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.