Blogaround

1. Why anti-vaxxers get in more car crashes (February 16) This is fascinating- a study of 11 million people in Canada found that people who were unvaccinated (for covid) were 72% more likely to get in car crashes than people who were vaccinated. I would definitely like to know more about the reasons why. We can speculate but I don't think we really have good evidence on what the reasons are.

2. 2,400-year-old flush toilet discovered in China could be one of the oldest ever (February 21)

3. Free lumberjack cake tutorial from Sugar Geek Show (2018, via)

4. A Christian school canceled a concert after learning one of the singers is gay (February 14) "And notice how PCC doesn’t explain what 'endorsement' they would have been offering by allowing a gay man to sing traditional and popular songs on campus. How much of a bubble do students live in that even choral music must be heard through a prism of sexuality?"

5. This whole thread:

The Christian woman wears turtlenecks, fingertip length shorts,
And shame
Hers
And his, too
Despite this attire
Clashing with the supposed freedom in Christ
This yoke is too heavy
It weighs her shoulders down
Revealing a bra strap
“Slut”

— Hannah 🫠 (@HannahBo_Bannah) February 22, 2023

6. Southern Baptists Expel Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church for Ordaining a Female Pastor (February 22) Wow, isn't the SBC worried about going to hell? Yikes.

7. Freely, freely you have received (February 21) "And but so, that’s what I think 'revival' refers to, a moment in which we encounter the possibility that we are both fully known and fully loved by God. ... But the key thing, I think, is that this moment is not itself the story, only the introduction to the story. The story involves what happens next."

8. Ken Ham Finds Threats to Young-Earth Creationist within Young-Earth Creationism (February 2) Yep, that's kind of Ken Ham's whole thing- someone disagrees with Ken Ham on some little detail, and therefore that person is a false teacher and they are bad bad bad.

Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides?

Crowd of people worshiping in the chapel at the Asbury revival. Image source.

My posts on the Asbury revival:

February 13 Blogaround
"There is no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred": What people do with "revival"
Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides? 
The Logistics of a Revival 
Why I Don't Want to be at a "Revival"

---

Some news articles about the Asbury revival:

Asbury revival in Kentucky will end after two weeks of non-stop services, worship (February 19)

A Christian college in Kentucky is dispersing crowds of thousands after going viral on TikTok with a spontaneous 13-day worship event (February 21)

Here's why the Asbury revival is ending this week (February 20)

Asbury University has posted links to the livestream and the livestream archive. Not gonna lie, I was moved watching this. Part of me wants to worship, but, well, that's complicated because I'm ex-evangelical.

---

I'm thinking about this "revival" at Asbury, and thinking about how everyone on the internet suddenly has a hot take about it. Like, first, this thing happens, and some people are there experiencing it, and then a bunch of people on the internet, who did not experience it, all have to give their opinions on it.

(I realize that I am doing the exact same thing, though... I was not there, yet here I am writing several blog posts about it...)

I'm thinking about how there's 2 separate things: "God does a thing" and then "people argue about it on the internet." And how I've heard some people (on the internet) say, about the Asbury revival, "Let's just let it be what it is. Let's not use it to prop up our own personal political opinions." Or, people who have been there, saying that people are experiencing feelings of peace and wholeness, and other abstract, vague, positive feelings, and that it's not taking a position on any culture-war issues.

But... does that even make sense? God's Spirit comes here, and is felt powerfully by a lot of people, but doesn't take any position on any hot-button topic? Even though Christians on both sides of the "hot-button topics" feel that being wrong on those topics is a huge problem which is literally hurting people. God isn't going to say anything one way or the other, in order to avoid people arguing on the internet about it afterwards?

The issue on my mind is acceptance of queer Christians. I'm a queer Christian, but I'm asexual and that's not something Christians are having a culture war about, and I'm straight and married to a man so on the surface it looks like I'm following the rules. (I am very much NOT following the rules, though- I explore my desires and what I want or don't want, instead of just repressing myself and then having sex that's all about my husband, like I was a told a good godly wife is supposed to do.) Queer Christians who are L, G, B, or T have a much harder time in churches than I do.

But to me, being queer-affirming (which in practice means total acceptance of same-sex relationships and transgender identities) is the key question I would ask if I was going to start attending a church. Even though I'm not personally affected by gay or trans issues, it's an indicator of whether the church believes people have the right to make their own decisions about their own personal lives, or if the church believes that Christians are in charge of making decisions for everybody else. Do they believe "you have to repress yourself and fit into this box that God said everyone needs to fit in" or do they believe "the diversity of the queer community is beautiful and reflects the image of God, and it is so life-giving to discover your identity, that God loves you and your queerness, and that you don't have to force yourself into the boxes that other people made"? See, those are very different churches.

Anyway, in the context of this revival, the students on stage and/or the Holy Spirit can't just "not take a position" on queer acceptance. Of all the people on stage leading the worship music, are any of them openly queer, or not? Either way, that's taking a side. For queer Christians, their very existence in the church is political. There can't be a "this revival is just about experiencing a sense of wholeness from God, and doesn't touch on any political controversies." (See this tweet- people arguing on Twitter about how the presence of queer people on stage at Asbury does or does not mean the revival is "really" from God.)

(Or, here's another issue that God and/or the students at Asbury may or may not take a position on: wearing masks. I haven't seen anyone in those crowds or on stage wearing a mask. Does this mean *God* believes we don't have to care about covid any more?)

This is one of the big reasons why I don't want God to intervene and do things to take sides on this or that issue. Because it won't do any good. For people who directly experience it- yes, because of the emotions of it, perhaps it is powerful and convincing and can change their opinion on some issue. Like to suddenly feel like "wow I see this in a different way now, and suddenly it all makes sense" and just feel so strongly that that's true- I've had spiritual experiences along those lines before. But for anyone who wasn't there directly experiencing it, what good does it do? If someone tells you "I had a spiritual experience which confirms that God agrees with XYZ opinion" then if you also agree with XYZ opinion, you'll be like, "wow great." But if you disagree with XYZ opinion, you'll think, "well this person obviously misunderstood what God was trying to tell them"- it's not convincing to you at all, because you disagree with XYZ for your own reasons, none of which are addressed by this person's spiritual experience.

So some people were there and experienced it, and the rest of us are here on the internet writing hot takes about what it means... so what good is it that God powerfully spoke to people there, if that's not actually useful for convincing anyone who wasn't there?

Or, maybe I shouldn't say "what good is it?" I don't want to deny that it's a good experience for people who are there. I guess what I'm responding to is that idea that it's more than that. Lotta Christians on the internet writing hot takes about how this *means* something so much *bigger*, and I just don't think it does.

Perhaps some queer person there felt like God was saying that God accepts their queerness, and some other queer person felt like God was saying they need to continue to repress themself. In the past, I've heard testimonies of both of these kinds of spiritual experiences. (See also: my post on the Nashville Statement.) My opinion on them is simply my opinion on whether repression is deadly or life-giving. Just because someone says they had an epiphany from God doesn't affect my opinion on that.

So, I mean, blah. I see all these evangelical Christians on the internet talking about "we want this to spread to more university campuses" and I'm just like, blah. It's just going to result in more people arguing on the internet.

And... the thing is... maybe we could have this idea of how the "ideal" miracle is one where God doesn't take a side on any big controversial issue that Christians argue about it- but in the bible, God does that ALL THE TIME. God uses miracles to take a side ALL THE TIME. To say "these people are right and those people are wrong."

Okay let me give you some examples. Maybe the biggest example is when Elijah and the prophets of Baal both set up altars in a contest to see which god would light an altar on fire. (1 Kings 18) In a big, dramatic miracle, Elijah's God sent fire that "burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench." Then the crowd responded by killing all the prophets of Baal- was that what God wanted? 

There's Moses telling Pharaoh "let my people go" and performing miracles to outdo the miracles that Pharaoh's priests do. (Exodus 7-14) Notice that Moses never made any argument along the lines of "slavery is wrong"- instead, it was all about "my god can beat up your god." To prove a point, God does more and more violent miracles, culminating in killing all the firstborn sons of Egypt and then drowning Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.

There's Numbers 16, where Korah challenged Moses's authority, and God caused the earth to open up and swallow Korah and his entire household.

There's Joshua 6, where God commands the Israelites to walk around the city of Jericho for 7 days, and when the Israelites obey these instructions, God causes the walls of Jericho to collapse, and then the Israelites go in and kill all the inhabitants of Jericho (except Rahab's household).

A lot of stories where God steps in and basically says "these people are right, and those people are wrong." Though I gotta say, I suspect that a lot of these things didn't really happen, and we should be asking questions about the motivations of writers who wrote "oh yeah XYZ is totally true and God thinks so too."

Moving on to the New Testament!

Jesus tells a paralyzed man "your sins are forgiven" and the teachers of the law get mad about that, because only God can forgive sins. Then, to prove a point, Jesus miraculously heals the paralyzed man. (Matthew 9)

Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, which also was taking sides and making the Pharisees mad. (Mark 3, Luke 13)

And when the devil tempted Jesus, he wanted Jesus to jump off the temple so God would do a miracle and rescue him- and Jesus refused because "do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Matthew 4) So, maybe not cool to do a miracle just to win an argument.

Ananias and Sapphira lied to the apostle Peter, and immediately fell down and died. (Acts 5)

And when the early Christians were arguing about whether Gentiles could be Christians or if only Jewish people could, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the Gentile converts and they spoke in tongues. (Acts 10) In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabus used this in their argument for Gentile inclusion. If God accepted the Gentiles by doing miracles among them, they argued, how could the Jewish Christians exclude Gentiles by requiring them to get circumcised and obey the Jewish laws?

So if we want to say, "There are Christians with strong opinions on both sides of Big Controversial Issue X, and both sides think that the other side is horribly wrong and harmful, but we don't want to get into that, we just want *unity* and *love*"... well, lol, that's not what we see in the bible at all. And really, aren't those the big issues that we would want God to give us some answers on? (Or... maybe these are the issues that we won't change our mind on, even if God comes right up and says we're wrong...)

(But again, yeah, let's be a little suspicious of writers who wrote about "we believe in XYZ because this one time God did a miracle" and you have no way to verify if the miracle actually happened...)

But, like I said, in reality isn't this useless? For people who experienced the "miracle" or "revival" or whatever, it's convincing, but for anyone who wasn't there, well, it doesn't mean anything. I'm sure we could come up with all kinds of reasons that the writers of the bible took things the wrong way and actually they were totally wrong about whatever they said the "miracle" meant. Like, oh, how tragic that Joshua led the Israelites to kill all the people of Jericho and claim that they were doing God's will.

So... then what? If God comes and actually takes a side, it just leads to people arguing on the internet, because they can't actually believe that God would disagree with them- and a secondhand miracle isn't good evidence at all because you can't really be sure what exactly happened, and it doesn't address any of the actual reasons that you hold your opinions. But if God performs miracles which never take sides, isn't that kind of ... weak? Aren't those the issues we need God's input on? And in today's church culture, the only way to "not take a side" is to never acknowledge the existence of queer Christians, never say anything good or bad about being queer- which kind of is taking a side, if you ask me.

Okay I know I'm oversimplifying this- there are definitely miracles that are not "controversial." (I mean, there could be, hypothetically, though I personally am skeptical of any miracle claims.) Like, maybe God heals a sick person. 

But... uh... actually that could still be "controversial", because what if it's someone that Christians think doesn't "deserve" to be healed? Remember when conservative Christians didn't want to help people who had AIDS? Or, more recently, when conservative Christians didn't want their daughters to get the HPV vaccine?

Okay but anyway, there must be some miracles God can do that won't be taken to mean that God is Making A Point, and then everyone has to give their opinion on said point. And maybe the fact that these spiritual experiences are very powerful and meaningful to the people actually there experiencing them, is more important than the fact that other people will argue about it on the internet. So I am oversimplifying.

But anyway... I'm just not on board with the Christians who think this "revival" is automatically a good thing. Or the Christians who want it to just be a general positive thing that doesn't take sides on any political issue- because in the bible, miracles are often used to prove a point. And I'm also not on board with the Christians who want to use it to prove a point- because how can that possibly be convincing to anyone?

Like I said in my previous post, there's what God does, and there's how people respond. We have some people who actually were there and experienced the Asbury revival, and the rest of us who weren't there, who are writing our opinions about it on the internet. (I include myself in this group.) What good is that? For people who were there, it's great and meaningful, but for people who weren't there, it's just another thing to argue about. Is that how miracles are supposed to work?

---

Related:

I Would Love to Know If God Intervened to Stop Covid From Spreading in Churches

Blogaround

1. This important thread:

Thread incoming.
🧵
We're all familiar w/this famous meme.
But, did you know there are more?
LOTS, LOTS, MORE? pic.twitter.com/vFcMCW1qku

— Christian Janeway 🖖🥂🔍🏴‍☠️ (@XianJaneway) February 14, 2023

2. This whole thread:

I am nearly 43 yrs old. I have had 2 children, probably 10+ gyns, and so many pelvic exams.

Only last week did I encounter a doctor who first asked, "so many women have experienced sexual assault, will you be comfortable with this exam? Or can we talk about what you need?" 🤯

— Liz Sepper (@lsepper) February 14, 2023

3. This School Has the Worst Fire Safety Policy You've Ever Seen (2013) Okay I know this is from 2013, but I just saw it shared on Twitter and I am gobsmacked. (Also he links to a related post that he wrote but his link is broken, here is the correct link for that one.) Hemant Mehta literally emailed Pensacola Christian College to ask for clarification, and they replied twice, but somehow they aren't able to say the words "getting out of a burning building is MORE IMPORTANT then dressing modestly."

(I've heard a lot of horror stories about PCC from Samantha Field's blog...)

4. The recent kerfluffle on twitter is that some pastor told a story about how he was minding his own business at a restaurant and then the SEXIEST WOMAN EVER came and hit on him- the consensus on twitter is that this never happened, and now we are analyzing the cultural environment that these stories come from/ the reasons that a male pastor would make up a story like this (and this is a whole genre- it's not like this is the only example).

This thread is good:

Okay, I figured it out.
These kinds of stories are the only kinds of stories men can tell about how they heroically prevented adultery that also leave them totally in the clear.
The reason why they sound so ridiculous is because that’s not how men and women have sex with each https://t.co/h0A3hPdWRR

— Laura Robinson (@LauraRbnsn) February 17, 2023

5. The Princess Bride (1987) -- Ace Mini-Review (February 17) "Unlike many rom coms, which treat True Love as a universal goal everyone should be searching for, The Princess Bride presents it as practically unattainable.  And, as an ace-spectrum person, I actually find that comforting."

6. Extremely Hardcore (January 17) About Twitter employees' experiences after Musk took over. Yikes.

7. Microsoft “lobotomized” AI-powered Bing Chat, and its fans aren’t happy (February 18)

8. Far From Home: Meet the Migrants Returning to Shanghai (February 16) "On Sunday, Sixth Tone visited an underground parking lot at the Shanghai Railway Station, where a temporary shelter has been set up for returning workers. Since public transportation closes at midnight, many migrant workers find it too expensive to stay at hotels or book taxis. Instead, they stay overnight to catch the earliest metro to their next job."

And 2 more articles, also from Sixth Tone:

How the Pandemic Left China’s Migrant Kids Behind (February 16) "Less encouraging is the data from the last three years. Although reliable statistics are hard to come by, education figures suggest that the pandemic has reversed some of the progress of the past decade and separated large numbers of children from their migrant parents."

Chinese Teams in Turkey: Rescue Over but Relief Will Take Years (February 17) "As the world pledged to help, China was among the first, offering aid, equipment, and personnel. While the government announced 40 million yuan ($5.8 million) in aid, official estimates suggest that nearly 300 personnel, both sent by the government and from independent organizations such as Blue Sky Rescue and Ramunion, have joined the rescue effort."

9. Christian Leaders Are Sharing Their Experiences at the Asbury Revival (February 15) 

10. There is no sleeping giant (February 17) "That all-or-nothing view of revival will only ever produce the latter result. It will never bring 'revival.' I’m not sure it will even allow it."

11. After the ‘miracles’: Turkey, Syria, and long-term recovery (February 10) 

"There is no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred": What people do with "revival"

Image text: "Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Micah 6:8" Image source.

My posts on the Asbury revival:

February 13 Blogaround
"There is no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred": What people do with "revival"
Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides? 
The Logistics of a Revival 
Why I Don't Want to be at a "Revival"

---

So, about what's going on at Asbury University.

Why students at a Kentucky Christian school are praying and singing round the clock (February 14)

Last Wednesday (Feb. 8), students at Asbury University gathered for their biweekly chapel service in the 1,500-seat Hughes Auditorium.

They sang. They listened to a sermon. They prayed.

Nearly a week later, many of them are still there.

“This has been an extraordinary time for us,” Asbury President Kevin Brown said during a gathering on Monday, more than 120 hours into what participants have referred to as a spiritual revival.

The revival has disrupted life and brought national attention to Asbury, an evangelical Christian school in Wilmore, Kentucky, about a half-hour outside of Lexington. Videos of students singing, weeping and praying have been posted on social media, leading to both criticism and praise from onlookers. News of the revival has also drawn students and other visitors to the campus to take part in the ongoing prayer and worship.

(I have some Facebook friends who have gone to see this revival and written about it on Facebook. A lot of people in evangelical circles are talking about it.)

See the Slacktivist's post about it: Revive us again (again), and also what I wrote in my latest blogaround.

So, first what I want to say is: I believe in God. I'm a Christian. Therefore I believe that it is at least theoretically possible that God does sometimes come and "pour out Their spirit" in a certain place, and people there do feel Their presence and have very strong emotional/spiritual experiences. Yes, it's at least theoretically possible, but I believe we should always be skeptical of any actual reports of this actually happening. Because it is much more likely to be caused by the way the music and the environment of the worship space manipulate people's emotions- and this can be used in nefarious ways by Christian leaders who know what they're doing.

So, I see articles from Christian sources about what's going on in Asbury, and I do feel like there's something real about it. Like God really has chosen to cause Their presence to be powerfully felt there. (Maybe I'm wrong though, who knows? I have ex-Christian Twitter friends who are side-eyeing the entire thing, and I get that.) My *feeling* is there really is at least a part of this that's from God- I don't think it's *all* because of someone's skill at playing emotionally-manipulative music or whatever- and I say that because what's happening at Asbury is very grassroots and student-led. 

But that doesn't mean that Christians who describe what's happening, or say "this is what it means," are right about that.

There's what God does, and then there's how people respond to it.

It makes me think about the healing of the man at the pool, in John 5:1-15. "Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [footnote, only found in some manuscripts: and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.]" Apparently this was the way God worked at this miraculous pool.

But it's not just about how God works, it's about how people respond. Jesus sees a man who had been sick for 38 years, and the sick man says, "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Like... should someone have taken charge and set up a system where new people couldn't cut in front of people who had been waiting there for years, who were too disabled to get into the water? Or... maybe not... something seems kind of wrong about people putting rules and restrictions on a miracle, setting up neat systems to make it work according to their own opinions about who God "should" heal first... but at the same time, it wasn't fair to this guy, right?

I've heard that at Asbury, some Christian celebrities have shown up, and the students there do NOT let them have the stage. The worship music on stage is student-led. Whoever is in charge there doesn't want anyone to co-opt it for their own purposes. Maybe someone should have done something like that at the pool in Bethesda.

But if you're making decisions on who can or can't have the stage, then that aspect of it is from humans, not God. But there is no alternative- if no one puts a restriction there, then inevitably some power-hungry person will use it for their own ambitions/ political goals/ etc.

There's what God does, and then there's how people respond to it.

I believe in a God who lets people have the freedom to respond- and to be wrong sometimes. God does something, and then some believer says "God did this in my life, and this is what it means" and maybe their explanation on "this is what it means" is so completely different from God's actual opinion. But what is God going to do- only allow people who are right about everything to have spiritual experiences? Mind-control people to make sure they have the correct opinion about their spiritual experience?

I believe in a God who is a full person with Their own opinions and Their own experiences, and people are created in the image of God- God wants people to all be free to have their own opinions and their own experiences. It's not about making sure everyone knows the "right answer" about every issue- that's not important to my God at all. God does things and lets people make of it whatever they want. (Death of the author, I guess.)

And maybe I have an opinion and I believe that God shouldn't do those "spiritual experience" sorts of things, because of how people take it... like taking it as confirmation that all their already-held beliefs about God are true. I think about when God rescued Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), and I wonder if there was some other friend of theirs who was also very devoted to God, and made a nuanced argument about why it's okay to pretend to bow down to the statue, and so he wasn't thrown into the fiery furnace, and didn't experience the miracle, and then... then what? What does that do to his faith? (Maybe someday I'll find the time to write a bible fanfic on this.)

For me, actually, it used to be that a big part of this was wanting "evidence" that God exists. When I was evangelical, that's what I wanted. I was always very aware of atheism, and always fighting it... wanting a "spiritual experience" because then that would be "evidence"- wanting to investigate other people's accounts of their own spiritual experiences, to prove atheism wrong. 

Now I don't care about that anymore, though- now I would say I have more in common with atheists who criticize Christianity, than with conservative Christians. I don't think being wrong about the existence or non-existence of God really matters as much. So I hear about this revival, and my concern isn't about if it's "real" or not. It doesn't matter to me if it's real or not. It matters what people do with it. Are people going to say "and this means that God is confirming I was right about how being queer is a sin/ God is confirming I was right about how being queer is not a sin" etc etc etc?

(Maybe we should say that these spiritual experiences shouldn't be used to prop up one side or the other in a culture war- but isn't that what happened in Acts 10:44-48? There was the question of whether Gentiles could be Christians, or if only Jewish people could- and the Holy Spirit came on the Gentiles and they spoke in tongues, and that was evidence for which side of the argument God was on. Couldn't a similar thing happen, where God's spirit is clearly present in queer Christians, and that's evidence that the church should be queer-affirming? To some extent I think that has happened but in a more long-term sense- there are Christians who changed their minds because they got to know queer Christians and saw that the queer Christians really are devoted to God, etc.)

And I know a lot of Christians want to have these kinds of spiritual experiences, to have that feeling, to feel God's presence. Chasing that emotion, specifically. I'm not into that anymore either. I have boundaries with God; I've decided I won't have a "personal relationship" with any god. I won't be vulnerable to any god in that way. I've had spiritual experiences like this before, but I don't feel I need that now.

Like, honestly, I'm not on board with the idea that we "need" this kind of "revival." I'm not on board with Christians who long for it (because that's often tied up with ideas about Christians getting more political power...). It's just an emotional experience. Like, okay sure it's the presence of God or whatever, but, God is always with us. Where can I go from Your spirit, where can I flee from Your presence? We don't need God giving us our own personal little emotional experiences- we need to bring justice to the earth. Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

(Also I'm giving a lot of side-eye to Christians who uncritically accept that this really is a "revival", and don't have any concerns about it, and are like "let's pray for it to happen at our church too!")

Actually, I want to say a bit about where these emotional spiritual experiences figure into evangelical culture. I've been to Christian conferences where the worship service goes on a while and people are like "God is here!" and ... I would say the result of this is the way it inspires the people who experience it. The emotions of it can be so strong, that it's something that stays with you for years, and you base your life on it. There was one conference I was at, in college, that as I was kneeling in the front, with the worship music playing, I had this idea to start 2 bible study groups. And then I ended up actually doing it, over the next few months. I was inspired, I had that emotional experience, and I went on to do it. (At the same time, I wonder about people who made these big commitments about all the things they were going to do for God, during high-emotion spiritual experiences, and then don't end up doing them- I really wonder about the statistics on that.) And... I mean, yeah, hopefully people are inspired to do things that are good, but this is limited by the ideology you already believe in. Like, in those 2 bible study groups I started, I did that because I believed my friends needed God, and needed to become Christians. I don't believe that any more.

There's what God does, and then there's how people respond.

And I've been to Urbana (Intervarsity's huge missions conference). And it is a known phenomenon, that people "get the call to missions" at Urbana- like, you're having these emotional spiritual experiences, and in the midst of that, you feel like God is "calling" you to go be a missionary in some country. Actually, when I wanted to go to China, I didn't have that experience- and I worried SO MUCH that I wasn't "allowed" to go to China because God didn't "call" me. Like it was something I can't just choose to do myself, I can't just say "here are my reasons"- it's only valid if it just pops into my head as a random thought during a very spiritual experience. It really gave me a lot of angst back then, choosing to move to China because I wanted to, not because "God" "called" me.

Anywayyyy, maybe this post is all over the place, but I just want to write these things down... My point is, I think it's real, at least to some extent, but the important thing isn't if it's real, it's what people do with it. 

---

Follow-up post: Does God Use Miracles To Take Sides?

---

Related:

My Urbana 12 Commitment Card

"You Weren't There, the Night Jesus Found Me" 

When God Agreed That a Crush Was Dangerous

The things I've never let myself say about worship

---

Some tweets (after the jump):

Totally Baffled, in an Asexual Way (or, my review of "Let's Talk About Love")

Book cover for "Let's Talk About Love" by Claire Kann. Image source.

The Carnival of Aces topic for this month is "Representation in Fiction". I recently read the book Let's Talk About Love [affiliate link], which is a romance novel about an asexual character, so for this month's carnival I'll write my review/opinions on it.

So, this was the first time I went and read a book specifically because it's ace fiction and was recommended by ace bloggers. ("ace" means the asexual spectrum) Usually I don't really seek out fiction with ace characters. I read a lot of fanfic, and typically the ones I like are fanfics where the characters have to have sex because of some contrived external reason, which I wrote more about in my post Let me tell you about a fanfic that reminded me of my marriage. Usually they're not ace characters. 

(Maybe I should read more ace fiction...?)

All this is to say, maybe I'm not the right person to be reviewing ace fiction? I can only talk about how much it related to my own experiences. I can't really talk about what the ace community as a whole needs from ace fiction. The ace community is big and diverse, and we need fictional characters representing all of that. I'm just 1 person.

So this isn't, like, an Ace Review of "Let's Talk About Love." This is, like... Perfect Number's Opinions.

---

Ace concepts

Ah actually I do have 1 thing to say from a more general "this is an ace review" perspective: This book includes a bunch of concepts which aces talk about a lot, such as

• aesthetic attraction
• romantic attraction/ romantic orientation
• strong friendships which can be even more important than romantic relationships
• experiencing arousal unconnected to attraction/ being confused about how arousal connects to attraction

This is great, I'm glad these concepts were featured in the book. The way these concepts fit as completely normal aspects of Alice's life felt very real to me. (Alice is the main character. She is a biromantic asexual.)

---

My overall feelings

It was an enjoyable read! I liked it! Could be useful for people who are younger than me and trying to figure themselves out.

But, my overall feeling was... I just feel very confused about why the question of whether or not Alice is going to have sex with someone she's dating is such a big deal. Like, why would you have sex just because you're dating? Why would that even be a thing? She's 19. 19 is way too young to be having sex, right? (Uh the statistics say that around 55% of people have sex for the first time by age 18... so... I'm wrong... this is a true fact but it just makes no sense to me...) Why is everyone in this book acting like her unwillingness to have sex is this huge obstacle that makes it impossible for her to date?

I just can't get my head around it- but actually, this is a really common ace experience. I have read blog posts from aces who said things like "I had a boyfriend/girlfriend in high school, and I didn't want to have sex but I thought I had to, because that's what you have to do when you're dating, so I had sex." (Which also happened to Alice.) 

This is just so completely different than the ideology I believed in at that age. I 100% bought into Christian purity culture, which said "of course no one is supposed to be having sex before marriage. Yeah, sure, statistically most people do, but you shouldn't pay attention to that because it's bad and wrong. You're better than them." (Which, yikes, feeling superior to other people because of what sexual experience you do or don't have is NOT COOL.)

I just have so much trouble comprehending the concept of high school kids having sex. Or college-age kids having sex. Sex is complicated and weird and confusing, and I was not at a place where I had the emotional maturity to deal with it, until I was done with college and living on my own. (Though honestly in my case this probably was less related to age and more related to the fact that that's when I was questioning purity culture.) I'm glad I never actually considered the question of *me* having sex, when I was in high school or college. It's just too big of a question, and I didn't have the information back then to make good decisions about it.

I'm not trying to judge anybody... I have friends (who aren't asexual) who had sex in high school or college and they feel like that was fine, they were emotionally mature enough for it. Probably "emotionally mature" isn't even the term I should be using here, because "mature" sounds like a positive thing- kind of makes it sound like it's "good" if you're able to choose to have sex, and "bad" if you don't feel like you're at a place in your life where sex makes sense. Maybe what I actually mean is being emotionally mature enough to make good decisions about sex- and "yes" and "no" can both be good decisions depending on your situation.

And yes, this is a common ace experience- feeling like you're "supposed" to have sex with the person you're dating. So it's good that this book is talking about this. Even though it's so far from my experience and I was just completely baffled at how this could possibly be enough of an issue to be the main conflict of the book.

---

The plot

Here's my summary of the plot: Alice's girlfriend breaks up with her because the girlfriend thinks Alice isn't performing the right emotions during sex. This makes Alice feel like as an asexual she shouldn't date someone who can't accept her asexuality. 

Then Alice meets this guy, Takumi, who is SO CUTE she can't even believe it. They get to know each other, they start spending time together every day, he tells her she's beautiful, she tells him she likes him, they often hug, etc- at this point I thought that added up to "they are dating" but apparently not? At this point in the book, Alice is all worried about "I want to date him, but how will I tell him I'm asexual? And maybe I shouldn't date him at all because he'll want to have sex and I just don't want to be in a relationship that has that expectation."

[spoilers]

Eventually she tells him she's asexual. He says it doesn't change his feelings for her, but that makes her confused because there's still the issue of how they can date if she's not willing to have sex, and he hasn't really said anything about that. Eventually they have more conversations about it- she says there's a possibility that someday she would have sex again, but she doesn't want to be in a relationship where her partner expects that from her. And eventually Takumi decides that he loves her enough that he's okay with being in a relationship where they're not having sex. Hooray, the end.

[/spoilers]

But yeah, like I said, I was just so totally confused because, why do they have to figure out whether they're going to have sex before they even start dating??? I view sex as an extremely far-off thing... to me this feels like trying to figure out if you want to marry this person, before you even start dating. (Which, yikes, I'm an ex-purity-culture girl, and that's a little too real... in purity culture I really did believe you should know if you're likely to marry the person, before you even start dating.) Like, why not just have fun together and see where it leads? Who even says the relationship will go far enough that having sex becomes an actual possibility? 

I mean, hey, maybe Alice is thinking much more long-term than me? Like eventually the person she's dating will want to have sex with her, and will break up because she refuses, and she wants to avoid that altogether. Is that it? Or is it, like... like people have the expectation that people who are dating are having sex, more or less right from the start of their relationship? (??? This is so confusing to me.)

It's like... if someone was so totally worried because they have a crush on someone and want to date, but what if their crush wants to go rock-climbing? Like, oh my goodness, I have to decide right now, before we can even start dating, if I'm *ever* willing to go rock-climbing at all. Making it into this huge issue. Why is it such a huge issue? Why is rock climbing even associated with dating at all? And actually, we're not even talking about rock climbing, we're talking about something even weirder: exposing your genitals to each other. And then touching them together. And then moving around vigorously. ?????? Why on earth would that be something you're expected to do, just because you're dating someone?

I'm married. When I started dating my husband, I didn't know I was ace, and I believed unmarried sex was a sin. I've never had the experience of trying to get into a relationship, knowing that I'm asexual, and knowing that most people have sexual attraction and view sex as a normal thing. Other aces are in a totally different situation than me. What Alice is dealing with in this book definitely is a real ace experience. I do want to understand it more. I just feel very boggled.

---

Takumi's view of sex

[spoilers]

At the end of the book, Takumi says that he's not asexual, and for him, sex is a way to express his love to someone. This is an idea I've heard before- perhaps a lot of allosexual people feel this way? Like you want to passionately express your love to your partner, and sex feels like the way to do that.

I'm actually really curious about people's opinions on the connection between sex and love. (Feel free to leave a comment on this post!) Takumi's opinion here is not intuitive to me at all. And actually, he says that he realized Alice still has those passionate feelings for him, even though she doesn't want to have sex with him, and that's why he finally decided he's okay with dating her without sex. This also strikes me as weird- do a lot of people think being uninterested in sex means that you don't love your partner? How odd... Do people really think that?

[/spoilers]

You know... I dated a few guys when I was in college, and I never sat them down for a "we're not going to have sex" talk. It never even occurred to me, because the idea of *me* having sex was just so outlandish. (And also, purity ideology teaches that good moral people are of course all trying not to have sex but sometimes it "just happens" because they "fall into temptation"- so, the idea of having an honest conversation about what each person wants doesn't really figure into that anywhere at all.) But, they knew I wasn't willing to have sex with them, just because I was very involved with Christian groups, and "purity" would come up in conversation pretty often. For me, it was this very abstract theoretical thing. I never ever thought of it as "and therefore, I *specifically* will not have sex with you, my boyfriend, *specifically*" because I had no awareness that anybody was having sex at all, except married couples.

Now that I know I'm ace, occasionally I think back to those relationships and I wonder if the guys I dated wanted to have sex with me. It always strikes me as such a surprising and odd question to ask. I definitely never thought about it back then.

Alice is only 19 years old. When I was 19, I would not have been able to handle the information that people I knew were having sex and it was fine for them. I would not have been able to handle the question of whether *I* could or should be having sex. I mean, obviously I did not want to have sex- but if I had known it was an actual possibility, I would have endlessly worried about whether I was "missing out" on it, like maybe there's some *reason* that most people are interested in sex, and I can't figure out what the reason is but apparently it's a really big deal, and I need to understand this reason, and maybe I should be having sex too, if I don't understand the reason then how can I be so sure it doesn't apply to me, and on and on and on. Back then, I wouldn't have been confident enough to say "yes, most people my age are having sex, but I know myself well enough to know that I don't want to, and therefore it is right for me to not have sex." Ugh, just gives me so much anxiety, imagining this alternate universe where high-school-Perfect-Number wonders if she is supposed to be having sex just because most other people are.

(Instead I had purity-related anxiety, which is also bad! And instead of "you're supposed to be having sex if you're dating", I was taught "you're supposed to be having sex if you're married" which is bad too!)

---

Conclusion

Overall, I thought it was a fun read. Takumi and Alice were cute together. I think the way the book explores Alice's asexuality can be helpful for readers who are trying to figure out their own asexuality. 

But, also, I am so confused about why it was such a big deal, this question of whether or not Alice can date if she's not willing to have sex. I'm just so baffled at the idea that sex and dating would be so closely bound together like that- which everyone in the book seems to just take for granted. But, apparently this is a real thing. I have heard aces say they had these same experiences- having sex they didn't want just because they believed you're "supposed to" if you're dating, worrying about how or when to tell a potential partner that you're ace, feeling like dating isn't even worth trying at all because you'll be expected to have sex, etc. These are real ace experiences (which actually seem to be pretty common- I've seen a lot of these things discussed on ace blogs) but are so incredibly different from my experience as an ace in purity culture.

---

Blue Ice-Tea wrote a post related to this one: Do Ace Stories Contribute to Compulsory Sexuality?

---

Related:

Let me tell you about a fanfic that reminded me of my marriage

On Purity, Asexuality, and Timing

"How Far Is Too Far?" My Story, And What I Wish I'd Known 

We didn't know what sex was, just that it was bad

Blogaround

1. The Difference Between Mental Illness and Demonic Possession (February 1) "Yes—in the early 1990s, I think I participated in group exorcisms where the subjects were mentally ill, and not demon-possessed at all. And I wonder if I did more harm than good." An article about how to tell the difference. Personally, I believe demons probably do exist, but I don't think I believe any anecdotes I've heard from actual people about their actual experiences encountering an actual demon. Just seems so incredibly unlikely that a person would actually encounter one and also be able to figure out that's what it was.

2. Perspective: What pictures of abortions can and can’t do (February 6) This is a good article about the topic of what a fetus looks like- from the pregnancy apps happily declaring "your baby is the size of a blueberry!", to the abortion activists showing photos of fetuses after they have been damaged by the abortion process, to the women who had miscarriages and want to find the body and lovingly bury it. 

Personally, I don't like how images are used by both the "pro-life" and pro-choice sides, to either say "this is totally a baby!" or "this is just a meaningless clump of cells" because both of those are inaccurate and are trying to manipulate the images to support their argument, rather than trying to actually get at the truth of what a fetus looks like.

And I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that the physical appearance of the fetus should have any place in arguments on the legality of abortion. I think pregnant people should have accurate information- no hiding the fact that it does have tiny baby features, but also being realistic about when these things develop during pregnancy (the first trimester is completely different from the third trimester)- and then make their own decisions.

3. The Ant and the Universe (February 4) "The rubber band starts out one meter long, and stretches out one meter per second. This is one of those magical math rubber bands that can stretch indefinitely."

4. Stop praising Pastor Andy Stanley for pretending to love gay people (January 25) WELL-SAID.

I posted the link Andy Stanley's comments a few weeks ago (about how gay Christians who attend church are very committed to the church, and the church is lucky to have them, and straight Christians should learn from them). He's right, and it's something that conservative Christians need to hear- but don't take it to mean Stanley is queer-affirming or anything like that. It's quite possible he's just on the nicer end of "hate the sin, love the sinner."

Queer Christians know all about Christians who say very nice things about queer people but when it comes right down to it, you eventually figure out they don't support queer rights at all.

5. Enhanced clobber-texting methods (February 7) "A clobber text permitting torture would have been trumpeted by the advocates of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' as the definitive biblical word settling the matter beyond dispute, but a clobber text prohibiting the practice would have been relegated to endless exegetical dissection."

The Slacktivist has it exactly right. It's not just the clobber text itself- a bible verse that clearly says "don't do X", where X is whatever culture war issue is being debated. It's the whole culture around how to read the bible, how some verses are treated as more important than others because, uh, because, well, because... because... well, it's just obvious, and anyone who brings up a bible verse that says differently is "twisting Scripture."

6. Grace Community Church Rejected Elder’s Calls to ‘Do Justice’ in Abuse Case (February 9) [content note: domestic violence, coverup, spiritual abuse] "'They sided with a child abuser, who turned out to be a child molester, over a mother desperately trying to protect her three innocent young children. And that was and is flatly wrong, and needs to be made right,' Cho said to CT. 'Numerous elders have admitted in various private conversations that ‘mistakes were made’ and that they would make a different decision today knowing what they know now. But those admissions mean you need to make it right with the person you wronged; that is utterly basic Christianity.'"

7. Revival comes, again, to Asbury University (February 11) and Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’ (February 13) So... the story here is that Asbury University (a Christian university in Kentucky) had a chapel service last Wednesday, and people continued to stay there and sing worship songs and make public confessions and so on, for days... this chapel service is continuing for days (I am not sure if it's still going now or not- didn't find an article that said it ended...)

And yeah people are saying it's "revival" and "God is working" and all that.

So, uh, my thoughts on this:

My first question was, what sort of Christian denomination are we talking about here? What's the background? Is it in any way associated with Pentecostal/charismatic churches? Because, Pentecostal/charismatic churches are really into this kind of thing, they expect it to happen, they know how to set up their church service in such a way that influences people's emotions to make people think "God is working" and all that. So if this is somehow related to Christians who have a Pentecostal/charismatic background, I am not very impressed. But if these are Christians who come from the sort of church background where the worship services are fairly tame and they haven't experienced anything like this at all, well, now that's something. Then it's significant.

Apparently they are non-denominational or maybe associated with Methodists. So, yeah, not Pentecostal/charismatic. Okay, well then, that's unexpected- that makes me more curious about what's going on here.

Basically, I believe that it is totally possible that God does things that affect our physical reality. But, I am extremely skeptical of any actual account of any actual such events. (Oh lol this is kind of the same as what I said about link #1.) 

But hey, maybe this really is God, just deciding for some reason to be affectionate with people in this one particular place and time. 

But, uh, also a lot of it is people spreading the news "there's a revival happening" and then other Christians drive in from other places to see it and participate- so, it perpetuates itself.

I am also very skeptical about the way that people are interpreting this. Like, calling it a "revival." To me it seems more like, a bunch of people having a positive emotional/ spiritual experience- okay, but it doesn't really go any farther than that...? 

I mean, the only really long-term effect I can think of is like... maybe if you're there and you experience it, that feels like strong evidence that God exists and God can be experienced, and that would be something you remember in the future if you're considering the question of God existing/ what religion you are or are not going to identify with. (Oh lol, I just realized the Christianese term I'm looking for here is "it strengthens their faith" wow I'm really out of practice.) Uh, I hesitate about how to word this because I know I have readers who are atheists- basically, I think it's valid to dismiss other people's personal spiritual experiences as evidence for God and/or for a specific religion (because so many people have all kinds of different contradictory spiritual experiences)- but if it's your own spiritual experience, that's different.

When Christians see things like this and say "God is working," I think one of the main things they mean by "working" is "God is going to convince people to convert to Christianity." Which... I mean, that's just an interpretation. Just because a lot of Christians are having an emotional experience singing worship songs... like what does that have anything to do with non-Christians converting to Christianity? It's totally not connected- but in a certain type of Christian ideology, God being present and powerful means that God is going to convince non-Christians to believe in Jesus. In that ideology, it's connected.

One of my concerns is that when people have a spiritual experience like this, it confirms whatever religious ideology they already believe in. Who knows, maybe God is like "I choose, for my own ~mysterious reasons~ to create a spiritual experience for these people, even though they have a lot of very incorrect beliefs about me" (and really, doesn't everyone have a bunch of incorrect beliefs about God? They are beyond our understanding, that's kind of Their thing...) and then people take it to mean "oh, it really is true! All the beliefs I have about God really are true!" That's kind of a jump in logic (jump from "the spiritual world exists" to "God wants people to become Christians"- yeah, it doesn't follow).

And then I saw this tweet, which makes a good point:

I'm confused by the excitement re: the #AsburyRevival. It's a multi-day emotional rollercoaster with lots of singing. That's all.

"Revival" is happening when people start doing Isaiah 58:6-9 & Micah 6:8. Period.

Why wait for "revival" to get off your ass and do something? Go!

— Nick Laparra (@NickLaparra) February 13, 2023

YES! I think it's a little weird putting so much emphasis on emotional experiences... (Hence my side-eye towards the Pentecostal movement...) Like, I believe God is with us ALL THE TIME. And we already know what They want us to do: Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before God. You don't need a "spiritual experience." Go do it.

I'm in the US (why don't y'all wear masks?)

A sign that says "Masks are optional." Image source.

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak 

---

Hi everyone, just wanted to put an update here and say I'm in the US! After being stuck in China for 3 years! (I mean, not literally stuck, it was easy to leave China and hard to get back in...)

My son and I are here on vacation for a few weeks, and then back to China. Fortunately, China no longer requires a quarantine when entering the country. All that's required is 1 negative nucleic acid test before you get on the plane. (There have been so many versions of the rules about getting into China during the past 3 years- the policies have changed a whole bunch of times. Now it's so easy though- just 1 nucleic acid test.)

How do I feel about being in the US? Well, it's great being here, but the really weird thing is I don't feel like I've been gone for 3 years. (Sort of like the mirror of what I wrote in this 2013 post.) Everything seems so natural and like I fit right in. I guess this is a kind of reverse culture shock.

It's great, and I don't want to be away for 3 years again. In the Before Times, I came to the US twice a year. That was a good amount- I want to do that. And I can now, because zero-covid has ended and it's no longer hard to get into China. (I mean, China is still not issuing tourist visas, but for people who legitimately live there- like me- it's not hard to get into China.)

---

Why don't y'all wear masks?

Like, this strikes me as super weird. We get off the plane, walking around in the airport, and most people aren't wearing masks. ??? Why not? You're in an airport. Why would you not wear a mask?

And basically everywhere we went, in public, sometimes crowded places- most people are not wearing masks. Why not???

I have some thoughts about it, but since I'm on vacation I don't want to spend time blogging about it now, so I guess maybe I'll write a post on it some other time.

---

A few other covid-related differences

So, at a lot of stores in the US, they have plexiglass set up in front of the cashier, so you're not breathing on them. I've never seen that in China.

Also, apparently, in the US, social distancing was a real thing. There are marks on the floor showing you where to wait in line, and people actually did that. In China, we had the marks on the floor, but nobody ever paid attention to them. We barely did any social distancing. With a few exceptions: I remember at Shanghai Disneyland, the employees were enforcing social distancing at some of the places where you wait in line, and when you meet a character there are marks on the ground showing that you have to stand a certain distance from them- and that's enforced. And during the Shanghai lockdown when we all got mass-tested every 2 days, they were telling us we had to stand in line 2 meters apart, and people actually paid attention to that and did it. (Definitely not everybody did it though.)

I think in China, there is just less of a concept of having "personal space." Like when you wait in line, the person behind you is RIGHT THERE, and that's just seen as normal. If you left a bit of space, people would think you're not actually in the line, and they'd cut in front of you. So social distancing never really caught on. Also, the Chinese government needed to make covid rules that were an absolute thing- having a vague sense that probability generally increases as distance decreases just wouldn't have fit into the policies.

I've also heard people in the US talking about staying a certain distance away from someone who might have been exposed to covid, and calculating which day they would be contagious if in fact they were infected- and we just never really did any of that in China. Like, they either label you a close contact and put you in quarantine, or they don't. There's no "well, it's probably fine if you stay X distance away from them/ if they were exposed yesterday because they won't be contagious yet/ etc."

The key thing here, I think, is that in the US, everyone's on their own. So you assess the risk to you as an individual. If there's a 1 in 1000 chance you could get covid, well, that's pretty small, so you don't worry about it. But in China, the government was trying to stop 1 billion people from having covid. If there's a 1 in 1000 chance that someone has covid, and over the course of several weeks there have been thousands of people identified who are in that situation, well probably at least one of them really does have covid, and we just can't have covid-positive people walking around in society, so we have to quarantine ALL of them.

(Of course, this isn't the case any more, because the zero-covid policy has ended, and the Chinese government is just letting everyone have covid now.)

So for Chinese people, the set of things that would get you put into quarantine is a much bigger set than the things that make you have a high probability of actually having covid. I think it will take some time for me to work out what the actual risk to me is and how to go about life.

---

Links

A few links on the goings-on in China:

Sixth Tone: 

‘It’s Finally Over,’ Say Doctors in China as COVID Cases Ebb (February 9)

SHINE:

Suishenban now offers free Chinese-English PCR tests (February 7) 

Blogaround

1. I find myself listening to "Into Jesus," a DC Talk song from 1998. DC Talk was my favorite band back then, and turns out I'm still into Jesus.

2. This post from Coyote (January 21) about how much ace discussion has developed since 2010. This is great.

Another one from Coyote: Dogmatic Positivity and the Terrible Neutrality of Hope (February 1) "Alternatively: dogmatic positivity is creepy as all get out, and here's why." I especially appreciate the mentions of Plugged In- a conservative Christian movie review site, which I used to read and really take seriously. (In the years since I've become ex-evangelical, I've occasionally visited Plugged In again, and I just find it so unintentionally hilarious, how extremely concerned the whole thing sounds as it describes small mundane things that happen in movies.)

3. This tweet:

It’s so weird to me when people say a couple sleeping in different rooms means their marriage is close to over. When I hear that a couple does this I think “that’s amazing! One partner was able to bring up a sensitive need they have and have it accommodated! So healthy!”

— sheologian (@sheologian) January 31, 2023

4. Holes, Through a Folkloric & Spiritual Lens (2019) "Every bit of fortune Stanley gets, he tells his family it is only fair that Zero gets half because Zero was there through it all and did half the labor, even if records and destroyed and no one remembers his name."

5. How our view of creation and incarnation shape our view of intersex people (January 18) "To frame the incarnation as God’s becoming human in overflowing love is to affirm the goodness of human bodies and sexuality and the fulness of God experienced in them. And thus, when we see intersex people in light of an incarnation of overflowing love, we no longer experience brokenness, but infinite wholeness."

6. Hippolytus: Asexuality and Ancient Greece (2018) "Regardless of whether we can use modern terms like 'asexual' to map ancient identities, here is a clear-as-day self-identification of ‘someone who has no urge for sexual activity’, which, whether we call it 'asexual' or not, is completely relatable, at least from my modern asexual perspective."

7. St. ELIZA, pray for us (February 1) "I don’t care much whether or not someone programs a thousand AI bots to offer up perpetual vain repetitions as do the heathens, but the idea of replacing the human presence at the bedside of the sick or by the side of the lonely seems far more troublesome."

And another one also from the Slacktivist: The other way around (More on slavery and ‘how to interpret the Bible’) (February 3) "These white Christians were people who claimed to be guided by the Bible above all. It was, they said, the central authority shaping their belief, their behavior, and their choices. And so these white Christians sought out the best and clearest explanations of what the Bible — the Word of God — taught and required of them with regard to the practice of slavery. They listened closely to 'debates' over the meaning of biblical teaching on slavery and found the arguments offered by the pro-slavery side to be simpler, clearer, easier to follow, and therefore more compelling and persuasive. And thus, persuaded by such powerful biblical arguments, they subsequently came to believe that slavery as practiced in America was something acceptable, respectable, and blessed by God." The Slacktivist calls bullshit on this.

Top 14 Posts of 2022

Dog using a laptop. Image source.

Hi readers! It is now 2023, so it's time for the roundup of my top posts for 2022.

Top 6 posts by pageviews:

1. On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles. "And if you can't get 2 fingers in, and also you don't have access to lube, and you're about to go to your first gynecologist appointment and I've made you super-nervous about it, well... sorry I guess? Sorry we live in a world where girls who don't even have access to lube are expected to just let other people stick things in their vagina. Like you don't even own your body, but someone else does."

2. Wow, the Anti-China Bias in Western News Media. "CNN reads like 'this shows that 'zero covid' is BAD, everyone hates it, China should stop.' Sixth Tone reads like 'nobody is questioning the 'zero covid' strategy. But we all agree that Xi'an is doing a terrible job of it.'" I wrote this before the Shanghai lockdown, actually, and I wouldn't write it the same way now. But yes, I am still very much NOT IMPRESSED with how CNN and other western news sources reported on zero-covid. They really did not give a good picture of what's actually going on in China. They seemed to start with idea that the Chinese government is evil and doing everything wrong, and every single news story needed to be tied back to that.

3. Someday Dave Ramsey will have to stand before God and explain why he fired a pregnant woman. "Here, everyone, let's turn in our bibles to Genesis 38 and read the story of Onan. A story that everyone thinks is about making rules about sex, but is actually about cutting vulnerable people off from their source of income."

4. I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised How Fast Omicron is Spreading in China. "I could scroll through my WeChat right now and probably find 50 covid-positive people. This thing is EVERYWHERE." This was right after the zero-covid policy ended. (December 2022)

5. 2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids. "Or, alternatively, the writers of the children's books don't remove the ****ed-up parts, but they don't comment on how ****ed-up they are. They just say 'and then God commanded Joshua to kill all the Canaanites' and then continue with the story like everything's fine. WTF????? You want to teach your kid to not even notice when a story has genocide in it???????"

6. "Come As You Are" is helpful I guess but not for me. "My main experience reading this book was being completely mystified, wondering what exactly the problem is that Nagoski is even trying to solve. Women, uh, want to have sex more? Okay, then have sex more? Oh but they don't want to. Uh, okay, then don't have sex?"

---

And 8 more posts I recommend:

7. Well, the biggest thing that happened this year was the Shanghai lockdown. It was BAD. I'm not going to go through all my lockdown posts and pick out some highlights to share here, because I don't have the emotional bandwidth for that, it was so bad, you guys. We were locked down for 2 and a half months (March 16 to May 31). I'll link the post that has the list of all my lockdown posts: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak. It was bad, it was so bad, you guys.

And I wrote a LOT of covid posts in 2022, and got feedback from readers who really appreciated having my perspective on what it's really like in China (thanks!) but also, ughh I wish I didn't have to blog about covid all the time.

8. Mary's Choice. A bible fanfic where the angel Gabriel first appears to another woman, Susanna, to tell her she will give birth to Jesus, but she says no, so the angel goes to Mary instead.

9. "For Pregnant Women and Nursing Mothers". "The idea that Jesus was describing the human consequences of this disaster, and how, practically speaking, those consequences fall on vulnerable members of society moreso than others. I don't know if I had ever heard that before."

10. In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble". "It was all fake. All that stuff about loving your neighbor. All that stuff about following what the bible says even if it's hard. All the stuff that I took to heart and I thought my Christian role models did too." 

11. "Moon Knight" and Boundaries With God. "After that, I decided I will never have a 'personal relationship with' a god again. I will never worship again."

12. I Would Love to Know If God Intervened to Stop Covid From Spreading in Churches. "Could it be that God intervened at church services to make it less likely for covid to spread there, compared to other in-person events with similar levels of social distancing, mask-wearing, etc? I am SUPER-INTERESTED to hear about any data on that."

13. Sure Of What We Hope For. This is my "I believe in resurrection" post.

14. "The Only Moral Virgin Birth Is My Virgin Birth". "The way I read it is, Mary didn't try to tell Joseph the truth. She didn't give him the chance to believe her or not, because the idea of exposing her whole complicated traumatic personal life to him and then not being believed was just too awful."

---

Those are my top posts for 2022. Readers, as always I am interested to hear about what kinds of posts you like and want to see more of. I have a whole ton of stuff in my drafts. So many ideas. Looking forward to another year of blogging~

January 2023 Carnival of Aces Roundup: "The Advice You Wish You'd Had"

A typewriter printing a page that say "Advice to my younger self". Image source.

I'm hosting the January 2023 Carnival of Aces, and the topic I picked was "The Advice You Wish You'd Had." 

There were posts submitted by Sildarmillion and me. If anybody else wrote a post and I missed it, please leave a comment :)

From Sildarmillion:

An Essay That Gave Me A New Perspective "The point is that before reading Saah’s piece, I had subconsciously thought of physical intimacy as an all-or-nothing, that the whole point of it was penetrative sex, and reading her piece opened my mind to other possibilities."

The Advice I Wish I’d Had "If I could go back in time, the advice I’d give myself is to view all of these words (sexual, sensual, aesthetic, romantic, alterous, platonic, attraction, desire, love, lust, chemistry, compatibility, erotic, crush, squish, infatuation, limerence) as tools used to convey personal experiences, and not as robustly defined constructs being used in a consistent manner by everyone using them."

From me, Perfect Number: 

Bucket List (a post about being a sex-favorable asexual) "Okay, so the summary of what 'sex-favorable' means to me is: If I could do it all over again, I would have the perspective that 'I would like to figure out sex, and masturbation, someday. Like, that is one of my overall life goals.'"

---

This topic- about how to do asexuality 101, how to teach sex ed in a way that's inclusive of aces, how to give relationship advice in a way that's inclusive of aces- is super interesting to me. I grew up in purity culture and had a lot of HUGE misconceptions about what sex even is, which made it impossible for me to realize I was asexual. It seems like a lot of aces spend years not even realizing that asexuality is a possibility, not even realizing that you don't "have to" have sex, etc. I definitely plan to blog about this topic more.