Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Defunctland After Dark: That Helicopter Thing at Chuck E. Cheese (June 7) 18-minute video. Oh my goodness, I love this so much. Kevin goes down the rabbit hole of trying to find information about this helicopter ride thing that Chuck E. Cheese apparently used to have. (I didn't even know this thing existed, but I am still SO into this video.) This is exactly what it's like, looking for information that you feel surely must exist somewhere on the internet, and you try all sorts of variations on search terms, scouring different websites that might possibly be related, etc.

2. The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel (August 26) 2-hour-22-minute video from Lindsay Ellis. Wow, this video is incredible. It starts out with the criticism that Ms Rachel (who makes educational videos for toddlers) is getting for speaking up in support of the children in Gaza, and then it covers EVERYTHING: Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, the way that children's education should include emotional intelligence as well as numbers/letters/etc, this newfangled right-wing idea that empathy is a sin (??????), a weird children's TV channel created by The Daily Wire as an alternative for parents who clutch their pearls because there's a family with 2 dads on Sesame Street, the entire history of the Jewish temple system, the entire history of Christianity, the entire history of anti-Semitism within Christianity, dog whistles for anti-Semitism, the Left Behind books, the definition of genocide, the Rwandan genocide, Schindler's list, the inadequacy of using statistics to describe atrocities, and what's currently going on in Gaza.

Really a must-watch if you want to understand American right-wing Christians' reasons for supporting Israel, and the whole history and context around all of it. Including the way the MAGA government is using "fighting anti-Semitism" as an excuse for doing whatever they want, meanwhile Elon Musk is on stage doing Nazi salutes.

3. New Mexico to become the first state to offer universal child care (September 10, via) "Starting in November, the state will offer child care, or reimbursement for child care costs, to every family in the state, regardless of income. Lujan Grisham’s office said the program’s expansion will save families in the state $12,000 per child per year on average."

This is really interesting! I always thought of this "the government should give us free childcare" as an unrealistic pie-in-the-sky idea, but here's New Mexico actually doing it. I have many questions! Will this result in better pay for childcare workers? Will there be requirements about what kind of expenses "count" as childcare expenses that can be reimbursed- surely there must be some requirements for a business to be a legit childcare provider. Does this plan also require the government to help more childcare workers get trained and more daycares to open? 

Really interested to see the results from this. It sounds like it could be a really good thing! But I grew up Republican so a whole bunch of "here's why this is actually bad and will ruin the economy" spring to mind. But let's *do it* and then analyze the results to find out what really happens.

4. Biblical slop (September 10) "There’s a great deal that could be said about the “translation” of biblical text to biblical imagery, and the choices that requires visual artists to make, whether it’s for an illustrated Bible or a “biblical” film or TV series. ... But we should save that discussion for situations where actual artists are making actual choices and doing actual work, which isn’t the case here. The only choice being made here is the choice not to do any of that actual work, or to hire actual artists, or to put any thought whatsoever into any of this beyond whatever pop-culture references to include in the prompts fed into the plagiarism machine."

!!! This is such a good point! I read a whole book earlier this year, Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles, about the way that children's media presents bible stories to children. A LOT GOING ON THERE! It's not like you can simply tell the story and that's all- there are so many choices that need to be made along the way, and those choices say a lot about your own point of view, what you think the bible even is, etc. If you just throw it into an AI, well, it's going to spit out *something*, but would that *something* be worth anyone's time to read?

5. What We Find in the Sewers (August 25) A long article about the history of how societies have dealt with sewage. I didn't really know anything about this before. I learned things~

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Charlie Kirk, Trump ally and rightwing activist, shot and killed at Utah university (September 10) "'Political violence has no place in America,' said the former vice-president Kamala Harris in a statement. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, expressed a similar sentiment: 'Political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values.'" Agree with these statements- political violence is not okay.

And more on that:

Charlie Kirk’s killing, and Trump’s response, are a danger to liberalism (September 12)

Politicizing Charlie (September 12) "Now, color me skeptical."

"God Is Always With Me (Psalm 139)" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "God is Always with Me"

I got this board book for my little daughter: God Is Always with Me: Psalm 139, by Dandi Daley Mackall. Here's my review of it.

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Overview

This book is based on Psalm 139, where the psalmist talks about how God is with him wherever he goes, how God knows him completely, and God loves and protects him. This book is NOT just the text of the psalm- it's more like, the same theme as the psalm, but with examples that kids will be able to relate to. And it rhymes.

For example:

If I climb, climb, climb up the tallest tree,

Even way up high, God is watching me.

If I swim down, down in the ocean blue,

Deep as I can go, God is down there too.

The book mentions things kids might be worried bout, like a thunderstorm, or falling off their bike, or going to a new school, and says God is with them through all of it.

Also, it's a board book, which is great for my daughter because she is a clever little thing and she tears books. This one, she has not managed to tear it.

Also, this book uses he/him pronouns for God. 

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I love this

So, my overall opinion on this book is, it's great. I love Psalm 139, and I want to share it with my kids. I'm really into the concept of incarnation- God is with us. Incarnation feels real and powerful to me, and it's one of the most important aspects of the Christianity I believe in.

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But also, I have some concerns about how this is presented to kids

There's one thing I'm not quite comfortable about... People tell kids "don't worry, God is with you" in the context of normal childhood fears and anxieties that don't actually pose any danger. Your kid is afraid of monsters under the bed, your kid is nervous about going to a new school, that sort of thing. There's no actual danger, it's just a matter of managing your feelings. Normal emotional development phases.

Is this a problem, though? We're saying "God is with you" and we actually mean "get over it, you're fine." Or, if I wanted to be a little more cynical, an imaginary protector for an imaginary problem.

What if there's an actual danger, that a kid is facing? They've been told "God is with you" as if it means "don't worry, God won't let anything bad happen to you," but that's just not true.

And I'm autistic, and there were many times, as a child, when I was scared or nervous about something, and adults didn't see the problem and thought I needed to just get over it, maybe even told me "God is with you" as a way of telling me to get over it- but actually I *was* having an actual problem. Sensory pain that truly is unbearable. And later, as an adult, anxiety and depression which required therapy and possibly drugs. Mental health is a real thing- you don't fix those problems just by saying "God is with you."

Here's how I put it in my post Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "Where's God When I'm Scared?" (1993), "As I said, being a kid w undiagnosed autism, having my very reasonable reactions to overwhelming sensory stimuli being read as 'fear', & being told 'don't be afraid' like that would fix it"

As I said, I'm really into the concept of incarnation, and I'm really into the belief that God is with us. But I don't think God actually takes actions in this world. (Maybe occasionally, rarely. But the vast majority of the time, no, They don't. When I say "rarely" I mean not even once in a lifetime.) They don't protect us. They don't stop bad things from happening to us. The idea of incarnation is very meaningful to me because They feel what we feel, all of it- but at the same time, I can see how it might come across as really weak and useless- what's the point, if God doesn't actually *do* anything to help us?

So what do I want my kids to get from this book? Part of me is like "well the book is fine if they don't take it that seriously- taking it too seriously would give them the message 'God won't let bad things happen to you' and 'just trust God instead of stepping up and solving your problems yourself'," and then part of me is like "this is the Incarnation we're talking about here, this is one of the most profound and exciting aspects of Christianity, why on earth would I want them to 'not take it too seriously'???"

Do I want to tell them "God is always with you, yay, God understands you and feels what you feel, BUT ALSO They're not gonna do anything to help if you have a problem"? That seems, uh, not very reassuring?

But now I'm the one "taking it too seriously"- like, I just want to introduce my kids to the concept of incarnation, that's all, we don't have to get into all these details, right?

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Anyway, yeah, overall I think this book is great for my kids. I have a lot of thoughts on it myself- and maybe I'll discuss this more in-depth with my kids, when my daughter is old enough to stop tearing books and speculate about the nature of God instead.

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Related:

God Is With Us (a post about autism) 

I Don't Want My Baby To Be "Brave"

Reviews of Christian Children's Books 

Honest Lent: "Seek First God's Kingdom" Doesn't Work If You Have Autism

What is the purpose of apologetics?

Clip art image of people having a debate. Image source.

I recently published my review of the book "The Case for a Creator". Here's the follow-up post, which asks, what is the purpose of apologetics?

First of all, let's be real here, apologetics isn't about defending Christianity in general- it's about the debate between Christianity and naturalistic atheism. I don't think I've seen any apologetics books specifically dedicated to answering claims from other religions, something along the lines of "okay suppose we assume God exists- here's why it's the Christian God instead of the Muslim God." The assumption is, if you're not a Christian, then you're an atheist.

That's a bit, uh, odd, but let's just accept this framing, and consider the effect of apologetics on people at various points along the "how confident are you about your belief in Christianity and/or atheism" spectrum:

Atheists who get into debates with Christians

The atheists who know what's what and are out there actually participating in these kinds of debates, they are quite unimpressed with apologetics. They say apologetics arguments are really weak and pretty much amount to nothing.

That's interesting, because the way apologetics sells itself, one of the main purposes is to be used in these kinds of debates. So here we see that there's a mismatch between what apologetics claims to be, and what it actually is. It sells itself as "here are some answers you can use to tell those strong outspoken atheists why they're wrong" but it very much does not work on that group.

Non-religious people who are "seeking"/ open to religion

There may be people who aren't religious, but are open to believing in a religion, and are curious and want to see what's out there. Yeah, I think apologetics can be convincing for this group. Author Lee Strobel himself seems to have been in this group (maybe he would disagree with my classifying him that way though?)- his story is that he was an atheist trying to disprove Christianity, but as he investigated and learned more, he actually became convinced that Christianity was true. 

So yes, I would say this makes sense, as a valid use of apologetics. There is evidence for Christianity- it's nowhere near as airtight as apologetics claims, but still... So it makes sense that telling people about this, if they are people who already think maybe they are interested in believing in some kind of religion, might convince them. I think this can be a good thing.

However, I think it kind of misses the point, when apologetics advocates talk about it this way. For the vast majority of people who convert to Christianity, it's not because of apologetics. Nobody is like "I became a Christian because Josephus's writings corroborate what the bible says." Nope, nobody.

Ex-Christians

Apologetics is very much NOT going to be of any use for this group. They already were Christian, they already went through the whole big struggle of doubting their faith, they likely already thought through the supposed "answers" and found them unconvincing, and eventually came to the decision to abandon the whole thing. 

And then the ex-Christian tells a Christian authority figure (parents, pastor, etc) that they no longer believe, and the Christian tries to convince them with apologetics arguments. Uh, don't do this. It's like, instead of actually listening to them, the Christian treats the ex-Christian's feelings and experiences as just annoying doubts to be argued away as fast as possible. The Christian acts like the ex-Christian needs their permission to no longer believe. The Christian buys an apologetics book and gives it to the ex-Christian. Like they're not allowed to say they're not Christian unless they read the whole book and put together a response and present it to the Christian authority figure.

Sometimes the ex-Christian then buys an atheist book and gives it to the Christian, so they can both understand each other. Then the ex-Christian reads their book and the Christian does not read theirs, but still acts like the ex-Christian has not given good enough reasons for leaving their faith.

Anyway, yeah, don't do this. This use of apologetics- as a way to try to make rules about what ex-Christians are allowed to believe or not believe, rather than listening to them- is unloving and it doesn't even "work." Don't do this.

I know that, in this kind of situation, the Christian is genuinely motivated by compassion and concern for their ex-Christian friend. They fear that if they can't convince the ex-Christian to become Christian again, the ex-Christian will go to hell. This mix of love for their friend, and fear of what their God is going to do to their friend... and how it plays out in ways that are really heartless in reality... I mean, I know that very well. I used to be evangelical.

Christians who are doubting

If you're a Christian who is having doubts about your faith, maybe you decide to read some apologetics.

In some cases, this can be reassuring. If your doubts are along the lines of "where did the bible even come from, is it just totally made up or is there some kind of evidence about its history?" Along the lines of, you fear that maybe somebody just made this stuff up for no reason, and nobody ever spent any time caring about whether it was actually true or made sense. If that's what you're concerned about, then yes, it will help you to read about the history behind various Christian beliefs. Yeah, don't worry, it's not like "nobody knows where these beliefs came from, but people at church told me they're true, so I guess they are." People have thought about these things!

But in other cases, apologetics resources act like they have good answers, but they really don't. Things like, the problem of evil- ie, why does God allow evil and suffering in the world? Or, the problem of hell- Christians teach that everyone deserves to go to hell, and the only way you can get out of it is by believing in Jesus the correct way, but doesn't that seem unfair? Yeah, if your misgivings about Christianity are about something that Christians are promoting, or that God is doing, which seems extremely unethical- apologetics resources aren't going to be any help. These resources will try to reassure you that whatever you are concerned about doesn't really matter. And that kind of reassurance will be fine for Christians who are just playing games in debates with atheists, but if you are seriously thinking about these things, taking them so seriously that it's threatening the whole foundation of your faith, well, the apologetics answers aren't going to do you any good.

For Christians who go to apologetics to try to get rid of their doubts, I think there's a lot of fear. The idea that we might be wrong about everything is just too scary- we hope that we're right and Christianity is true- we want to convince ourselves that it is. Following truth wherever it goes is very scary, if you're coming from this kind of Christian background.

For me, I don't really feel scared about that any more. I'm not so incredibly dependent on this needing to be true. If it turns out Christianity is not true, I don't think I would regret anything... "Love your neighbor as yourself" would still be the principle by which we should live our lives. Maybe the other details are more about the way the human mind sets up a narrative to make sense of the world. 

But yeah, one's feelings and one's level of fear are very much dependent on what variety of religion you follow. If you follow a religion that pushes you to do weird things that only make sense if the religion's claims are true (ya know like me when I was evangelical), well, then you'll have a lot more at stake in needing them to be true.

Christians who are confident and not doubting

Honestly, these Christians are the biggest market for apologetics books. Yeah, apologetics is talked about like its purpose is to convince people who are non-Christians or who are on the fence, but I would say it rarely "works" for those groups. The people who actually buy these books are mainly people who are already sure about their Christian beliefs. 

(At this point, my brain was like, hey I'm a Christian and not doubting and I bought "The Case for a Creator." I feel personally attacked.)

Why does this group of people buy apologetics books? Well, when I was evangelical, I read a lot of apologetics stuff because I'm just that kind of nerd. Curious about everything, wanting to know the reasons behind everything. But now I no longer think that apologetics is about that kind of honest curiosity. I *don't* think apologetics is motivated by a desire to follow truth wherever it takes us. It's more about, here are the beliefs that Christians are required to hold, let's try to come up with some arguments to convince ourselves that they're intellectually reasonable.

To a large extent, apologetics is about "we're winning, we're right and those atheists are wrong." It's about making yourself feel better about your beliefs- not about actually seeking to believe things that are true. And a lot of it is about learning some clever arguments that you can use when you meet non-Christians. Get yourself prepared, so you'll know what to say and you might be able to convince them. (I would say this also does not really "work.")

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So what does this all add up to?

I have a really negative view of apologetics now. A lot of it feels very dishonest to me. Arguments about how God did something bad, but you have to kill your conscience and convince yourself it's not actually bad. Arguments that atheists have given good responses to, long ago, but the same talking points get endlessly repeated in churches because nobody is allowed to actually listen to atheists. Arguments that completely misrepresent science/ quotes from famous evolutionary biologists/ the beliefs of people who disagree with us/ etc.

There's always that fear, that people are going to hell if we can't convince them, so whenever you talk about your faith, it has to be a sales pitch, rather than being honest.

So I want to be like "ugh this is all bad" but I can't do that, because I actually believe a bunch of these arguments. If you asked me what evidence there is for this or that Christian belief that I hold, I would probably give an answer that you could also find in an apologetics book. Because I really do think in those terms.

I think, if you believe in God, there is value in learning about the arguments that people have used, historically, to support that belief. I'm not saying they're all good arguments, lol, they are not, but it's good to at least think through them. I *have* benefitted from reading apologetics and learning about stuff like that.

You know what I really want? If we could separate these 2 ideas:

1. How are one's views on big topics about God/ morality/ science/ etc informed by one's beliefs or lack thereof
2. Trying to convince people that we're right and they're wrong

Yeah, what I want is to read something written by a Christian who has thought about how their Christian beliefs interact with other ideas or scientific facts or whatever- someone who has thought about it a lot and has developed a view that makes sense of it. And the purpose is not to convince anyone to change their religion- the purpose is just to give an example of what a consistent, thoughtful belief system might look like. 

Hey, I don't just want to read a Christian take on that. Let me read the atheist take too. Or any religion. There's a lot of value in listening to other people and learning about how people think. I don't want it to be about debating who's right and who's wrong.

If someone asked me "why are you a Christian"... sure, there are a lot of apologetics arguments that come to mind, but if you want my real honest answer, it's because I just really believe in Jesus. That's not an argument that's meant to convince anyone. It's just a fact about myself. That is the real reason though, if anyone wants to know.

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What is apologetics for? Who is apologetics for? It claims to be about "defending the faith," about giving evidence to convince people of the truth of Christianity, about debating atheists. I don't think it actually does those things effectively- and yet I can't be entirely negative on it, because I actually do agree with some of the ideas. I just hate how they're framed in this dishonest us-vs-them fashion. What I want instead is thoughtful reflection on what our faith has to say on these topics, just for the sake of thinking through one's beliefs and putting them into words. Not for the sake of persuading anyone to become Christian.

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Related:

Just reading an apologetics book and asking "why are we doing this?" 

Sure Of What We Hope For

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. First things first: Biblical priorities (September 4) "This is the first thing we hear God telling us — the first thing God has to say. Religion without justice is detestable." Preach.

2. Texas lawmakers approve letting private citizens sue abortion pill providers (September 4) "Opponents see it as not only another way to rein in abortion but intimidate providers outside Texas who are complying with the laws in their states. They also say it would encourage a form of vigilantism."

3. The Super-Weird Origins of the Right’s Hatred of the Smithsonian (August 21, via) "Childress relied on Victorian reports about large bones that Powell’s team, led by Cyrus Thomas, had dismissed in 1894 as unevidenced. Hundreds of such reports littered the papers in the late 1800s, and claiming to find the bones of giants became a popular appeal to “prove” the Bible’s superiority to Darwin. The Smithsonian politely informed inquirers that these bones did not belong to the mythical Nephilim."

I never heard about this "we found the bones of biblical giants" when I was a young-earth creationist, but I gotta say I'm 0% surprised. Like, OF COURSE there's some young-earth creationist crackpot out there claiming they found the bones of biblical giants, and that scientists are trying to cover it up because they hate the bible or whatever. I've definitely heard of YECs claiming "we found Noah's ark!" and this is basically the same genre.

4. Israel is blasting through Gaza City neighborhoods, but people have nowhere to go (September 5) "The International Committee of the Red Cross says the evacuation of Gaza City cannot be done in a safe or dignified manner, calling it "unfeasible and incomprehensible." It noted that people are starving, wounded and unable to relocate, and that no area in Gaza can handle an influx of displaced people due to extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care across the territory."

5. Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure (September 5) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. President Trump plans to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War (September 4) Uh, wtf

2. Senators from both parties grilled RFK Jr. on vaccines and more (September 4) "Another Republican physician on the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. John Barrasso of Wyoming, joined Democrats in criticizing Kennedy for undermining vaccines."

3. How Trump's latest crypto launch enriches his family (September 3) Corruption.

4. 'Founders Museum' from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction (September 3) What on earth. What. They "used AI" to make videos of the founding fathers, and they're showing these at a museum? 

5. Trump keeps moving the U.S. closer to being the fascist war machine he wants (September 5) "Earlier this week, in one of the more alarming actions of this administration, Trump ordered the murder of 11 people that the Trump administration claims were drug traffickers on international waters."

Also from Law Dork: Holding vigil in "a post-USA America" as Trump orders the vigil gone (September 6) "As The Washington Post reported last month, 'The demonstration is widely considered to be the longest continuous act of political protest in U.S. history. It has survived seven presidents, countless global conflicts, hurricanes and blizzards, heat waves and floods. It has outlasted several U.S. wars, including the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.'"

6. Trump walks back Chicago 'war' threat, but vows to 'clean up' cities (September 7) "In response to the post, Illinois' Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, wrote on X that Trump was 'threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.'"

7. In April NPR profiled people who couldn't get their HIV drugs. How are they faring now? (September 6)

8. Judge steps up to block ICE's kidnapping of Guatemalan kids (September 4) "It was a remarkable display of judicial tenacity. It was also a testament to how thoroughly the Justice Department has shredded its credibility with the courts in just eight months." I posted a link about this before, but this gives a lot more detail. It is just shocking to me how ICE got children out of their beds in the middle of the night, with only a few hours' notice, and was going to send them to Guatemala. How can people do that, to children? But I guess this kind of cruel, inhumane behavior is what ICE does every single day.

Was Jesus' Death a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

Cross. Image source.

I'm trying to finish my blog series blogging through the gospel of Matthew, so let's look at Matthew 27. This chapter describes Jesus' trial and crucifixion. So I want to talk about the question, was Jesus' death a good thing or a bad thing?

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The evangelical take on this question

From an evangelical perspective, Jesus' death is a good thing. I mean, of course we feel sad for him because he suffered so much and didn't deserve it, but this was something that needed to happen. It was part of God's plan. We needed this to happen, so we can be saved.

In this ideology, sin is a really big problem which causes a separation between people and God, and means that all people deserve to go to hell, because we have all sinned at least once. God was really heartbroken about this problem, and had a plan in the works for hundreds of years for how to solve it. The plan was for God to become a person, to live a perfect life with no sin, and then to die a terrible death- this will "count" as payment for all the sins that all people have committed, so then we can be forgiven and go to heaven if we believe in Jesus.

(This is actually a Calvinist idea, called "penal substitutionary atonement"- evangelicalism is very much influenced by Calvinism.)

It's a very big deal that Jesus was perfect and never sinned. See, it had to be Jesus- it would only "work" if it was a perfect sinless person who suffered and died. If any of us normal imperfect people suffer and die, well, we deserve that anyway because of our own sins- so that can't be used to "pay for" anybody else's sins.

Also, it is very important to the plan that Jesus suffered an extremely painful death. One common evangelical fan theory says that Jesus' death was the worst and most painful death that any human has ever suffered. I've even heard the claim that Jesus had to live during the time of the Roman Empire, because crucifixion was the most cruel execution method ever used throughout all of history- so crucifixion had to be the one they used on Jesus. (I'm very skeptical about that- people have been coming up with inhumane things to do to each other all throughout history. I'm not sure I can really say which one is the worst.)

(Note, though, that the bible itself seems to contradict this claim that Jesus suffered the worst death ever. Jesus was crucified alongside 2 other criminals, and when they were on the crosses, at some point the soldiers came to break their legs so they would die faster. But Jesus was already dead, so they didn't break his legs. Hmm, kinda seems like maybe those 2 other guys suffered more than Jesus did.)

I've heard Christians going on and on about crucifixion from a medical perspective, and just how horrific it was... sort of fetishizing it... because it's so so so important that Jesus had to suffer so much.

And I've also heard the claim that, even though the physical pain was excruciating, that wasn't the worst part for him. The worst part was that God the Father turned away from him. That spiritual separation from God, which caused Jesus to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was the worst part.

This was God's plan, and Jesus totally knew the plan, and chose to stick to it. He was God; he could have called down angels to fight for him, but he didn't. He chose to go through all of that because of his love for all of us. This is the interpretation of Jesus' death I always heard in evangelical land.

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But then I read James Cone

In 2018, I wrote a blog series review the book "The Cross and the Lynching Tree" by James Cone. It's a book that makes the connection between Jesus' crucifixion and anti-Black lynching in the United States. Jesus was lynched. And, as poet Countee Cullen wrote, "The South is crucifying Christ again."

When I was reading "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," there was something about the way Cone talked about Jesus' death which felt strange to me, like he was coming at it from an angle that I couldn't quite make sense of. Then I realized, it's because he's talking about Jesus' death like it was a bad thing. Which felt very surprising and new to me, coming from an evangelical background.

Cone talks about how it's bad that lynching victims were innocent and they were unjustly killed, just like Jesus was innocent and was unjustly killed. This is totally NOT how evangelicals would see it. No, in evangelical ideology, Jesus is totally different from us! Jesus was perfect and never sinned, so his suffering was a completely different thing than when average people suffer. And Jesus' death was God's plan, it had to be that way! Not like when Black victims were lynched- that wasn't "God's plan," that was obviously a terrible thing that should have never happened.

So I came to find out- not just from James Cone but from other sources too- there are Christians who don't interpret Jesus' death to be about "It was God's grand plan, to pay for our sins and save us, and Jesus had to be perfect unlike us, and he had to suffer more than anyone else, and the grand ledger that God keeps in heaven ticks over to allow us to get in, but this has nothing to do with any real-life suffering or injustice going on in the real world." Shocking! 

No, there's an interpretation of Jesus' death that goes more like this: When someone comes to teach a message of truth and love, of love being greater than power, the powers-that-be respond with violence. This is how the world is, this is something that happens over and over. Jesus should not have been killed, but this is just how the world is. Jesus was one victim among many, throughout all of history. All victims of oppressive societies which treated marginalized people with violence, and killed anyone who tried to make a change. Jesus stands in solidarity with everyone who has ever suffered unjustly in this way. And the Resurrection shows that this isn't "just the way it is." It shows that power doesn't always win. Love can triumph over power. It gives us hope as we fight for justice in this world.

(For more on this, you can look up "solidarity theory of atonement." Yeah, what I'm describing here are "theories of atonement", ie, Christians discussing the question "what exactly does it mean that 'Jesus saves us'?")

Ah, notice that this is the first time the Resurrection has come up. Yeah, notice that the evangelical interpretation I talked about above never mentioned the Resurrection.

And yeah, indeed, when I was evangelical, I believed the whole point was that Jesus' death paid for our sins. That that's really the main thing. Not the Resurrection. I remember one time I was one of the trainers at an evangelism training, and I was giving an example of how to "share the gospel"- I did the whole spiel about how we are sinners who deserve to go to hell, and Jesus' death pays for our sins, wow that's such good news. And then someone said to me "maybe next time you share the gospel, don't forget the Resurrection." And at the time I kinda laughed and modified my gospel presentation to tack it on at the end, but I didn't exactly *get* why the Resurrection would matter, when one is "sharing the gospel." The "gospel" is that Jesus' death paid for our sins and we can go to heaven if we believe in him, right? The Resurrection is... an extraneous detail? I kind of discussed this with some evangelical friends and came to the conclusion that the Resurrection is proof that it "worked" when Jesus died to pay for our sins.

Looking back at it now, I'm like, yikes. Christians who can't figure out whether the Resurrection is important. Yikessss.

As Christians, we believe that, in some sense, "Jesus saves us." But what does that *mean*, actually? Well, there are many different Christian groups with many different explanations. I didn't know that, when I was evangelical. I thought it was obviously penal substitutionary atonement (ie, the belief that Jesus died because God has to follow these very technical rules about when he's allowed to forgive sins and let people into heaven, and the only way is if a perfect sinless person dies a terrible death, and then that can count, in God's math, as payment for everybody's sins).

Or, here's another way to think about it: Of these 4 aspects of Jesus life, which do you think is the most important?

1. Jesus' birth. The Incarnation. God becomes a human. The Word became flesh and lived among us. God experienced all the things that we do.
2. Jesus' life- his teachings, miracles, the way he interacted with people
3. Jesus' torture and crucifixion
4. Jesus' Resurrection

Christians can have all sorts of different opinions on this question. In my experience in evangelical land, Jesus' death was the HUGE BIG IMPORTANT THING, and these other things were just, like... you know how when you're writing a story, and you have an idea for a really cool scene, but you have to figure out how to maneuver all the characters into the right places for the cool scene to happen, and so you have to write all this boring stuff leading up to the cool scene? Well, Jesus' life is like that.

As Rachel Held Evans said in the book "Inspired," this focus on Jesus' death treats Jesus' life as nothing more than "an interesting backstory." (I don't have the book in front of me but I think I remember this correctly.) And a recent post from the Slacktivist responds to the evangelical claim "Without the Bible and the Cross there is no gospel" by saying:

The problem here is theological, but it is also simply chronological. If “there is no gospel” without the Bible and the Cross then there was no gospel until “the Bible and the Cross.” Which means there is no gospel in the Gospels. It means that Jesus’s preaching and teaching, whatever it was, was not and could not yet have been “the gospel.”

And so it means that whatever Jesus had to teach or to say is of secondary importance.

And I would respond to that by saying, well, yeah. When I was evangelical, I thought that Jesus' teachings were important, sure, but they weren't *the* most important thing. The most important thing is we have to believe in Jesus the correct way so God will "count" Jesus' death as paying our way out of hell. That's the gospel. Jesus' teachings and miracles weren't "the gospel." He was just killing time before getting crucified.

Yeah, I very much do not view it that way any more.

Also, American Christians should all read James Cone.

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Christian feminist paper "For God So Loved the World?"

In a 2023 blog post, I discussed this 1989 paper: "For God So Loved the World?" by Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker. This paper takes issue with the concept of "redemptive suffering"- ie, the idea that when people suffer abuse or oppression, it's somehow okay and they should accept it, because on some level suffering is a good thing- the victims are being like Jesus, who also allowed himself to suffer unjustly. This idea has been used to tell women that we should accept abuse and mistreatment.

The paper discusses several different Christian perspectives on what Jesus' suffering means. (My own view is closest to what the paper calls "the suffering God.") But, it finds all of them to be unacceptable, because all of them treat Jesus' suffering as meaningful in some sense. The writers of this paper don't like that- they argue that if we believe we can say anything positive at all about Jesus' death, this leads to marginalized people internalizing the idea that they should accept injustice rather than fighting for their rights.

I'll say I don't personally agree with that- I think Jesus' death *was* important- but they make a lot of very good points.

Some quotes from the paper:

If the best person who ever lived gave his life for others, then, to be of value we should likewise sacrifice ourselves. Any sense that we have a right to care for our own needs is in conflict with being a faithful follower of Jesus. Our suffering for others will save the world.

and

Christianity is an abusive theology that glorifies suffering.

and

No one was saved by the death of Jesus.

This paper is a must-read if you are interested in the intersection of Christianity and feminism.

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To sum up: In the evangelical/Calvinist, "penal substitutionary atonement" view, Jesus' death was a good thing, because all of us deserve to suffer like that, and go to hell, but because Jesus suffered in our place, we don't need to. Jesus is completely different from us, because he was perfect and didn't deserve to suffer, but we are sinners and we do. Jesus' death was full of spiritual meaning but has nothing to say about systemic injustice on earth.

A more progressive Christian interpretation, from Black and feminist Christians, says that Jesus' death was a bad thing, because no one deserves to suffer like that. And yet, so many people do. This world is oppressive and violent to so many people. Jesus is the same as us; Jesus stands with every person who suffers injustice/oppression/abuse. And actually, in some sense, it *is* a good thing that God has experienced this, that They suffered right along with people. Having a God who understands what it's like. (And this is basically what I believe now.)

Brown and Parker, writers of the paper "For God So Loved the World?" go even farther than that; they disagree with any Christian ideology which believes anything positive at all about Jesus' death. Because this kind of idea is used to tell women and marginalized people that the injustice we suffer in the world is in some sense *okay*. They make some very good points. I personally don't go that far, because the idea of a Christianity that doesn't treat the crucifixion as important doesn't really make sense to me.

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This post is part of a series on the gospel of Matthew.

Previous post: One Of You Will Betray Me (a bible fanfic) (Matthew 26)

Click here to go to the beginning of the series.

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Related:

"The South is Crucifying Christ Again"

Blogaround (1/18/23)

Good Friday is R-Rated 

Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter)

About that White-Supremacist "Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel" 

"On earth as it is in heaven" 

Sure Of What We Hope For

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Just not right (September 2) "Why? Because “justice” and “righteousness” could not be allowed to remain similar in meaning by people seeking to regard themselves as righteous but desperate to avoid justice."

Hey here's a thought, what if Romans 3:10, "there is no one righteous, not even one," should be interpreted more along the lines of "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" rather than "everyone deserves to go to hell for not being perfect."

2. Sea Level (August 29) From xkcd.

3. China military parade 2025 LIVE: Weapons on display as Putin and Kim Jong Un attend event (September 3) 1-hour-59-minute video. Oh look, a country that actually knows how to put on a military parade.

My husband is Chinese and he's so into this parade.

4. ‘Ketamine Queen’ pleads guilty to selling fatal dose to Matthew Perry (September 4) "A woman branded as the “Ketamine Queen” pleaded guilty Wednesday to selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, becoming the fifth and final defendant charged in Perry’s overdose death to admit guilt."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. This weekend in Trump's effort to make fascism happen (September 2) "But, fighting back matters. And many are doing so. It works — both in fact, as to specific outcomes, and also to dismantle their propaganda of fear."

2. Judge rules against National Guard in LA, and Trump vows to send them to Chicago (September 2) "Today's ruling — even if it holds up on appeal — would not impact the use of the guard in other places because it was based on the specific circumstances of what kind of duties the guard has performed in Los Angeles and whether it was overstepping its powers over civilians."

3. Dozens of scientists find errors in a new Energy Department climate report (September 2) "The DOE's Climate Working Group consisted of four scientists and one economist who have all questioned the scientific consensus that climate change is a large threat to the world and sometimes frame global warming as beneficial."

4. Full text of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's speech at news conference on reported Trump military plan for Chicago (August 26, via) "Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: we are watching and we are taking names."

5. Lysenkoism Comes to America (September 1) "Also like Lysenko, Kennedy is a crank."

6. Denver Schools Defies Trump Trans Bathroom Ban: "We Will Protect All Of Our Students From This Hostile Admin" (September 3) "They also rejected the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, writing: 'The interpretation put forward by OCR would undercut our equity commitments, contradict our mission, harm the very students we are entrusted to support and would have a devastating impact on the East High School and the broader LGBTQ+ community.'"

I wonder what my toddler thinks about being bilingual

A cute little cartoon beaver, with the text 英文儿歌 (English kids' songs). Image source.

I talk to my little daughter in English. Other people in her life talk to her in Chinese. (For the purposes of the blog, we will refer to her as Baby Wavelength.) She has a nanny who takes care of her all day because my husband and I have full-time jobs- in China it's common to have a nanny because there are very few daycares that take kids less than 3ish years old. In China, we call the nanny "ayi." The ayi talks to her in Chinese all day.

My husband (who is Chinese) sometimes talks to our kids in Chinese and sometimes in English. He and I talk to each other in English. Oh, and the ayi doesn't speak English, so I talk to her in Chinese. 

Huh, when I spell it all out like this, I guess it sounds really confusing? It doesn't feel confusing to me as I live my life. I guess this is just normal to me now. 

(I mean, if you research the strategies that people use to teach their children multiple languages, One Parent One Language (OPOL) is common, but we're not quite doing that, it's more like, an assortment of people with all different levels of English/Chinese ability.)

Anyway, what I wonder is, what does little Wavelength think about this? Is it incredibly strange to her, that the entire way that ayi talks is completely different from the entire way that Mommy talks?

One day I was quizzing her on her body parts- "where are your ears?" and she touches her ears, etc. And I said "Where's your neck?" and she didn't know that one. Then I said, "Where's your neck? 脖子 [bó zǐ]" and she touched her neck. I guess she learned a bunch of Chinese words for body parts from ayi. Does she think it's strange that I refer to these body parts by a completely different set of words from what the ayi taught her? How do you make sense of that, if you're a baby?

Another example- my daughter learned to say "up" (in English), and that became her favorite thing to say, because she always wants us to pick her up. Our ayi told me that all day long, Wavelength was saying "up." Not sure if ayi knew the English word "up" before this, but I guess the meaning becomes obvious when a baby is following you around all day with her arms raised.

Maybe little Wavelength doesn't find this weird, because as a baby, everything is new and you have no frame of reference for what's "normal" or "weird."

Or maybe this isn't that different from a more universal toddler experience- they play some game or sing some song with one caregiver, and then the toddler tries to get another caregiver to do the same game/song, but the other caregiver can't figure out what the toddler wants them to do. 

And then I thought, hey, you know who would have some insight into whether it's confusing to be a baby in a bilingual household? Her older brother. His situation when he was a baby was pretty much exactly the same. So I went and asked her brother- my son- on the blog we can call him Square Root- "When you were little, did you think it was weird that some people talked to you in English and some people talked to you in Chinese?" 

He said, "I don't remember" and then wandered off to play with his toys. Okay.

Square Root was born just before the pandemic, and we got stuck in China for 3 years. During that time, he learned to speak- and he basically spoke Chinese only. I always talked to him in English, and he could understand all of it, but he didn't say things in English himself. I guess since nobody else in his life talked to him in English, he thought it was just some niche interest that Mom is into. Then when China's zero-covid policy ended, and we finally got to travel to the US and interact with my relatives, then he started speaking English.

And now, basically whenever we travel to the US, for the first day he talks to people in Chinese, and they have no idea what he's saying, but then he adapts to speaking English and it's not an issue.

I'm a white person in China, and generally nobody expects white people in China to be any good at speaking Chinese. Yeah, there's very much a double standard, where Chinese people apologize for not being able to speak English well, but don't have any sort of expectations that a white person who chose to move to China should be able to speak Chinese. And if the white person says 1 word in Chinese, Chinese people will say "wow! Your Chinese is so good!" (But don't take it that seriously, they are just being polite.)

So yeah, I can speak Chinese, but nobody really holds me to any kind of standard about it. Except 1 person. My son. Oh man, sometimes I catch him telling people I can't speak Chinese, like, what the heck, dude. He tells me I don't speak Chinese well, because sometimes I can't follow what he's saying, like if he had a bizarre dream about Optimus Prime and he's describing it in Chinese. Can you believe I couldn't quite follow that.

Or he says to me "How can you not know this word? This is an easy word!"

And there was one time he was telling me all about this Chinese word that refers to a kind of fruit, but also means jumping on the couch, and I was working very hard to try to follow what he was saying, and then I said, "Is this a real thing, or did you make it up?" and he said "I made it up."

Always fact-check your children!

Anyway, this is what life is like for my kids. I'm so fascinated by the way language interacts with the way that people think. I'm so curious about what it's like to learn to speak in this kind of bilingual environment. I wonder what my daughter thinks about it all. I tried asking my son but he seems to have no interest in communicating it to me.

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Related:

Raising Mixed Race (a book for parents of mixed-race Asian kids)

On Immigration and Double Standards 

"The Case for Loving" (kids' book about Loving vs Virginia)

"I Want a Popsicle" (a bilingual book for Asian children, about feelings)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Cracker Barrel, Anglican Converts, and Tradition’s Aesthetic (August 25, via) "That draw into nostalgia—even or especially nostalgia for something we never experienced like the rural South of the 1930s or the high medieval English cathedral—can drive us to over-inflate continuities between ourselves and the past and to idealize rituals, expressions and—in the case of church and Cracker Barrel—aesthetics we think capture our imagined communities in their purest form."

Related to this is the idea that white people have a culture. I didn't get that when I was growing up- I thought the way I lived was just the regular way, and other people who ate weird food and celebrated weird holidays did so because it was their culture. The link talks about the misconception that the liturgical rituals in the Anglican church are the same as those from the very beginning of the church- the idea that these rituals are just neutral and normal and the way it always was- no, this is not true.

2. More Drowning Children (March 21) "God notices there is one extra spot in Heaven, and plans to give it to either you or your neighbor. He knows that you jump in the water and save one child per day, and your neighbor (if he were in the same situation) would save zero. He also knows that you are willing to pay 80% of the cost of a lifeguard, and your neighbor (who makes exactly the same amount of money as you) would pay 0%. However, in reality, the river and the drowning children are going by your house, not your neighbor’s house. Which of you should get the spot in Heaven?"

3. AI Companies’ Race for Engagement Has a Body Count (August 28, via) "Instead of providing meaningful safety measures, transparency, age assurance, and data privacy protections, Meta and others have chosen to build platforms that deliberately blur the line between human and machine."

The thing that really gets me about this is, I know that some people will respond by saying, well, that's just how an LLM is, you don't really know how it works internally or what it's going to do in every situation, so this is not anybody's fault, it's just the way it is. But I think this is the wrong way of looking at it- companies should be held accountable for making a product that will respond in unpredictable (and possibly dangerous) ways. There's no guarantee that this is safe, and yet they're selling it.

4. BREAKING: Eurgh, oh God, there’s a texture (August 29, via) "Even when you successfully manage to scrub away the last of the peanut butter, its memory will stain your hands, causing you to experience a level of anguish previously only felt by Lady Macbeth."

This is so real. This is exactly what it's like.

5. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Make Their First Public Appearance as an Engaged Couple—Just a Few Miles From NFL Star’s $6 Million Mansion (August 29) Aww that's great! (I am a Taylor Swift fan.)

6. Un-Reformed history (August 28) "Bai imagines that he’s positioning himself as a reasonable centrist and Serious Person because he’s rejecting “critical race theory,” but what he’s actually rejecting is total depravity and original sin."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention facility to be empty 'within a few days' (August 28) 

2. 2 firefighters arrested by Border Patrol at Washington’s Bear Gulch Fire (August 28) "In a statement Thursday, Sen. Patty Murray slammed the arrests as unnecessary, and demanded “immediate answers” as to why the men were arrested on the job, and what the immigration enforcement policy is during active wildfires."

3. Hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children can stay in the U.S. for now, judge says (August 31) "'In the dead of night on a holiday weekend, the Trump administration ripped vulnerable, frightened children from their beds and attempted to return them to danger in Guatemala,' said Efrén Olivares, a lead attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. 'We are heartened the Court prevented this injustice from occurring before hundreds of children suffered irreparable harm.'"

Also: A high schooler stays back as his family, separated by deportation, returns to Guatemala (April 26) "Two weeks after federal officials arrested his father, Alex drove his mom and siblings to the airport for their flight to Guatemala. He's faced with finishing his senior year of high school without his mom or dad and finding a way to make it on his own with his older brother. Alex just turned 18."

4. Michigan AG Warns UM Hospitals Not To Capitulate Over Trump's Trans Ban, Calls Decision Likely "Illegal" (August 27) "'This administration draws most of its power from the willingness of its targets to capitulate without a fight, abandoning their own principles and interests, and throwing disfavored populations under the bus,' Nessel continued. 'Despite repeated successful legal challenges to actions by this administration, UM has chosen instead to sacrifice the health, well-being, and likely the very lives of Michigan children, to protect itself from the ire of an administration who, oftentimes, engages in unlawful actions itself.'"

5. Another major medical association breaks from CDC as ob/gyn group recommends Covid-19  vaccines during pregnancy (August 23) "'While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently removed its recommendation that pregnant and lactating individuals receive updated COVID-19 vaccines, ACOG’s recommendations have not changed,' according to the updated practice advisory. 'The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines in individuals contemplating pregnancy and in pregnant, recently pregnant, and lactating individuals.'"