Blogaround

1. The Many Faces of Sun Wukong (September 23) "Some critics complained that Game Science, developers of the wildly popular game 'Black Myth: Wukong,' did the Monkey King dirty. But the mischievous simian has always defied easy categorization."

Also from Sixth Tone: Throwing Shapes: The Rave Experience for Deaf Clubbers (September 25) "The biggest difference between BassBath and other clubbing experiences is that mid- and low- frequency music is played all night, using deep sounds to create somatosensory vibrations."

2. FTC Sues Prescription Drug Middlemen for Artificially Inflating Insulin Drug Prices (September 20) Interesting... When I hear people talk about how certain things are too expensive, like prescription drugs, or housing, etc, and they say it's because big corporations are greedy, I'm kind of skeptical- it must be more complicated than that. For prescription drugs, there's the cost of the research, right? While they're doing the research, they're not making any money from that, and then after they develop a drug, the drug is super cheap to make, but they need to charge a higher amount than that, to make up for the money they spent on research. If uninformed people on the internet are saying "it's so cheap to make, they are being immoral by not selling it for that exact cost", well, if they were required to do that, then it disincentivizes the research. Why spend money on researching new medicines if there's no way for that investment to pay off? Also, factor in the money they spend on research that's not successful- there's an element of risk, and it only makes financial sense for companies to spend money on medical research if then they're able to sell the successful ones for a higher price than simply the manufacturing cost.

I heard that line of reasoning a long time ago, and it came from a Republican perspective so maybe I need to revisit it and ask "Is that *really* how this works, financially, or is this just something people say because they don't want to change anything about the system?"

Because, actually, maybe we should take a closer look at the idea "if they have to sell these medicines at a low cost, then there's no way to make money off them" and ask, wait, should medicine be an area where private companies should expect to make money? Maybe it should be government-funded instead? Maybe that's actually the entire problem, how this line of thinking is locked into the assumption that there needs to be a business model that makes a lot of profits by developing medicines. Rather than thinking "wow it's so great that this medical technology exists, it means we can have a society where everyone has access to the medical treatment they need."

I've seen a lot of social media posts, on twitter and elsewhere, confidently offering ideas for how systems should work differently, and I pretty much roll my eyes at this because people who make these posts don't seem to be thinking it through at all- they have a very very oversimplified idea about how the economy works. Here's an example I saw a while ago- "rent should be lower in February because it only has 28 days." I mean, okay, I guess we could have a system that worked that way, but it wouldn't make a difference in the total amount you're paying over the course of a year- it would mean you paid an amount *higher* than your current rent in a month with 31 days. Like, I recognize that this person is making this social media post because of an actual real problem they are having, about not having enough money to pay rent- and that is a problem which society should take seriously and do something about- but the problem has nothing to do with the fact that the specific dates when your rent is due are not spaced at *exactly* equal intervals. (Or maybe I'm taking it too seriously and it was a joke rather than an actual policy proposal?)

Anyway, when I see people criticizing drug companies for raising prices just because they're greedy, I also feel skeptical about that- is it "just because they're greedy" or is there more to it than that? Surely the company would argue that it's just the cost of doing business, and they could show you a budget breakdown structured accordingly. It's not like they just have a giant pot of money and it's so much they don't even know what to do with it. It's not like they have a budget where one line says "overcharge by thousands of dollars just because we're greedy."

Yes, I do recognize that the price of prescription drugs is way higher than it should be- because other countries don't have this problem. But locating exactly where the problem is, that's gotta be more tricky.

So, the reason I'm sharing this link about the FTC is that this is an actual legal case. This isn't just people on social media complaining about the price of medicine (a very real problem, but I don't think people on social media have a good understanding of the causes or what should be done about it!). The fact that the FTC is suing over it makes me think there *is* a specific problem that they can point to and say that companies broke the law and made prices higher just because they wanted higher profits.

3. A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban (September 21, via) "Beyond the immediate dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, there is growing evidence that women living in states with strict abortion laws, such as Texas, are far more likely to go without prenatal care and much less likely to find an appointment with an OB-GYN." This is horrifying. 

4. DNA test helps identify sailor from doomed Arctic expedition (September 25, via) "Fitzjames was one of the captains of British explorer Sir John Franklin's two ships that went missing in the summer of 1845."

5. Tips for respecting microlabels (September 25) "Perhaps you’ve seen label stacks provided as a rhetorical example of someone worthy of respect, as if to say, 'yes, we even tolerate those people'."

6. Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors and the victim’s family asking that he be spared (September 25)

7. Chase Bank says it is aware of viral 'glitch' inviting people to commit check fraud (September 4, via) "But in this case, people online seem to be simply committing check fraud against themselves — making it relatively easy for a bank to catch on and hold them accountable." Like I said, people on social media who don't understand how financial institutions work.

8. Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first (September 26, via) "They’ve completely reversed diabetes in the patient, who was requiring substantial amounts of insulin beforehand."

9. Maggie Smith, beloved ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’ star, dead at 89 (September 25)

I'm just wondering what happened to the Republican party

Political elephant and donkey logos. Image source.

The first election I voted in was 2008, Obama vs McCain. I was a conservative Christian and therefore generally supported Republicans, but I felt that I shouldn't blindly follow any one political party. I shouldn't vote for a candidate solely because they are Republican or Democrat; I should carefully look at the specific candidate's plans and decide based on that.

As I recall, it was hard to know how to make a good decision. I liked Obama, but there was the issue of abortion- this was back when I was "pro-life" and had never actually heard any arguments supporting the pro-choice side. I saw it in a very oversimplified way; I wondered "how could anyone think it's okay to kill their baby?" (Here, here's a post on that: What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice.) So in the end, I voted for McCain.

That was my thinking back then. Being very skeptical about identifying as a member of a political party. And, related to that, I didn't really have a concept of what the difference was between the Republican and Democratic parties. Both candidates were talking about "here are the things I want to do that will help Americans." It was a matter of judging which plans would actually work better to help Americans. The two parties felt very different, but I couldn't put my finger on how exactly they were different.

If I had to explain it now, what the Democrat and Republican parties stood for back in 2008, I would explain it like so:

• Democrat ideology is about helping groups within society which have not been treated fairly. (Poor people, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, etc.) The government should spend money to make sure poor people's needs are met- food, medical care, access to education, etc.
• Republican ideology says that society works correctly now: If you work hard, save up your money, send your kids to college, don't have children before you're married and financially secure- if you are "responsible" and do all these things the "right" way, then you will have a good life. You won't have to worry about not having enough money. That's how society currently works. We can't change it because that would mess things up for the responsible people who did things the right way. Yeah, you may think "the government should give more money to help poor people" because it sounds like a nice thing to do, but it's going to cost too much money and cause a lot of societal/economic problems. Yes, it's good to help poor people, but in a patchwork, unreliable, temporary way, a way that makes it clear you're doing it out of pity and not because you think society actually has a responsibility to help them.

So, while Democrats may argue that we should raise the minimum wage, Republicans would say we shouldn't do that because it will screw up the whole economy and that won't be fair to the hardworking people who did things the right way. Sure, if a Republican personally knows someone who's trying to raise kids on a minimum-wage income, maybe they would help that family out occasionally, cooking or babysitting for them, for example- but the Republican perspective says that the problem is this person didn't go to college and get a well-paying job before having kids. We mustn't raise the minimum wage to a point where it's actually doable to have a good life on a minimum-wage income, because that sends the message that it's actually okay for people to live that way. And if more and more people start believing that, they'll be lazy and it will mess up the entire economy.

That's what the Republican party was about back then, I think. And when I was younger, I really did think that society already was fair. In school we learned about the civil rights movement- we learned that in the past, there was slavery and Jim Crow, and that was obviously wrong, but that was history and now things are fine. Then in college, I started reading blogs, and that's how I found out about feminism, and how some groups within society are oppressed, and the world isn't fair.

Now the Republican party is, I don't even know. It's Trump. It's a personality cult. It's a constant stream of lies about how immigrants are violent criminals, and schools are trying to do trans surgeries on your kids, and black people existing in public is "woke" and therefore bad (??????). It's completely untethered from reality. It's all about hate.

And I've seen people make the argument that this was inevitable- the racism and hate were always there, as the deeper motivation behind Republican thinking, and it was inevitable that it would lead to Trumpism. I can't speak to whether that's true or not. These changes happened at the same time I was growing up and changing my own views, so it's difficult to say how much of the difference I'm perceiving is a change in society and how much is a change in myself. But the thing I wonder is... if you think society already works correctly, there could be 2 different reasons for that, right? Either you're ignorant and you don't know about the reality of racism, sexism, etc, or you do know about those things and you think they are part of what it means that society "works correctly" because you are racist/sexist/etc. Those are the 2 options, right? When I was a teenager, I was in the first category- but people who are adults should know better. 

Politicians should know better, because it's their job, right? It's their job to be informed about these things so they can make policies that truly benefit people, right? (Or is their job just to... do and say whatever is going to get them elected?) So maybe that does mean that, at least at the highest level of leadership, the Republican party really was about racism and hate, even before Trump took it over.

What's my point here? Well, I'm thinking about how it's been 3 election cycles now where we all had to vote against Trump. 8 years of him defining what the Republican party is about. At the beginning, it was shocking, but now it's just normal, and I hate that. Now every day, you have "right-wing" people talking about whatever the latest urban legend or conspiracy theory is, being pushed by Fox and Republican politicians, and people are getting all worked up about it, even though these things are completely false, and... that's just how it is now. It's like, why would I even bother saying "that's not true"- it won't make any difference at all. Maybe in 2016, people cared about what was true, but those days are long gone. Now we just take it for granted that the Republican party is a propaganda machine for hateful and racist lies. That's just how it is.

I remember in 2015 when Trump mocked a disabled reporter. That should have been the end of his campaign, right then and there. I remember when the tape leaked where he said "grab 'em by the pussy" and the way that Republicans all lined up to say "I have a daughter, I have a sister, and this kind of talk is despicable" and somehow he still got enough votes to be elected president. I guess back then it was shocking, but now he says and does over-the-top offensive and hateful things on a regular basis, and the top Republican politicians are now those without enough of a soul to be embarrassed by him. 

It's been 8 years of this.

I'm very interested in never hearing about him ever again.

Back in 2008, I thought I shouldn't follow a political party; I should do research into each individual candidate to make a decision, and maybe that would result in voting for different party's candidates in different elections (or even voting for one party's candidate for president, and the other party's candidate for state-level elections). Now I'm wondering how much that really made sense, though. If you are able to articulate what each party's overall perspective is, and they're so different, won't it be easy to see which one you are closer to? Is being an "independent" or "undecided" voter about believing that politics is confusing and it's just not possible to sum up each party's point of view in a way that meaningfully applies to the candidates that I'm trying to choose from? Maybe that used to be true, but not now? It would be nice to view it like "here are the candidates, hmm I wonder how to pick one, let's think this through carefully" rather than "I will be FIRST IN LINE to vote against this guy"- was it *actually* like that before, or was that just my own privilege and ignorance?

Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say about that. Vote vote vote.

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Related:

That Time I Voted For Obama ... Plus a Bunch of Republicans

I voted!

 

Screenshot of the section of the ballot where you can vote for Kamala D Harris and Tim Walz.

I did it! I received my absentee ballot and sent it in!

If you are a US citizen living abroad, go to VoteFromAbroad.org to register to vote! If you have already done this, you should have received your ballot by email on September 21. Fill it out and send it in!

If you registered but haven't received your ballot yet, and you are a US citizen living abroad, there is a backup you can use instead: Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).

VOTE VOTE VOTE!

Blogaround

1. If you're interested in the history of American evangelicalism- and how it's tied up with patriarchy and nationalist politics- the Slacktivist has been writing a whole series on it:

New evangelical historiography just dropped
Fightin’ words in the ‘evangelical definition wars’
What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?
‘Evangelical’ has no right-wing boundaries
Tony Campolo is not a white evangelical

Of these posts, my favorite is: Tony Campolo is not a white evangelical (September 16) "This is where most 'progressive evangelicals' come from. It is our origin story. We took what we were taught so seriously that we began to apply it to parts of the Bible that our teachers mostly ignored. This was just as true for me as it was for Ron, and Jim, and Shane." Same. I am also one of those evangelicals who followed Jesus right out of the church.

Also from the Slacktivist: The boastful pride of pro-life: Anatomy of a lie (September 18) "The desperation for some reassurance that we are safe (or relatively safer) from such suffering can always tempt us, like Bildad, to assert that those suffering pain and loss must be wicked sinners who deserve it."

2. Families Split Apart: Families Fleeing Anti-Trans Laws File Amicus In Supreme Court Case (September 5) "These bans aren’t done to protect kids, but rather to satiate the needs of people who hate them simply for existing as who they are. Families are left with an impossible choice: stay together and risk their child’s well-being or separate to get the care their child needs."

3. Every Scientific Field (September 17) Some insight from xkcd.

4. How to Think About Politics Without Wanting to Kill Yourself (September 16) "Because the true work of political action is not to identify idealized superheroes to run for office. It is, instead, to create the conditions in the world that make it safe for the cowards to vote the right way."

5. Powerful must-see statement by Lawrence O'Donnell on the stakes for abortion rights in this election (September 18, via) "Lawrence makes it absolutely clear, in no uncertain terms, that Donald Trump and George W. Bush both have blood on their hands."

6. On Being An Altruistic Parent (September 20) "He hadn’t made any promises, and yet here he was, giving up precious Minecraft time to walk half an hour to school. His parents were hurting him because of a decision he had no say in to help people he didn’t care about one bit."

7. Kamala Harris’ Abortion Speech Broke New Ground (September 21) "Too often, the abortion stories that politicians feel comfortable sharing are those that were medical necessities or the result of a tragic diagnosis. But here, Harris spoke plainly about the most common kind of abortion—one that’s done simply because a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant anymore. Because it doesn’t fit in with what she wants, or has planned for her life."

Don't Protect God

Image text: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. - 1 John 4:20" Image source.

Last week I published this post, The Second-Worst Bible Story, which is about Numbers 25. I have one more thing to say about this story:

This bible story demonstrates how dangerous it is when people believe they need to protect God. 

If you believe the bible is true, you will come away from this story with the message that sometimes it's right to do violence on people who are minding their own business in a way your God considers "sinful." I do not believe the bible is true. And I believe this message is very harmful. So my message is this: Don't protect God.

In Numbers 25, Israelite men have relationships with Moabite and Midianite women (I always assumed this meant casual sex; Wilda Gafney, author of "Womanist Midrash" says it means all kinds of relationships, including cross-cultural marriage). In response, God tells Moses that those who are involved in this must be executed. And then Phinehas the priest takes his spear and follows a couple into their tent and stabs them to death.

The Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

God is saying that Phinehas's actions were right because Phinehas was protecting God's "honor." Back when I was evangelical, I believed that people's sin hurts God, and if we really love God, we will want to stop people from sinning, in order to help God feel better.

That's how this story earned its spot as The Second-Worst Bible Story. The idea that we should protect God.

This idea of "if we truly love God and don't want him to be hurt, we should burst into other people's lives and force them to stop sinning by any means necessary, even violence" is definitely NOT a normal evangelical belief. Probably most evangelicals would be horrified by it. And yet, Numbers 25 makes a case for it. 

And the seeds of it are definitely present, in evangelical ideology.

Yeah, here's what I was taught about sin: God loves all people so much, and desperately wants to have a personal relationship with each person. He's just so broken-hearted at all the people who don't believe in him, or don't follow his rules. He's very sad. He created the world, so everyone *should* obey him, but they don't. And, every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God. God is so perfect, and therefore every little sin hurts him so bad.

Usually, we didn't talk about this idea that "God is constantly so heartbroken about all the people not doing what he says," but it was there, in the background, when we talked about how much God loves everyone, personally, loves them SO MUCH, and how people *should* submit their lives to God and have a personal relationship with God, and how wrong it is that most people don't. 

See how Numbers 25 says that this couple (Zimri and Kozbi) needed to die because of their sin- that from God's perspective, their sin of having a forbidden relationship was so bad that it completely overshadowed anything else about them. It was the only thing that mattered to God, apparently. He couldn't see them as people. The most important thing was that the sin needed to be stopped, and the easiest way to do that was to just kill them. That's the fastest way to help God feel better. In some sense, it was "right" to kill them; it was "right" that they should die, because if they lived, they would continue to hurt God with their sin. Usually, though, God lets people live, and they continue to sin and hurt him, and it hurts him so bad- but because of his great love, he's willing to be hurt like that. It's not fair to him, but he allows it because he loves people so much. (I was taught that this is what "mercy" means.)

That is what evangelicals teach about sin. Every person sins sometimes, and is therefore so incredibly disgusting to God that God can't even bear to look at them. God should just send all of us to hell. God can't pay attention to anything about who you are as a person. Fortunately, Jesus comes and covers our sin, if we believe in him. Then God can tolerate us.

(I submit to you that this is not "good news"; this is not the gospel.)

When I left evangelicalism, and I began to believe "people are good", that was a such a huge change for me. Seems like such a simple, obvious thing- "people are good"- but as an evangelical I very explicitly did NOT believe that.

Anyway, don't protect God. Don't hurt people in the name of faithfulness to God. 

Jesus said the greatest commandment is "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." And, he said, "the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" I do not read these as 2 separate commandments (though when I was evangelical, of course I did). We love God by loving people. I do not read this as, "We should love God first, and people second- and if they're ever in conflict, God takes priority." No. If they're ever in conflict, you're doing something wrong. The apostle John said, "Whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen." 

Jesus said "the second is like it" and I believe that.

The place where this idea of "protecting God" would come up in real life is, typically, as it relates to other people's sex lives. Other people just minding their own business and not hurting anyone, but *you* believe that they are hurting God by having unmarried sex/ being queer/ etc. (And, in this ideology, it's not true that people are "just minding their own business"- in this ideology, everything belongs to God, everyone's sex life belongs to God, and it's not okay for people to make their own choices.)

You can use this kind of belief to justify anything. If you believe that some behavior is "sinful" even though there's no actual real-world evidence that it's harmful- you believe it's sinful just because "God said", and no real-world reason is necessary- well, what's to stop you from claiming that about anything at all? "We need to stop people from doing xyz because it's a sin" - xyz can be anything. And yes, when I was evangelical, I did believe that there were things God commands us to do or not do which our limited human minds can't make any sense of, but we need to obey anyway. This kind of thinking is so dangerous; it can justify literally anything at all. It justified Phinehas's murder of Zimri and Kozbi.

So don't separate "loving God" and "loving your neighbor." Loving God is loving your neighbor.

Somewhat related to this is Christians claiming that God caused hurricanes or whatever as punishment for the US giving rights to gay people. You have to wonder, do they agree with God on this? Or are they saying it's awful that we need to submit to the violent whims of this God, we have to hate the people that he hates, or else we'll be next... In that case, it's not about policing other people's behavior because we love God so much and don't want him to be hurt by their sin; it's about policing other people's behavior because we fear that when God punishes them, the punishment will come on us too.

Okay, I know that evangelicals would argue with what I'm saying here, and say "hey that's not what we believe." I mean, they believe everyone is a sinner who deserves to go to hell, but some of these other things, they would disagree with. Like the idea that we should try to force people to stop sinning. Or that God sends hurricanes as punishment for a society's acceptance of gay people. Okay, I'll give them the second one- when I was evangelical, I regarded Pat Robertson as a crackpot and definitely wouldn't want to be lumped in with him.

For the first one- the idea that if we really love God, we should try to forcibly stop other people from "sinning" because their sin hurts God: Yeah, most evangelicals would recognize this idea as horrifying, and argue against it by saying "it's not our role to invade people's personal lives and stop them from sinning- our role is just to love people" or "even if we try to force people to stop sinning, it won't work because sin is in the heart- they still *want* to sin, and that also hurts God."

Sure, yeah, those are great arguments. But then, what do you do with Numbers 25? If you believe the bible is the authority over our lives, then you have to believe that Numbers 25 teaches there do exist some circumstances (rare as they may be) where we should butt into people's personal lives, even though they are not hurting anyone, and stop them from "sinning"- and maybe even go as far as murdering them, if that's what it takes.

I mean, that's horrifying, but what else can you say about Numbers 25, if you believe the bible? That's why this is The Second-Worst Bible Story. (If you're wondering which is the worst, it's 2 Samuel 21.)

So don't protect God from "sinners." Don't love God in opposition to loving people. Numbers 25 got it wrong.

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Related:

The Second-Worst Bible Story

The Worst Bible Story

Dr. Strange's Ways Are Higher Than Our Ways 

God of Bad Snaps 

I knew Desiring God ideology is spiritual abuse, but wow.

Blogaround + Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

A tree that has fallen down on a road because of the typhoon. Image source.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋节快乐！

Here in Shanghai, we just had a typhoon, so we couldn't really do much for the holiday. (Typhoon Bebinca. Chinese name is 贝碧嘉.) Sixth Tone has an article on that: Typhoon Bebinca Slams Shanghai, Strongest Storm Since 1949. I was surprised to read it was the most powerful typhoon since 1949. In the area where I live, we had very strong winds and heavy rain for most of the day yesterday. Definitely bad enough that no one should go outside. I saw some large tree branches that had blown off the trees. But no flooding or power outages. It felt like an average typhoon to me, not "the worst typhoon since 1949." I guess it was worse in other parts of Shanghai.

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If you are a US citizen living abroad, you need to use the FPCA (Federal Post Card Application) to register to vote. VoteFromAbroad.org walks you through how to do that. 

If you have registered, then Ballot Drop Day is September 21. Check your email, fill out your ballot, and send it in!

If you live in a state that requires you to mail in your ballot, US consulates are able to mail them for you. Here are the deadlines to bring your ballot to one of the US consulates in China so it gets mailed on time:

Beijing: Friday, September 27
Guangzhou: Friday, September 27
Shanghai: Wednesday, September 25
Shenyang: Friday, September 27
Wuhan: Friday, September 27

If you miss the deadline, and you live in a state that requires you to send your ballot by mail (some states allow email or fax) then you should mail it yourself.

VOTE VOTE VOTE!

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1. Study: You Should Watch this Video to the End (September 9) "So for Study 5, they gave a new group of students the ability to go on YouTube and pick any video they want and watch it for ten minutes without interruption. After another unrelated task, the students were allowed to skip around YouTube all they wanted for ten minutes. And yep, once again, the students reported being more bored in the switching condition."

2. Taylor Swift endorses Kamala Harris for president (September 11) Yessssss.

3. HRC and the Fight for Gender Justice. (September 10) A post from Crip Dyke about the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Hey, anybody remember that trend 10-15 years ago when everybody was changing their Facebook profile picture to the yellow and blue equals sign that was the HRC logo? And then there was a second trend when people changed their Facebook profile picture to a red and pink equals sign because, I can't remember why? I think because people decided the yellow and blue one was problematic in some way?

That was right around the time I changed from opposing marriage equality to supporting it. I remember feeling like it was a bit odd that they called themselves the "Human Rights Campaign" but they were basically *only* about marriage equality for same-sex marriages. Seems like "human rights" should include way more things than that?

Anyway this is a good post from Crip Dyke, from a trans perspective, about what kinds of issues HRC prioritizes, and the strategies they use, and where that fits into the queer community overall.

4. School Lunch: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (September 12) 26-minute video.

5. Ace in the Gyno Space (September 12) "The thing that none of these people said (because they couldn’t have, because they weren’t like me, because they couldn’t have known) was how being an asexual at the gynecologist would be."

I Can't Get Over These "Mass Deportation Now" Signs

People in a crowd holding up signs that say "Mass Deportation Now!" Image source.

[content note: anti-immigrant hate]

At the Republican National Convention in July, the Trump campaign handed out these "Mass Deportation Now" signs to the crowd. I went on Google Images and searched, and there are lots of photos of cheering crowd members holding up these signs.

And I just ... how? How can people cheer for "mass deportation"? Do they know what "deportation" means? It means you have to uproot your whole life and move to a different country. How can people wish that on anyone?

(How will I explain this to my children?)

I just ... I mean, I could say "this is a big deal to me because I'm an immigrant" (I'm American and I live in China) but, come on, you don't have to be an immigrant to understand that being deported would really screw up someone's life.

I just can't understand how people could be so heartless. It's hard to even look at these images of the crowds holding these signs.

Well... obviously the answer is that these are people who support Trump, and not only that, they support him so much that they actually came and attended the Republican National Convention. So I shouldn't be surprised that they really hate immigrants.

Anyway, I guess I don't really have anything else to say- if you don't understand how cruel "mass deportation" is, I don't think there's anything I can say that can make a difference.

Here, I'll just paste something I wrote in my May 22 blogaround:

I am an immigrant- I am American and I've lived in China for 10 years. Back when I was thinking about moving to China, I totally believed that I could just move to whatever country I wanted to. My whole life, I had heard about American missionaries moving to so many different countries around the world (and my decision to move to China was very much influenced by Christian missions ideology), and about Americans going on vacation to beautiful and interesting places all around the world. 

And at some point- I think after I moved to China- I found out that many people, because of where they were born, can't just go galivanting around to whatever country they want. *I* can, because I'm American, but many citizens of other countries can't. That was shocking to me. Everyone should be allowed to live wherever they want!

That's what radicalized me. Support all immigrants- legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, refugees, third-culture kids, etc etc etc. Support all immigrants.

Anyway, vote. Vote all these Republicans out.

Blogaround

1. Taobao Plans to (Finally) Allow Users to Pay Via WeChat Pay (September 5) Well I guess this is only relevant to people who do a lot of online shopping in China, but it's going to make *my* life more convenient so I'm posting it here.

2. A Defense of Delilah (March 4) "The only difference between Delilah's actions and those of the women we laud is that she wasn't playing for the team the Bible roots for."

3. "criticizing AI is racism," says AI-backed writers group 😐 (September 5, via) 24-minute video from D'Angelo about the drama with NaNoWriMo and AI.

4. The Chosen Doubles Down (August 18) Laura Robinson continues to write about this bible-related urban legend about anointing the Passover lamb, and I am so here for it.

Also from Laura Robinson: The Ethical Problems with the Something Was Wrong Podcast (September 3) This is a really good analysis of the ideas "don't blame the victim" and "believe victims" which you always hear feminists saying. What does it actually mean to "believe victims" and how should that look different depending on what your role is? Particularly interesting is how the statistics about "false rape allegations are extremely rare" are specifically about rapes that are reported to the police. In that context, false allegations are extremely rare because there is little incentive for people to lie. But in other situations, it might not be so unlikely that someone claims to be a victim of rape when they are actually not.

5. This Sudoku Is Astonishing [MUST WATCH] (September 7) 22 minutes in, not one single digit placed, "This is the sort of thing that should be, just, taught in schools as an example of what human beings are capable of." (59-minute sudoku solve video.)

6. The Bell Riots: What Should Happen When History Catches Up to Star Trek? (September 2) 16-minute video. "Some of you might say, but wait, doesn’t Star Trek need to resolve these inconsistencies between its fictional history and our real history in some explicit, in-story way, so that creators of future Star Trek projects can refer to those fictional historical events without contradicting real history? Good question. No."

7. Dick Cheney says he will vote for Harris (September 7)

8. James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader, dies aged 93 (September 10) I was a huge fan of "The Lion King" when I was little. (Okay who am I kidding, I am still a huge fan of "The Lion King.") I remember one time, my parents were watching "Star Wars", and they explained it to me by saying "that guy is the same voice as Mufasa."

9. The Word of the Week: Sanewashing (September 9) "Why isn’t Trump being covered the same way? When Trump says something insane or incoherent that should be the news. It’s not just smoke that a reporter needs to blow away to reveal some underlying policy point that may or may not actually exist."

10. cohost is shutting down (September 10) Cohost is a social media site. The link I'm sharing here is a Pillowfort post discussing it, because I've only heard about Cohost through Pillowfort. Sad to hear they're shutting down.

The Second-Worst Bible Story

Ancient Jewish wedding. Image source.

In 2015, I wrote a post called The Worst Bible Story, which also included my pick for the second-worst bible story, Numbers 25. Right now I'm reading Wilda Gafney's book "Womanist Midrash," which has a section discussing Numbers 25. So let's talk about it.

The book discusses these 3 women or groups of women in connection with this story:

1. Women of Moab (Numbers 25)
2. Cozbi, daughter of Tzur (Numbers 25)
3. Women of Midian (Numbers 25 and 31)

Here's what Gafney says in the book, and my thoughts on it:

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Lumping together Moab and Midian

Numbers 25:1-2 says the Israelites committed "sexual immorality" with Moabite women, and also participated in the worship of the Moabite gods. ("Sexual immorality" is how the NIV translates it; Gafney does her own translations and puts it as "unsanctioned-intimate-relationships." She says this word can mean prostitution or promiscuity or worshiping other gods.) God and Moses order the Israelites involved to be executed.

Then, Cozbi (also translated as Kozbi), a Midianite women, is publicly killed by Phinehas the priest. And then Moses leads the Israelites into battle to get "vengeance" on the Midianites.

So, Gafney points out, wait a minute. The Moabites were the ones who "seduced" the Israelites, so why are we suddenly talking about Midianites? Why are the Israelites fighting the Midianites in retaliation for this? Gafney says (page 143):

The Moabite women, their God, and the Israelite women and men who joined their community sharing kinship ties and worship have been forgotten. This Midianite woman and her people become the focus of the saga. The Moabites and Midianites are interchangeable; they are all foreigners-- never mind that Israel is migrating through inhabited lands to a settled one, uninvited.

Years and years ago, when I was evangelical and spent my time arguing with atheists over whether the bible has contradictions, I would have reacted to someone pointing out this Moab/Midian issue like this: well, whatever, they were probably the same, right? Why do you want so badly to discredit the bible that you fixate on these little details?

And if I were reading the bible by myself, back then, I wouldn't have even noticed this switch from talking about Moab to talking about Midian. I read with an apologetics mindset, fully believing that there are no errors in the bible, and therefore with blinders on, subconsciously smoothing things over and filling in gaps so I wouldn't notice any errors. Moab and Midian, they're basically the same, right?

For me as a white Christian, this kind of thing would be simply be a philosophical argument over whether the bible is inerrant or not. But people of color have the experience of being lumped in together, even being victims of "mistargeted" racism. For example, someone hates Japan, so they bully a Chinese-American person, as if that's the same thing.

(I mean, all racism is like that though. Taking one bad example and believing it is true of a whole race. It's not like regular racism makes more sense than "mistargeted" racism.)

To believe in inerrancy, you have to racist-ly lump together the Moabites and Midianites, as if they're the same. So of course that's what I did, back then. As a white person you can just do that. But for people of color it's not so simple, because they themselves have been victims of that exact kind of racism.

---

The wedding of Cozbi and Zimri

I was shocked that Gafney reads this part as a wedding. Here's how the NIV version of the bible puts it:

[content note for graphic violence]

Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped ...

The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Kozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

Here's Gafney's translation of the same passage:

Suddenly, a man from the women and men of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his kinfolk, in the sight of Moshe (Moses) and in the sight of the whole congregation of the women and men of Israel, and they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting! Then Pinchas (Phinehas) ben El'azar (Eleazar) ben Aharon (Aaron) the priest saw; he rose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand. He went after the Israelite man into the tent-chamber, and he stabbed the two of them, the Israelite man and the woman, through her inner-chamber, and the plague was stopped among the people of Israel... The name of the slain Israelite man who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri ben Salu, leader of an ancestral house belonging to the Simeonites. The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi bat Tzur; Tzur was the head of peoples, of an ancestral house in Midian.

Gafney describes this as a wedding where the 2 newlyweds were publicly murdered. Where is she getting that this was a wedding? I never ever read it that way (and you know I've thought about this story a lot, it's my "second-worst bible story").

Here are the parts that lend evidence to the idea that this was a wedding:

1. Verse 6- "brought a Midianite woman to his kinfolk." This is very different from the NIV translation which just says "brought into the camp." I checked this website which has a bunch of different bible translations, and many of them include something along the lines of "to his relatives"/"to his brethren". It's like we might say "bringing a girl home to meet your family." In our culture that's a big relationship milestone. It means you're in a long-term, committed relationship, and likely to get married. And in ancient times, they had the idea of the woman leaving her family and "marrying into" her husband's family. So I suppose it does make sense that this would mean they are getting married.
2. Verse 8 mentions a "tent" or "tent-chamber." Gafney says, "instead of an Israelite wedding canopy, a chuppah, there is a foreign wedding tent, a qubbah" and "the foreign word occurs only this once in the Scriptures" and has "uncertain meaning."

So, was this a wedding?

---

How I always read the story

Here's how I always read this story:

The Israelites were passing through land where other nations lived, and those sneaky foreign women came and started to seduce the easily-distracted Israelite men. Like, come on guys, focus, why can't you just do what God says? It's not that hard! They were having casual sex (gross! God says sex is only supposed to be in marriage) and starting to worship those foreign gods. This is really bad! God ordered those involved to be executed. Kinda sad for them, but they're gross and sexual and God says they deserve to die, so that's that.

Anyway, when the Israelite leaders are openly weeping because of how bad the people's sin is, some Israelite guy literally comes in right then with some slut he picked up. He walks her right past the front of the camp, to his tent where they are gonna have sex. Come on dude, read the room! What's wrong with this guy? He seriously can't keep it in his pants, even after God has spoken and said this is such a serious sin that people need to be executed for it.

And then, finally, someone does something about it. Finally, someone loves God enough to take action and stop this horrible disobedience against God. Phinehas the priest followed them into the tent where they were having dirty dirty sex and stabbed his spear right through the both of them, and killed them. Wow, that's graphic and violent, but it was the right thing to do. Phinehas is the only one in this story who actually takes sin seriously, like we're supposed to. Wish we could be as courageous and faithful to God as Phinehas.

I read this story, back then, as a good evangelical girl, and it seemed to be about 2 things: casual sex, and worshipping other gods, both of which I knew were obviously bad, and which I couldn't relate to at all. People who committed such sins were one-dimensional caricatures, mustache-twirling villains who were ungrateful to God. Maybe it's a bit extreme to say they deserve to die for that, but, sin is sin, so I felt that God was within his rights to say they deserved to die. Plus, I knew I wasn't going to commit those sins, so it doesn't affect me. (Apologetics seared my conscience with a hot iron.)

Gafney reads this as a wedding, though. And the "worshipping other gods" bit she reads as hospitality from the foreign women, inviting the Israelites to their religious feasts. More on that later.

Rather than being about "hookup culture" with those slutty slutty foreign women, she reads this passage as being about relationships of all kinds. (Another cool thing is the book says this passage is "queer" because it talks about the foreign women having relationships with Israelite men and women.) Living in the same area, getting to know each other. Some even falling in love and getting married.

So Phinehas sprang into action and murdered Cozbi and Zimri because they were an international couple, not because of their dirty dirty casual sex.

That's ... that's horrifying, and my first thought was that if I had read it that way, back when I was a good evangelical teenager, I would have been horrified.

But...

---

If it's about casual sex, or if it's about interracial marriage, how different is that, really?

I looked up some other translations and bible commentaries, to see if Christian scholars read this passage like I had always read it, or if they read it as a wedding, like Gafney does. Yeah, I found many of them using words like "blatant" and "parading"... those are words you would use for casual sex, right? Some guy just can't keep it in his pants, and he wants all the random passersby to know about it, eww.

But wait... in the bible, God forbids the Israelites from marrying people of other nations. Some guy falls in love with a foreign woman, and wants to let the world see his love, wants to marry her... Wouldn't that have been seen as disgusting, in their culture? Wouldn't that have been seen as "blatantly" "parading" his sin in front of everyone? Wouldn't it be seen as something you shouldn't do in polite society?

What we're circling around here is, this is about interracial marriage. Not *exactly* interracial marriage, because they didn't conceptualize race the same way we do today, but if you think about the history of interracial marriage in US society, well, it's the same as what we see in Numbers 25. Black men were lynched for the "crime" of dating a white woman. In "Womanist Midrash," Gafney says Zimri would have been seen as a "race traitor." She says this is a lynching. (She's right.)

"But," you may say, "surely not. Surely if they were just a nice couple, in love, getting married, who happened to be from different nations, the Israelite leaders wouldn't have been so upset about it. Surely people wouldn't have made such a big deal about it, even going so far to say it was good when they were killed. Surely not. Surely it must have been about some worse sin, like casual sex."

Did you, uh, totally miss all the culture wars over same-sex marriage, or what? 

Making a big deal about how someone else's marriage which does not affect you is such a horrible sin and they are "blatantly" "parading" it in front of us just by existing... that's pretty much evangelicals' whole schtick.

When I was a good little evangelical teenager, and read this passage... see, here's another horrifying thing. Imagine I had read, in the bible, that this was about a couple being murdered on their wedding day, for the crime of being from different nations and/or religions. ("Womanist Midrash" discusses this passage like that's obviously what it's saying, but I'm not convinced. But imagine if it was more obvious in the biblical text that that's what happened.) What would I have thought?

Good little evangelical Perfect Number would have thought it was sad, but it must have been right for Phinehas to kill them, because the bible says God approved of what Phinehas did, and the bible is always right.

No, not even newlyweds being murdered would have shaken me from my belief in biblical inerrancy. I was a good evangelical. I was an apologetics nerd.

And unfortunately, I have evidence to back that up: Good little evangelical Perfect Number read the book of Ezra, back then. In Ezra 9 and 10, the prophet Ezra finds out that many Israelite men had married foreign women, and he makes a huge big deal about it, sitting around weeping because of other people's families, other people's love, other people's mixed-race children. Then the leaders come together and decide they need to right this wrong; they need to send away these foreign women and mixed children. So that's what they do. Mass divorce and abandonment of their children.

And I read that back then and thought "well, yeah, God clearly told them not to intermarry with the other nations, so, that's what they had to do." I couldn't view it any other way; I couldn't say "wait a minute, this is wrong!" I was a good evangelical.

Years later, I read the Slacktivist's posts on this mass divorce in the book of Ezra. (Links here.) Blew my mind. Why is no one else talking about how the prophet Ezra was a racist bigot who tore families apart? Why is the Slacktivist the only one?

(See also: my Ezra fanfic Love Wins, and related post This "Do Not Intermarry With Them" Stuff Hits Different Now)

So yeah, you may naively assume that if good evangelicals read this story in Numbers 25 as being about international marriage and a murder at a wedding, rather than about casual sex, they would be more horrified and ready to throw away their belief in biblical inerrancy, but, no. Unfortunately, no.

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Hospitality

"Womanist Midrash" talks about the hospitality of the Moabite women. This was very surprising to me- "hospitality" is such a positive word, and I had always read the Moabite women's invitations to their religious feasts as a conniving evil scheme. "Mwahahaha, let's entice those people away from their god, and snare them in our evil religious rituals, worshipping our evil gods, mwahahaha."

But the way "Womanist Midrash" describes it, it was like this: The Israelites lived in the same area as the Moabites, and so naturally they began to interact with each other, and get to know each other, and develop close relationships. (Some of them even married each other.) And it was very kind and hospitable for the Moabite women to invite the Israelites to the Moabite religious festivals. Maybe from the Israelites' perspective, the Moabite religious practices weren't that different from their own, so they didn't view it as a big huge "we're abandoning our god" thing.

---

Consensual marriage vs slavery

In the bible, God commands the Israelites to not marry foreign people. But, the Israelites are allowed to marry foreign captive women taken in war (see Deuteronomy 21:10-14). (And Gafney calls this "rape marriage" because honestly this isn't a romantic vision of how love can bloom in the most unlikely of places- no, it's "she's your slave and you can do whatever you want to her" and the bible uses the word "marriage" to describe that.)

So the issue here, the reason Zimri and Cozbi were judged as bad bad sinners whose murder was justified, was because their marriage was consensual. Because they chose each other. If an Israelite man takes a captive woman and enslaves her, makes her give up her culture, rapes her, and calls it "marriage", that is apparently fine. "Do not intermarry with them" just meant you can't have a consensual marriage.

It's horrifying, but at the same time, I can imagine myself as an evangelical, understanding the logic of this. Back then, of course I believed that we must not marry people from other religions, because there would be conflict as a result of each spouse's different beliefs, and the good Christian spouse wouldn't be able to win every single time, and would be influenced away from their correct Christian beliefs. But, isn't that only a problem if you go into marriage with the expectation that you are equals? What if you weren't equals? What if from the very start, the person with the correct religious beliefs dominated, and forced the other to give up their own religion and culture?

That would avoid all those "being influenced by those bad religions" problems, right?

I always heard Christians talk about mixed-faith marriage with this metaphor: The Christian is standing on a chair, and the non-Christian is standing on the ground, and the Christian is trying to pull the non-Christian spouse up, but isn't it so much easier for the non-Christian to pull them down? And that's why it's a bad idea to marry a non-Christian- you think you're going to influence them positively, but in reality, the more likely outcome is they're going to influence you negatively.

What on earth? Christians conceptualizing themselves as higher than everyone else, more moral than everyone else. Like there's nothing we can learn from each other; the Christian is already right about everything, and their non-Christian partner can only sabotage that. What on earth?

You can see how, if you're coming at it from that perspective, maybe it sort of makes sense than "rape marriage" is less bad than consensual mixed-faith marriage.

(Please note, I am a Christian and my husband is not- and I'm glad he's not a Christian.)

---

Did Moses divorce Zipporah?

Cozbi is a Midianite, and after she is killed, Moses leads the Israelites in battle against the Midianites, to avenge... [checks notes] the way the Moabite women were hospitable to the Israelites?

Gafney points out that Moses's wife Zipporah is a Midianite. Or, rather, she says that Zipporah was Moses's wife, and then Moses divorced her (Exodus 18:2) and married another woman. The other woman is apparently mentioned in Numbers 12:1, "he had married a Cushite." I don't totally buy Gafney's interpretation here- I always thought it meant that Zipporah was both a Midianite and a Cushite, and Numbers 12:1 was referring to her. I certainly never was aware of the idea that Moses had divorced Zipporah. 

But, at the same time, the bible definitely says that Zipporah and her family are Midianites. (See Exodus 2.) And in Numbers 31, the Israelites go to battle against the Midianites, take the women and children as captives, and Moses is very angry that they allowed the Midianite women to live. He commands that they kill all non-virgin Midianite women, and all the Midianite boys, and "save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." (Which turns out to be exactly as creepy as it sounds, my god.)

So, uh, what? Isn't Moses's wife a Midianite? Isn't Moses's wife a non-virgin Midianite woman? (Gafney points out that apparently Moses is unhappy with Midianite women monogamously having sex with their own husbands, what on EARTH.) Aren't Moses's in-laws all Midianites? Whether or not you believe that Moses divorced Zipporah, you still have the big problem of how it could possibly make sense that Moses is so bent out of shape by the Israelites intermarrying with Midian, when he himself did that.

"Womanist Midrash" points out that the bible is inconsistent on the issue of marrying foreigners. There are passages like this one, about how it was such a bad thing that Israelites married Moabite and Midianite women, and then there are plenty of bible heroes who married foreign women and the bible is apparently fine with that. Judah, Joseph, Moses, etc.

And one more thing: Moses commands that the Israelites kill all the boys among the Midianite captives. "Womanist Midrash" draws a connection between this passage and Moses's own escape from being killed as a baby, when the Pharaoh commanded that all the Israelite baby boys should be killed, and Moses's mother hid him and then eventually laid him in a basket in the river where he was rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. This is a beloved bible story; all the kids in Sunday school know about baby Moses in the basket. (Exodus 2:1-10)

Moses, who escaped the "kill all the baby boys" decree, is now saying "kill all the baby boys."

Why do we not talk about this in church?

When Moses's mother saves her baby and puts him in a basket, that's a wonderful tale of courage and heroism which we teach to our children. When Moses commands the Midianite boys to be executed, that's a footnote in an apologetics book, only mentioned in the context of "how do we respond to atheists who say the bible condones violence?" Oh, they had to kill the Midianite boys because [reasons], so, it's fine, move along, nothing to see here.

But these are the same story, Moses's story. When we tell one part without the other, we're spinning the story in a misleading way. We're not being faithful to the bible.

---

Reading the Pentateuch (with a "biblical inerrancy" mindset) is an exercise in maintaining hierarchy

All of this is bringing me back to when I was a good evangelical teenager, working on reading through the whole bible. As I read through the laws that God gave Moses, my thoughts were as follows:

bible: "don't do xyz"

me: "well, yeah, xyz is a sin, they shouldn't do it"

bible: "if anyone does xyz, they must be put to death"

me: "well, maybe that feels a bit harsh, but, really, I'm wrong to feel that way- this is a sin and therefore it *does* deserve to be punished with the death penalty. So, that's fine, keep reading."

Looking back on it now, I feel that the way I read the bible back then was all about brutally maintaining rules and hierarchy. The bible says that people who do this or that bad thing are so bad they deserve to die, and I had to make myself believe it. Make myself believe that was a just law, and that those people were so different from me, I would never do something like that, so I'm safe.

It's very much the opposite of a "black lives matter" mindset. I've seen plenty of hot takes on the internet, white people making arguments about how a black victim of police brutality deserved to die because they weren't perfectly polite, or might have committed some minor nonviolent crime, or used to do drugs, and I think of the way I forced myself to believe it was right when God commanded a man should be executed for gathering sticks on the Sabbath.

Gafney is coming from a very different perspective, focusing on the victims of these laws, those who were oppressed and excluded and punished by the laws given by God and/or Moses.

I wonder if the "inerrant" reading of the bible (ie, you have to believe that all the laws given by God are good) is less of an option for marginalized people who have seen how our society's laws are used as a justification for violence against them and "keeping them in their place."

Thinking about myself, when I was a teenager, reading the last few chapters of Deuteronomy. After Moses finishes giving all the laws to the people, there are a few chapters about the blessings they will receive if they obey, and curses if they disobey. I remember thinking that this section of the bible was kind of repetitive, just hammering on the same points over and over- I felt like "yeah we get it, we should obey God, obviously, this is not that complicated, you don't need to keep saying it over and over."

Just follow these rules. Just repress yourself. Just exclude the people God wants you to exclude. It's not that complicated, why don't people get it?

For Cozbi and Zimri, it wasn't that they were irresponsible and rebellious and easily distracted from God's commands and God's blessings. No. It was because they found love, and they knew it was so much better than the narrow-minded laws that Moses was trying to use to keep everybody in line. Discovering how good it is to connect with other people, to value people, to share with each other and learn from each other and accept each other.

There's a whole world out there. Love the world. 

And I'm aware that what I'm saying here- about the law of Moses being used to exclude and punish- is also argued in the bible. In the New Testament, Paul says, "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." He says that the law can only tell you what you did wrong- it can't save you- and that's why we need Jesus. 

But, did we really need to wait for Jesus for that? Didn't Cozbi and Zimri already know that love was better than exclusion, and they were killed for it?

---

Conclusion

So. Those are my thoughts on the story of Cozbi and Zimri, which I still maintain is The Second-Worst Bible Story. I was very surprised that Wilda Gafney reads it as a wedding, rather than a story about how bad and wrong it is to have casual sex. I'm fascinated by this interpretation. My own marriage is international, interracial, interreligious. And Christians need to talk about the parts of the bible where the bible "heroes" and/or God do something wrong. The bible is not always right, and we need to talk about that.

---

Posts about the book "Womanist Midrash" by Wilda C. Gafney:

Womanist Midrash 
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus 
The Second-Worst Bible Story

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Follow-up post: Don't Protect God

Related:

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

Everyone Else's Nadab and Abihu Fanfics

The Worst Bible Story

Blogaround

1. The Convention That Ate Republicans’ Lunch (August 26) "Democrats were able to take these themes (and several others) away from Republicans because the GOP has spent years giving them little more than lip service. When Ron DeSantis began banning books and threatening teachers who taught inconvenient facts about American history, those actions raised no debate about freedom within the Republican Party. There has been no controversy about nominating a philandering, twice-divorced, pussy grabber to lead the party of family values. When one jury of ordinary Americans found Trump responsible for sexual assault, another ruled beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed fraud, and he avoided his other felony indictments through delaying tactics rather than by challenging the evidence against him, members of the law-and-order party attacked the justice system rather than question their allegiance to a criminal."

2. Sending Unarmed Responders Instead of Police: What We’ve Learned (July 25, via) "In Washington, D.C., social service nonprofit Bread for the City has sued the city, claiming that sending police to mental health emergencies discriminates against people with mental health disabilities."

3. Black Myth: Wukong - Headless Guy Singing Scene (August 20) My husband and son, who are Chinese, won't stop singing this song.

4. Federal Judge Tells Undocumented Spouses Of US Citizens To GTFO (August 27) "But what about protecting the rule of law and stopping an invasion of people who have lived here without incident for over a decade, huh?"

5. Army says Arlington National Cemetery worker was 'pushed aside' by Trump aides (August 29)

Steve Shives's take is also good: Trump at Arlington: Because Rules (and Respect) Are for Other People (August 30) "Every time you think that this guy couldn't possibly be more insensitive and more disrespectful and more tacky than you've already seen him be, he somehow manages to top himself."

6. Small-town firefighters sawed through the Arizona border wall to rescue an injured man who waited 24 hours for help (August 30) "Tangye Beckham, fire chief of the Arivaca Fire District, said that after hours of delays in the remote area and no alternative method for giving the man the care he needed, she ordered the border wall to be cut so he could be pulled through and taken for medical care on the U.S. side."

7. NaNoWriMo Organizers Said It Was Classist and Ableist to Condemn AI. All Hell Broke Loose (September 4) 

"The Storm That Stopped" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "The Storm That Stopped."

I bought this book for my son: The Storm That Stopped [affiliate link], by Alison Mitchell. This book is from the "Tales That Tell the Truth" series, like "Jesus and the Lions' Den" which I also reviewed. The idea behind this series is taking bible stories which are not necessarily about Jesus and using them to teach a point about who Jesus is.

This book, "The Storm That Stopped," is an adaptation of Mark 4:35-41, when Jesus calms the storm. So this one actually is about Jesus. But it does more than just tell the story; at the end of the book, the last 5 pages tell us that the reason Jesus performed this miracle was to show the disciples who he is. Only God can calm a storm... and Jesus calmed a storm... therefore Jesus is God! So it's not just the bible story; it's the story plus an abstract point about who Jesus is.

This book is really good! If you follow my blog, you know I have a lot to say about how most bible stories have elements which are weird and problematic- but I don't think the story of Jesus calming the storm is problematic, so that's why this book rates so highly for me. I don't have a bunch of hot takes saying we shouldn't teach this story to children. No, this story is fine. So I think it works very well as a children's book.

There was one part I found extremely objectionable, though. So, Jesus and the disciples are on a boat in the middle of a lake, and there's a huge storm, and the disciples were terrified, but Jesus was sleeping. And here's what the book says:

The wind blew harder. The waves grew huger. The water filled the boat. But Jesus was still asleep.

"Jesus!"

"Wake up! Wake up!"

"We're drowning!"

"Don't you care?"

What a silly thing to say to Jesus! Of course he cared. He loved his friends so much that one day he was going to die for them.

I know this is my ex-evangelical trauma talking, but, this is beyond the pale. Policing people's emotions? Really? Someone's in a terrifying situation, and you shame them for having very reasonable feelings about it? Like they're wrong for observing that it seems like Jesus doesn't care what's happening. Like they should just "trust God" and not have feelings.

Evangelicalism is full of this kind of policing of emotions. God didn't answer your prayers because you didn't have the right kind of faith. Because you didn't have the right motives. God let bad things happen to you in order to teach you something, and if you didn't "trust God" in the middle of the situation, that's a sin. And if you come out of it angry at God, that's a sin. And if you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, that's a sin. And if something good happens, but you don't give credit to God, that's a sin, and God will probably sabotage your life to teach you a lesson. And if something makes you happy, better be careful that you don't end up loving it more than God, or else God will take it away. And if you really want something, then you're being selfish. And if someone hurts you, you have to forgive them right away; if you continue to be unhappy about it- if it causes you long-term trauma- then you're "bitter" and that's a sin too.

In evangelical ideology, it's a sin to have normal human emotions. People who quit being evangelical have to go through the whole process of learning how to feel their own feelings and know what they want. Because they were never allowed to have feelings (besides the feelings that God would want them to have) or want things.

So when I read this kids' book, and the disciples were scared and asked Jesus, "Don't you care?" and the book says that was "silly", I just... wow, this is not okay. I really do have trauma about this.

When I read this page to my son, I always stop and say that actually, it was totally fine for them to be scared and think that Jesus didn't care. So, as far as the impact on my son is concerned, I do think that fixes the problem. It's extremely harmful that the book says the disciples were being "silly" when they thought Jesus didn't care about them, but since it's just mentioned once and doesn't impact the rest of the story, it's an easy fix. I just tell my son that this part of the book is wrong, and it's totally normal for someone to feel like Jesus doesn't care, if they're in that situation. (And I think it's good for him to learn that just because something is in a book doesn't mean it's right.)

So overall, the book is good, but you DEFINITELY need to address that nonsense when you get to that page.

And let's talk about the part at the end, where the book says that the reason Jesus performed this miracle was to show the disciples that He is God. The last page says "Jesus is... GOD!" and I'm a Christian so I'm like "yeah!" but sometimes I also tell my son "yeah some people believe Jesus is God, but you don't have to." Honestly, I think this part of the book is too abstract for him and he doesn't get it. He's in preschool. He's more interested in the tangible parts of the story that he understands- boats, water, sleeping, etc.

In conclusion, this book has my ex-evangelical Christian stamp of approval- assuming, of course, that you stop and tell your kid it's okay for the disciples to be scared.

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Related:

"Jesus and the Lions' Den" (kids' book review)

"Who Is My Neighbor?" (Kids' Book Review) 

Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible