Blogaround

1. A Landlord ‘Underestimated’ His Tenants. Now They Could Own the Building. (posted May 6) "'A lot of us didn’t know what harassment meant or what intimidation meant,' said Ms. Waterton, who works for a printing company. 'We didn’t realize that some of the stuff that was happening were tactics to get us to leave.'"

2. The Lightyear Timeline Makes NO Sense | Pixar Film Theory (posted May 6) I LOVE watching the Super Carlin Brothers trying to shove every Pixar movie into "The Pixar Theory." I just love it SO MUCH because it's EXACTLY like biblical apologetics. As Ben Carlin says in the youtube link above, "Because also, don't worry, we're gonna make it work, no matter what they throw at us. That is the game." Wish I could read a Christian apologetics book that was that self-aware and honest.

3. The Grimness of American Individualism (posted April 26) "These were celebrations of the most macabre kind; sheer, unbridled relief at not even having to pretend to give a fuck about other people—little kids, immunocompromised folks, disabled folks, workers in public-facing jobs, just anyone who doesn’t want to get any sicker than they have to be—anymore."

4. The Lost Letters of Saint Paul, and How They Were Lost (posted May 5) [content note: genocide] "Those letters would have been lost when Jewish quarters were burned out. In contrast, no such massacres are known in Corinth, Philippi, Thessaloniki, and the other centers where letters were preserved."

5. So I saw this article at Church Leaders, John Piper Imparts Wisdom From His Five Decades of Ministry and an Article He Wrote Titled ‘Missions and Masturbation’ (posted April 22), with a link to the Desiring God article Piper wrote in 1984, Missions and Masturbation. That was 40 years ago, he would probably not write it exactly the same way now, so I'm not picking on Piper specifically, but I want to say this- It's very clear to me, as I read this article, as an adult, that he was writing about his own personal problems, and claiming that it's the same way for everyone. And how wrong that is.

I'm struck by the fact that, if I had read this when I was a teenager, back when I didn't know anything, didn't know what a clit was or anything, I would have totally viewed it like, this writer is an objective, authoritative, trustworthy Christian role model who teaches us important truths about why masturbation is sinful and dangerous. (And I did read things like this, back then, and I did view them that way.) But now I read it and I'm like... wow... it's so revealing, how immature he is, how he's broadcasting his own personal creepy masturbation issues to the world, claiming that everyone has the same problems he does and that's why masturbation is always bad for everyone, wow he should be so embarrassed about this.

And... Is that how it is? Are the creeps with weird sexual hangups vastly overrepresented among teachers of Christian "sexual purity"? (Specifically, the "weird sexual hangup" we see in this 1984 article is the idea that it's not possible for a man to treat women with respect, if he masturbates regularly.) While people with normal healthy sex lives, who don't follow the church's rules about "don't have sex before marriage" and "don't masturbate", they don't go around talking about it loudly at church, because they know their own personal life is none of your business. 

That's... not good. But it would explain a lot.