed to continue in conservative religious environments.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

When I was evangelical: Oh, we're all such horrible sinners, we're susceptible to temptation, and we need God to help us not sin.

But now: I'm not sure about the "temptation" part- I don't really know where "temptation" fits into an ex-evangelical ideology. Maybe temptation to just kinda take the easy way out, to just take care of ourselves and not look for ways to do more and help other people- this isn't a specific discrete event where we make a choice to do the right or wrong thing, but more about our overall lifestyle.

And again, this is on us. Know yourself, know your emotional needs, and use that knowledge to set up good habits for yourself. Make deliberate choices about what kind of lifestyle you want to live. If you have a tendency to waste time on social media, for example, set up your life so that it's inconvenient to do so.

Maybe I'm discounting the role of God too much here. Many people can tell you about some feat of willpower or emotional health they accomplished, and they say "God helped me do that- I could not have done it myself." I have had experiences like that too. They felt so real, that I still believe in them now, even though I'm like "I don't really believe in that."

For "deliver us from evil," how about we understand that as keeping us safe from the evils going on in this world- rather than our own "evil"/ "sinful nature"? We want people to be safe from evil- and so that means we should take action and help people.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

When I was evangelical: God is all-powerful, and God wins in the end. Even though here on earth, a lot of people are not living the way God wants, and not believing in God like they're supposed to, fortunately it won't be like that forever. Eventually God will get everyone under his control.

But now: Even though we see bad things happening in the world, it will get better. There is something greater than the power-hungry exploitation which defines so much of how the world works. This isn't "just the way it is"- we should fight for a better world than that. God, heaven, justice, will win in the end. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

---

What if we don't view prayer as "talking to God," asking God to do all the things that *we* think should be done, assuming God agrees with us, confident in our superiority because we believe the right things and other people don't? 

What if instead, it's a way of expressing our vision for how we want the world to be- and we're not telling it to God and asking God to act according to our ideas, because that relies on the assumptions that God agrees with us, and that God is the one who primarily takes action. No, we proclaim that this is the way we want the world to be, and then we have to do it. We're not telling God to do it- if we were, then we just need to say it really really sincerely, performing the right emotions, and that's enough- no, God is not going to answer our prayer and do this; we need to do it ourselves. 

If we don't view prayer as "talking to God," then it's obvious that the act of just *saying it* isn't enough. We need to take action. We need to be the sort of people who are working in the direction of "thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven."

---

Related

"Hey God, you and I both know..." 

"On earth as it is in heaven"

German Christmas Market (Shanghai, China)

In December I went to a German Christmas market here in Shanghai, called Christkindlmarkt. Here are my photos~

You can view a larger version of this image here

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Scott Adams, 'Dilbert' creator and conservative commentator, dies at 68 (January 13) 

2. China’s Viral New App Is a Safety Tool Called ‘Are You Dead?’ (January 13) "The app, known as Demumu abroad, functions as a daily check-in. Users input emergency contacts, then press the check-in button on the interface’s home screen each day. If a user misses two consecutive check-ins, the app alerts their contacts via email."

3. Planetary Alignment (January 9) From xkcd.

4. The lumpers, the splitters, and me (January 13) "So when somebody like Matthew Avery Sutton comes along and says 'evangelicalism is best defined as a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics' it can feel for them exactly the way it has felt for them over the past several decades when the gatekeeping goons said to them — repeatedly and regularly — 'You are a fake Christian and your story of being born again and transformed by your religious experience must be a lie and you must hate Jesus and the Bible because what it really means to be an evangelical is to be like us — to be part of a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement seeking power to transform American culture through conservative politics.'"

5. The Rape of Dinah and The Shame of Adults (January 10) [content note: rape and victim-blaming] "Dinah’s rape and her brothers’ reactivity show us the shame of adults: that adults will, time after time, do nothing but negotiate and cover up the rape of their children by powerful people."

6. This country taxes menstrual pads as luxury goods. She's aiming to end the tax (January 15) "The link to child marriage contributes to the secrecy around periods and makes it an extremely isolating experience."

7.  Sesame Street: ABC-DEF-GHI Song Love this classic Sesame Street song.

---

Image source

Image source

Links related to the antichrist:

1. In Defense of Pretexts (January 9) "What I came to is this: For my entire adult life, I've watched American leaders justify war and atrocity with lies about democracy and freedom and self-defense."

2. Chaos continues (January 12) "Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait formy takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business."

Also about Minnesota: Minnesota federal prosecutors resign after DOJ push to investigate Renee Good's widow (January 13) "The investigation allegedly centers around any possible ties to activist groups [Becca Good] may have. That, of course, is protected First Amendment activity."

A Common Occurrence (January 14) "I’m sharing this so you’re aware that the ICE abuses we’re seeing since Renee Good’s killing is – aren’t new."

The Fascists are Lying about ICE Murdering an Innocent Woman (January 14) "Fuck Michael Shermer and the rest of his rightwing pro-murder pro-fascism sniveling grifters, who spread this lie even as we see ICE now enabled to literally go door to door, breaking into people’s homes, and dragging them away with zero accountability."

3. US aircraft that attacked suspected drug boat reportedly disguised as civilian plane (January 13) "'Fundamentally, the debate about ‘war crimes’ is a distraction – the whole operation is illegal, and the conduct of an extrajudicial execution by means of a plane with civilian markings is in fact reminiscent of a death squad operation,' Bhuta said."

4. Hundreds of nonconsensual AI images being created by Grok on X, data shows (January 8) [content note: contains descriptions of sexually explicit images (does not contain the images themselves)] 

Elon Musk's X faces bans and investigations over nonconsensual bikini images (January 12)

5. For Immigrants, Citizenship Now (January 13) "We have effectively created a class of criminalized residents who do not have full rights and protection under law. Immigration enforcement is a small fascist state within our polity."

I can't really agree with this without seeing an actual policy with more details- automatic citizenship? for who exactly? wouldn't there have to be some kind of criteria, like how long they've lived in the US? What about people from countries that don't allow dual citizenship, so they would have to renounce their other citizenship in order to get US citizenship, and they might not want to do that- there should be a way to have them legally protected anyway. It sounds too big and pie-in-the-sky to actually be a real policy- but, what if we think about it this way instead: What if the path to get US citizenship was a lot easier? What if it was less about bureaucracy and proving that you're "good enough," and more about a principle that people who live in the US and want to be US citizens should have a reasonable pathway to do so. Yeah, I support that.

6. Hillary Clinton May Finally Get Lock-Her-Upped For Refusing Stupid Subpoena From Dipsh*t James Comer (January 15) "You should definitely give the full Clinton letter a read, because it lays out not just why the Clintons won’t go along with Comer’s attempt to shift attention away from Trump and the DOJ’s foot-dragging, but also why this government’s corruption must be resisted wherever possible, from the streets to closed-door hearing rooms."

7. A federal judge dismisses the DOJ's effort to get voter data from California (January 15) "In 2017, one Republican secretary of state famously said the Trump administration could 'go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.'"

8. Behind the front lines of the legal battle against Trump's National Guard deployments (January 15) "Earlier this month, President Trump pulled hundreds of National Guard troops from California, Oregon and Illinois after the Supreme Court ruled against the administration in the Illinois case."

9. UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’ (January 13, via) WTF

What kind of God will judge how we treat immigrants?

Church nativity scene depicting baby Jesus zip-tied by ICE. Image source.

What kind of God will judge us for how we treat immigrants?

Will it be the God who said, "Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt"?

Will it be the God who said, "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God."

Is it the God who "defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing," and instructs the people to also love foreigners?

Will it be the God of Moses, who said, "Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow"?

Is it the God of Ruth, a Moabite widow who came to live among the Israelites, married an Israelite man, and became the great-grandmother of King David?

Is it the God of Isaiah, who had HAD ENOUGH of religious rituals and just wanted people to help the poor and oppressed instead?

Is it the God of Jeremiah, who promised blessings to the people "if you do not oppress the foreigner"?

Is it the God of Ezekiel, who said that foreigners should be allotted land in Israel, the same as native-born citizens?

Will it be the God of the Magi, who studied astrology and came from far away, following the star to find the baby Jesus?

Is it Jesus, who escaped a massacre as an infant? His family fled to Egypt and lived there as refugees.

Is it Jesus, who asked, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" He was angry at the way people hid behind the letter of the law, ignoring a person in need right in front of them.

Is it Jesus, who talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, even though it was weird for a man to talk to a woman, or a Jew to talk to a Samaritan, in that setting? He revealed to her that he was the Messiah, and she went to share the good news, and many Samaritans believed in him.

Is it Jesus, who bent down to scribble in the dirt when the religious leaders brought a "sinful" woman to him? Jesus, who ignored the literal words of the law and said, "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone"? After all of them had awkwardly left, he told the woman, "Neither do I condemn you."

Is it Jesus, who pointed out that the prophet Elisha did not heal lepers among the Israelites, but instead healed Naaman the Syrian?

Will it be Jesus, who was asked "who is my neighbor?" and didn't directly answer that question- didn't give a precise definition of who we are supposed to care for and who we can ignore. Instead, he told a story about a man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road, who was saved by a Samaritan, an ethnic minority. The answer to "who is my neighbor?" is "go and do likewise." Go and help people, across lines of race and nationality.

Is it Jesus, who told a parable of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus? The rich man went to hell, because he lived a life of luxury and totally ignored Lazarus.

Is it the King who separated the sheep from the goats, and told the sheep they would enter heaven because "I was a stranger and you invited me in"? He said, "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me."

Is it God the Spirit, poured out on the day of Pentecost, where people from many different nations had gathered, and miraculously heard the apostles speaking in different languages?

Will it be the God of Stephen, one of the leaders in the early church who was appointed to make sure that widows from a Hellenistic background were given equal benefits with the Hebraic widows?

Is it the God of Peter, who saw a vision of animals on a sheet lowered from heaven, and said, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right"?

Will it be the God of the apostle Paul, who preached to the Athenians, affirming their religion's desire to seek God, and told them that God intends for people of every nation to seek and find God?

Will it be the God of the apostle Paul, who wrote to Gentile readers and said that, even though the first Christians were Jewish, "you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household"?

Is it the God who showed John of Patmos a vision of worshippers "from every nation, tribe, people and language" in heaven?

Or...

Will it be the God who brought a plague against the Israelites when they were "seduced" by the women of Moab, and only stopped the plague after Phinehas the priest murdered a cross-cultural couple?

Is it the God of Moses, who led the army into victory over the Midianites, and instructed the people to kill all the Midianite men, women, and boys, and take the virgin girls as sex slaves?

Is it the God who said you can buy slaves from the nations around you, but you must not enslave your fellow Israelites?

Is it the God who sent fire to kill the priests Nadab and Abihu because they "offered unauthorized fire"? God's laws are very important, and they broke God's laws. Don't feel bad for them.

Is it the God who declared that a man should be stoned to death because he gathered sticks on the Sabbath day? Rules are rules. He deserved that.

Is it the God who said you must totally destroy "the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites"? Do not intermarry with them, and do not follow their gods.

Is it the God who said that when you go to attack a city, first you should make them an offer to surrender and be your slaves? Unless it's a city in the promised land, in which case you don't even offer that, you just go in and kill all of them, all of them, men, women, and children.

Is it the God of Joshua, who attacked the cities of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Debir, and many other cities, and left no survivors?

Is it the God of Joshua, who warned the people not to intermarry with other nations?

Will it be the God who struck Uzzah dead when he touched the ark of the covenant to stop it from falling? The rules are that nobody can touch it. Uzzah broke the rules, so he deserves whatever happens to him.

Is it the God of Nehemiah, who led them people in making a promise not to marry people from other nations?

Will it be the God of Ezra, who wept when he found out that the Israelites had intermarried with foreign women, and organized a mass divorce and abandonment of these foreign wives and children?

Will it be Jesus, who ignored the Canaanite women begging him to heal her daughter, until she convinced him that he was in the wrong?

Is it Jesus, who taught that if someone wrongs you, you should try to reconcile with them, but if they refuse to listen, "treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector"?

Is it Jesus, who said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," excluding people based on the technicality of whether or not they know the name of Jesus?

Will it be the God of the apostle Paul, who wrote, "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

---

A God who is love, who cares about everyone, especially people who are in need, and expects us to do the same? 

Or an authoritarian God who judges, excludes, and punishes, and if you think this God's punishments are unfair, shut up, no you don't. You better stay on his good side, or else you'll be next.

Both of these gods can be found in the bible. Every Christian must choose which of them is worthy of your worship.

---

Related

ICE and Hell 

This "Do Not Intermarry With Them" Stuff Hits Different Now 

The Second-Worst Bible Story 

Love Wins (an Ezra fanfic) 

That's What Radicalized Me (a post about immigration)