Blogaround

1. After 3 Years of Lockdowns, a Chinese Border City Struggles to Rebuild (March 14) "After COVID hit, however, the city’s frontier location became a liability. With China wary of infections spreading across the border, Ruili faced a string of weekslong lockdowns. From early 2021, the border was sealed entirely, and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated. Undocumented migrants from Myanmar were rounded up and forced to return home."

2. The Story of Lazarus and the Making of the New Testament (January 19) "It is possible that Jesus on one occasion told a story about a poor man called Lazarus, and on another day, by remarkable coincidence, he actually raised a man of the same name from the dead. But other interpretations offer themselves."

And another from the same blog: How the Churches Forgot the Amalekites (2022) "The last Christian who will seek to exterminate another nation on the pretense of killing Amalekites has not yet been born." This is a really important point. There are passages in the bible where God commands his people to commit genocide. In western culture in modern times, churches tend to just awkwardly skip over those passages. But throughout history, Christians have literally used those passages to justify genocide- and this continues to happen in some parts of the world. If we just don't talk about those passages, that's not good enough. We have to engage with them and answer them.

3. Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth (Official Music Video) I'm sure I've posted this before, but here it is again. This is actually my religion. Just like Jesus taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

4. The Biblical Case for Affirmation (w/ Matthew Vines) (March 13) A 1-hour-45-minute podcast. I am and will always be a bible nerd, so I loved this. My position is different from Vines's, though, because I don't think we need to carefully study ancient Roman history in order to find out if we're allowed to treat queer people with basic human decency. (Or, in evangelical language, I reject the authority of Scripture.) But wow, I am so impressed by how much of a bible nerd he is. Like, chapter and verse.

5. A distinction without any meaning (March 19) "Biologists have managed to reprogram stem cells taken from a male mouse into female oocytes, then fertilized them with sperm from another male mouse, and produced healthy offspring — that is, they’ve made mice with two fathers. ... The creationists at Answers in Genesis are made somewhat uncomfortable about this, since it violates their fantasies about the rigidity of sex determination, and recruited their tame in-house crank with a Ph.D., Nathaniel Jeanson to write a rationalization for them."

Also from the same blog: Why would Tim White and UC Berkeley hoard old bones? (March 14) "It’s just the weirdest defense: our bookkeeping is so bad and ignorance is so great that we have no idea whose remains these are, therefore we ought to be allowed to keep them."

6. And here's another worship song I like: My Deliverer - Rich Mullins

7. Everyone’s asking if Joel made the right choice. But Joel didn’t make one choice. He made many. (March 15) [content note: spoilers for "The Last Of Us"]

8. Idaho hospital to stop labor and delivery services citing "political climate" and doctor shortages (March 18) "'The Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines,' Bonner General said in its news statement."

9. Minnesota Republican Unable To Stop Communist Governor From Giving Kids Food (March 15) "'I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,' Drazkowski said, in front of other people who could see and hear him."

10. HPV and Purity Culture (March 17) "To these individuals I say, 'I am sorry. Your virginity is not and will never be more important than your physical health.'" AMEN TO THAT.

I also did not get the HPV vaccine... it was very new and controversial when I was a teenager... Thinking about it now, it strikes me as odd that the response wasn't "wow great news, a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer" but instead more like "this is a vaccine for sluts? eww how could a good parent let their daughter get that?"

11. There is a God, But I Do Not Believe In Him (March 14) "God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us." Yeah this... this is very close to what I believe.