"Mother God" (as a queer Christian, I am so into this book)

Book cover for "Mother God"

I got this book for my kids, Mother God, by Teresa Kim Pecinovsky. Here's my review of it.

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Summary

This book tells us that God is our mother, and every page gives examples of the actions She performs as a mother. For example:

Throughout day and night, God wakes
To nurse the infant at Her side.
She snuggles Her baby gently
Until he closes his sleepy eyes.

The inside cover of the book says it contains "a dozen images of God inspired by feminine descriptions from Scripture."

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I have ex-evangelical thoughts about this interpretation of the bible

Some of this imagery I recognized- I know the bible passages that they came from. For example, the page about God the mother hen, gathering Her chicks under Her wings, comes from the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:37, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."

I wish the book included a list of bible references, because I feel some of these might be a bit of a stretch, and I want to check them. There is one page in this book that says God is a leopard taking care of Her cubs, and I'm trying to figure out where in the bible that is supposedly coming from. I did a search, and the word "leopard" only appears in the bible 8 times. The one that I think "Mother God" must be alluding to is Hosea 13:7-8, which says:

So I will be like a lion to them, 
like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
Like a bear robbed of her cubs, 
I will attack them and rip them open; 
like a lion I will devour them— 
a wild animal will tear them apart.

Not really the cheeriest of bible verses. 

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the imagery of God as a mother leopard. I love that this book has that. I think it's fine to describe God that way, even though the bible doesn't quite do that, not exactly.

It's just that... if you're having an argument with a conservative Christian who believes we're only allowed to talk about God with he/him pronouns, and you want to pull out this book and say "see? The bible itself talks about God with feminine language, so we are so allowed to call God 'her'," well, you're kind of over-selling it. Yes, there are places in the bible where God is described with feminine language. It never goes so far as to use a 'her' pronoun, though. The bible's feminine descriptions of God are comparisons and metaphors, while the masculine ones are literally calling God "he", "Father", "Son", etc. Conservative Christians in arguments about God's pronouns are quick to point this out. They're not really wrong... it's just that... I want to believe in a better God than that, a God who is every gender.

Probably the closest the bible gets to non-metaphorically calling God a woman is 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, which refers to Jesus Christ as "the wisdom of God" - and this was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word for "wisdom" is "Sophia," which is a feminine name. Christ is the woman, Sophia Wisdom. (Okay, yeah, this is still pretty metaphorical.)

So yes, I love this book, I love every single thing about it, I love when people call God "Her," I love the bible passages which use feminine language or metaphors to describe God. But not every page in "Mother God" is rooted in such a straightforward reading of Scripture that you can use it to win arguments with Christians of the "God is a he/him" persuasion. I mean, personally I'm no longer interested in participating in such arguments, so this is fine for me. But I'm just a bit concerned that this book is misrepresenting itself... if you're coming at it from an evangelical biblical-inerrancy perspective, you expect this book to be "here are bible verses where God is described as/ compared to a woman." But actually, it's more like, "here are bible verses which allow for an interpretation where God is a woman." And I 100% support doing such interpretations. I am so on board with this. But you'll definitely get people responding with "no, that's not what that verse means." (I mean, I agree that in some cases it's not what the verse is supposed to mean. I'm just not so hung up on only being allowed to think about the bible as what it was originally "supposed to mean." It's living and active.)

Another example from "Mother God":

Granny, Baba, Halmeoni,
God is a woman with gray hair.
She passes down stories of old,
Rocking softly in a chair.

This is great, love this, but also, I have no idea what bible passage this is supposedly coming from. I don't even know what search terms to use- "bible verse where God is a grandma telling stories"?????

So yeah, some of these are a bit of a stretch. I'm sure there is some bible verse, perhaps where God is metaphorically compared to someone who tells stories from one's ancestors, and the author of "Mother God" envisions this person as an old, wise grandmother. Yeah, probably it's something along those lines. 

Like I said, I think this is great. *My* take on biblical interpretation is that you can use the bible as inspiration for whatever story about God is meaningful for you. Make sure when you do that, though, you don't claim "this is true" or "this is what the bible says." Your interpretation makes sense only to the extent that you can present coherent reasons why it makes sense- you can't claim it's just automatically right because it comes from the bible. This approach is very different from "biblical inerrancy" ideology, where we believed we were very seriously adhering to what God and/or the original writer really meant to say, and so our conclusions just simply were true. (We *believed* that, but in reality, "biblical inerrancy" ideology isn't as unbiased and faithful to the bible as it claims to be...)

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When we call God a woman, does it always have to be in the context of pushing back against patriarchal religion?

Obviously, the reason I love this book has a lot to do with my being a queer Christian with a lifetime of experience hearing people call God "he" but never "she." It just feels so refreshing, to hear people saying that God is a woman.

Also, in the previous section of this blog post, I talked about arguing with conservative Christians who say you're not allowed to call God "she", and the extent to which this book can be used to bolster our side in such arguments. 

Ugh, but does it always have to be that way? When we call God "she", does it always have to be about "wow this is great, because everyone always calls God 'he'" and "yes, we *are* allowed to talk about God in this way"? I wish it could just be... that it could just be what it is, rather than needing to be about Taking A Stand Against Patriarchy. 

"Mother God" actually starts out by saying, 

You know God the Father,
But God is your Mother too.
You are made in Her image--
She is making all things new.

So even this book isn't able to just be about "we are calling God a woman"; it has to be about "we are calling God a woman because everyone always calls God a man." It's unavoidable.

My beliefs about God are in many ways a reaction to the evangelical ideology I was raised in. I always wonder, what does that mean for how I teach my kids? I call God "They" when I talk to my son about what I believe, and the feel of it is like... I'm queer and I chose this. But for him it's never going to feel like that, if he hears someone calling God "They." Soon he'll be at that age where he thinks everything I do is extremely uncool, and that will be the lens he uses to think about the concept of calling God "They."

This isn't just about religion- so many societal trends are like, one generation is reacting to something they didn't like about the way they were raised, but the younger generation didn't have whatever negative experience they are reacting to. The older generation creates a new approach intended to be a healthy correction of the errors of the past, but the younger generation doesn't necessary experience this new approach in that way. Without that context, it will be understood by the younger generation as something else entirely.

So yeah, I bought this book for my kids, but I have no idea what it would be like to grow up with the idea that calling God "she" is just a normal, unremarkable thing. This book means something very different to me than it does to my kids. I don't really know how to understand that. I think it must be a *good* thing to expose them to this idea, and also *not* expose them to the idea that 'we're only allowed to call God he/him or else it's HERESY.' But I can never really *get* how my kids are thinking about this, because for me it always carries that context of rebelling against conservative, patriarchal religion.

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The actions God takes in this book

A lot of the imagery in "Mother God" is about real actions that real people do, and the book says that God is doing these actions. I'm not sure what to make of that. For example:

God is a skillful seamstress 
Who stitches and sews thread together.
She makes clothes for rain, snow, and sun,
Caring for you in all kinds of weather.

What does this mean? 

1. Does it mean that when we see actual real women making clothes, God is there? 
2. Does it mean that the clothes we wear come from God, in the indirect sense that God created the world and helped people learn the skills to make clothes? 
3. Does it mean that some of the spiritual things that God does are metaphorically similar to sewing clothes- for example, creating the earth, or perhaps this is a reference to Psalm 139:13, "you knit me together in my mother's womb," where fetal development is metaphorically compared to God knitting?
4. Does it mean that when we imagine God performing these feminine-coded actions, like making clothes, that opens up our understanding of God, to help us view God in powerful new ways? Maybe you always imagined God as looking like and acting like your male pastor- but what if you imagine God as a woman making clothes? Don't we believe that a male pastor bears the image of God to the exact same extent that a female seamstress does? Don't we? It brings our biases to the surface and challenges them.

I like interpretations 1 and 4. But I do feel like it's strange, to talk about God doing such concrete actions, and I'm really unclear on what this is intended to mean.

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Wil Gafney endorses this book

I'm such a huge fan of Wil Gafney. I wrote a bunch of blog posts about her book "Womanist Midrash." One of the endorsements on the back cover of "Mother God" was written by her. Obviously I'm going to love anything that Wil Gafney endorses.

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Conclusion

I am so into this book. I love it. I love it because I'm a queer Christian- and so I wonder about how my kids will take it, and what it would be like to grow up with the idea that it's just fine and normal to call God "she."

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Related

"Maybe God Is Like That Too" (kids' book review)

Womanist Midrash 

Reviews of Christian Children's Books 

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Also please enjoy this song:

Groove Coverage - God is a Girl (Official Video) 

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Love's Work in "Go, Dog, Go" (December 6) "I ask you, who has been changed by their first meeting? She has only become more of herself, while he has adopted a brand-new hat habit."

2. If you hear any noise, it ain’t the boys (December 5) "In practice it’s a lot more complicated because the cover charge and the price of drinks is never the only variable being considered by the “ladies” that Ladies Night is trying to attract."

3. The Reality of AI Animal Content (December 5, via) "AI videos and heavily edited clips can show animals doing things they would never do in a healthy, ethical setting, such as jumping into a person’s arms at a zoo, endangered species at your doorstep, or dancing on cue. This can create unrealistic and even dangerous expectations."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Alina Habba Quits Job She Never Legally Held (December 8) "Habba has now pretended to resign the job she’s been pretending to have."

2. Jesse Watters says criticizing boat strikes makes people sound “effeminate” (December 8, via) Jesse Watters really went on tv and said that people *like* the videos of military strikes on defenseless boats, murdering people. "People love these videos. They hit your feed, they're like, yes, let's go." This actually says more about what kind of person Jesse Watters is, yikes.

3. Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide (December 5) "'As an immigrant takes the oath of citizenship, it’s a reflection and recognition of the tremendous sacrifice of time, energy, and financial resources they have made in the hopes of becoming a full member of our community and nation,' said Elizabeth Sweet, Executive Director of MIRA Coalition. 'To have that final step canceled is unnecessarily cruel and does nothing to make this country a safer place.'"

And: How Trump is remaking one agency to aid his deportation push (December 10) "'They're reaching deeper into the weeds of immigration policy, and they may be more successful in slowing legal immigration, which at least some members of the Trump administration have stated is their goal,' said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. 'That's a pretty different stance towards immigration than we've seen over recent decades.'"

4. Border Patrol left Charlotte. The damage stayed behind (December 10) "Many immigrants in hiding have relied on allies to help with basic services like delivering food and medicine. Volunteers have set up a support network. People deliver supplies, take reports of vehicles suspected of belonging to immigration agents and go check them out, and wear bright yellow vests while they watch over children walking to school."

5. Afghan CIA fighters, like National Guard attack suspect, face stark reality in U.S. (December 10) "After being evacuated to the U.S. in 2021, when the Taliban swept into Kabul, many Zero Unit soldiers came to feel they had been abandoned by CIA officials."

Sharing this because I will always be on the side of 'we should give immigrants the support they need, to deal with bureaucracy/cultural/language/etc barriers.' But also, I'm a little uncomfortable with the implication that 'the big lesson to be learned from the Washington DC shooting is [whatever my pet cause is]' which I've seen a lot of- from the felon, when he uses this as a reason to discriminate against all Afghan immigrants (and also other countries he doesn't like????), and from those of us on the left, saying this is the MAGAs' fault for sending the National Guard there in the first place, and perhaps I'm also participating in this by sharing this article, as if to imply that the actual problem wasn't the shooting itself, but the lack of support received by Afghans who worked for the CIA. Which is why I am writing this disclaimer. No, let's be clear about this, this is the shooter's fault, there is no excuse to go around shooting people.

6. The fight to beat neglected tropical diseases was going well. 2025 could change that (December 10) "'A group of scientists went to the Hill and made the point that there is a known strategy in treating communities that are infected,' says Wainwright. 'You go in, treat them once a year and if you do it for a set number of years, you can either eliminate or control the disease.'"

The devastation caused by the shutdown of USAID is terrible, but here's something we can do about it: Helen Keller Intl is working on this. Here's the link to donate to them. 

7. Democrats Must Reject The Premise Of Trans Healthcare Bans In Republican Healthcare Offer (December 10) "For these reasons, gender-affirming care has long been recognized as medically necessary for those who need it. Stripping an entire class of people of such care is unconscionable."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Federal Court Strikes Down Georgia’s Ban on GAC for Incarcerated Trans People (December 10) 

8. The Trump-Epstein Emergency Isn't in the Files (December 5) "Trump’s treatment of Maxwell—a convicted sex trafficker— is by far the most glaring, brazen, and openly corrupt part of the current moment involving the president."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Elon Musk’s Grok AI Is Doxxing Home Addresses of Everyday People (December 4, via) "In response to prompts as simple as “[name] address,” we found Grok repeatedly offered up accurate, up-to-date home addresses of everyday people, while offering astonishingly scant pushback."

2. The Most Hated Children's Book (December 4) [content note: the Holocaust, also spoilers for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"] "And so we're left with this kind of hollow story. A boy who spends a year, a full year, talking to a victim of the Holocaust, who does not learn one single thing about it."

I haven't read "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" but the first time I heard about the plot, I assumed that it was meant to make these 2 points:

1. A lot of people in Nazi Germany really had no idea what was going on in the death camps, even military families who lived right next to them. Uh... is there historical evidence of this? If this is not true, then yikes it's extremely irresponsible to write it in a book as if this was a real phenomenon. Sort of saying that the Holocaust just kinda happened and it wasn't really anyone's fault except maybe the leaders at the highest levels.
2. I thought the point of the ending was a judgment on the father- the father is overseeing mass murder throughout the whole book and thinks it's fine, but then when it's his own son getting murdered, then it's a horrible tragedy which wasn't supposed to happen. I assumed- not reading the book but just a summary of it- that the point was to teach the father a lesson about how wrong he was- that the father was getting what he deserved. But I've read criticism of this book which says this is basically just played straight- like the book makes you feel like the tragedy is that the son of a Nazi leader was killed, that's terrible and wasn't supposed to happen, whereas the constant mass murder of Jewish people is fine. I thought the point of the book would be exposing this way of thinking and showing how immoral it is, but ... apparently it doesn't? Like I said I haven't read it, and maybe it's open to interpretation how much the book just kinda goes along with this "it only became a tragedy when this one German child died" and how much it calls out that way of thinking.

3. Chinese Backstreet Boys - That Way (2005) My husband told me this video went viral in China 20 years ago. It's 2 goofy students lip-syncing to "I want it that way." I love this.

4. Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know (December 5) "Are the youth succumbing to a “negativity bias” where they see the past through “rose-colored glasses”? Are the economists looking at some ivory tower High Modernist metric that fails to capture real life? Or is there something more complicated going on?"

5. UN humanitarian chief: world needs to 'wake up' and help stop violence in Sudan (December 7) "The United Nations estimates around 200,000 civilians were trapped in el-Fasher when the army withdrew, and there is evidence that many were systematically killed, with thousands still unaccounted for."

6. Reality Bites: Meituan’s ‘Rosy’ Delivery Ad Hits a Nerve in China (December 8) "'It’s clear from the video that not only has the director never been a food delivery driver, but also that he has never ordered take-out,' one user said in a video response on Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, receiving more than 29,000 likes."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump to Disaster Victims: Drop Dead (December 3, via) "Whenever someone comes to him in need, whether its Volodomyr Zelensky, helpless African children dependent on USAID, or rural Michiganers, his cruelty is activated."

2. HHS changed the name of transgender health leader on her official portrait (December 5) "Levine told NPR that it was an honor to serve the American people as the assistant secretary for health 'and I'm not going to comment on this type of petty action.'"

3. CDC advisers vote to overturn decades-long policy on hepatitis B vaccine for infants (December 5) "'Our question is why? Why is there pressure today to change something that has been working, due to safety concerns that may be more theoretical than real?' asked Dr. Grant Paulsen during Thursday's meeting."

Full-Service Movers (a post about being in charge of your own life)

Movers carrying boxes. Image source.

A few years ago, when my husband and I were moving to a new apartment, we heard about a moving service that said they would do everything for you. You don't have to do anything at all. You don't have to pack or do anything. They do it.

My first thought was "that's not possible."

Blogaround

Movie poster for "Zootopia 2." Image source.

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. I saw "Zootopia 2" and I loved it! My favorite part was the whole dynamic between Nick and Judy. Also the animation is very good, and the action scenes were exciting. And the plot is about systemic injustice, like the first "Zootopia" movie.

2. It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie? (November 25) "To the contrary, Kelly says, the Seekers were quick to disavow those beliefs. Even Martin herself rebranded, insisting to an interviewer that she had never believed she’d be taken away by an actual spaceship."

3. Inverted Catenaries (December 3) From xkcd.

4. Stuck in the Mud: Climate Chaos Deepens Divide on China’s Farmlands (December 4) "But this autumn, after weeks of rain turned Henan’s fields into mud, the usual wheeled harvesters bogged down at the field edges. In Jiaozuo, where the soil can trap water for days, Zhang’s treaded rig kept crawling through the muck, one of the few machines in the region that could move at all."

5. There’s a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was (December 2) "But beyond that narrow sense of “political,” of course, everything about this is political because it’s all about what is and isn’t “normal” or normative, and who decides that, and how it is or ought to be enforced."

6. Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era (November 19, via) "The stories had the characteristic weirdness of articles written by a large language model—invented anecdotes from regular people who didn’t appear to exist accompanied by expert commentary from public figures who do, with some biographical details mangled, who are made to voice “quotes” that sound, broadly, like something they might say."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. For the first time since 1988, the U.S. is not officially commemorating World AIDS Day (December 1) "'I think it's emblematic of an administration that doesn't seem to care,' said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global HIV prevention organization based in the U.S."

2. They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity (November 23) "We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be." Hear, hear.

3. Ohio senator introduces measure to eliminate dual citizenship (December 2) !!! Not cool! This is just a bill so hopefully it doesn't get anywhere. But yikes.

4. The Summers-Epstein Emails’ ‘Yellow Peril’ Problem (December 3) "Harvard professor Larry Summers has been widely criticized for his extensive correspondence with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But the denigrating way he views Asian women hasn’t gotten enough attention."

5. Will Hegseth Face Consequences? (December 2) "Faced with a congressional inquiry, Trump, to protect himself, gave clear public orders to Hegseth not to murder survivors and commit war crimes. You may think this should go without saying. I may think this should go without saying. But obviously it does not go without saying—especially since the White House went on to maybe possibly contradict those orders."

And: 'Franklin' publisher slams Hegseth for his post of the turtle firing on drug boats (December 2) "'We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin's name or image, which directly contradicts these values,' it added."

Here’s what the Trump administration has said about the ‘double-tap’ strike on an alleged drug boat (December 3, via) A timeline.

Did Megyn Kelly say she wanted to see survivors of strike on alleged drug boat 'suffer'? (December 3) Oh my goodness.

6. As Trump's immigration raids hit New Orleans, a Chicago group shares resistance tips (December 3) "This, Gonzalez said, was always the goal of Protect RP: to make immigration enforcement operations in the neighborhood uncomfortable and inefficient. If they do that well enough, Gonzalez said, maybe enforcement agents would conclude that the cost of doing work in his neighborhood is simply too high."

7. She was deported after boarding a flight to Austin. Her attorney says that violates a judge's order. (December 2) "'At the end of the day, this is a college student who came here at 7 years old to seek asylum with her family,' Pomerleau said. 'She's not responsible under the law for any decisions her parents made about her. She was a child.'"

8. Doctors warn delaying hepatitis B shot for newborns could revive a deadly threat (December 3) [content note: child death] "'Liver cancer has disappeared in children,' McMahon said. 'We haven't seen a case since 1995. Nor do we have any children under 30 that have gotten infected that we know of.'"

9. 'Nobody wants to come': What if the U.S. can no longer attract immigrant physicians? (November 24) "Up until this year, it was a dream — a wish! — that you could get a job and you could come to the U.S. And now nobody wants to come."

10. GEOGRAPHY QUIZ: Can You Find 'Third' Countries Trump Bribing To Take Deportees On A Map? (December 4) "It’s corrupt, it’s wasteful, it’s inhumane, and also, if these deportees are truly the hardened criminals that Donald J. Trump claims they are, it is not justice to send them somewhere that will happily pocket the cash and then lose all track of them."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. China’s Security Guards Live Lives on the Margin (November 25) "According to the current regulations concerning security services in China, security guards are required to meet three basic conditions: be in good health, have at least a junior high school diploma, and have no more than three administrative detentions on their record. Despite not meeting any of these criteria, Xiao Bing has always managed to find his way back into the industry. The reason is simple: companies often struggle to recruit enough guards for residential communities, given the low pay, lack of career prospects, and low social status."

2. Freebirth Influencers are Killing Babies (November 29) [content note: child death] "All of this hasn’t happened in a vacuum. It’s a story that I’ve been talking about for decades now: remove agency from women. Add in societal pressures. In place of agency, tell women some fantasy about magical powers that allow them to transcend those challenges. Then blame them for suffering and dying because they didn’t use their magic the right way."

This article is about the "free birth movement" and MY GOODNESS I had heard of "free birth" but had no idea it was this bad. I know that "home birth" sort of spans a spectrum from 'pregnant people who are well-informed about their own pregnancy's risks of complications, and who have a good backup plan in case they need to be rushed to the hospital, can give birth at home and it's basically just as safe as a hospital birth' to 'doctors are bad, all you need is your feminine energy and everything will be okay'- well it turns out that "free birth" means going off the deep end of the "doctors are bad" side of that. 

Moms and babies used to die quite often in childbirth. Yes, giving birth is natural, and your body *probably* can do it and you won't die- but "probably" is not good enough. Know the risks, and get the medical help that makes sense for you. In my second pregnancy I had pre-eclampsia which is life-threatening, but I didn't really think it was a big deal because I didn't have any symptoms- but the doctors caught it early and took it extremely seriously, and everything turned out fine.

I totally agree that the reason women are drawn to these "free birth" influencers is because the medical system has traumatized them. So many women have experienced doctors doing all kinds of invasive things to them without their consent, during childbirth, and are pressured to accept it because "all that matters is the baby is healthy." Not cool! We need to prioritize consent in health care.

3. These Zika mothers went to battle — and their cry was heard (November 29) "It's a story that plays itself out all over the world, Brito says — in big ways and small. A health or natural disaster befalls a community and they are all that anyone talks about. But quickly, people turn to the next tragedy elsewhere. For that original community, though, the challenge has only just begun."

4. Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget. (November 20, via) [content note: child sexual abuse] "'I went back to the same preacher, which is Daryl [Bruckelmyer], and said, ‘Why is he still able to hold kids and whatever?’' she recalled to Kleffman in a recorded interview. 'And he’s like: ‘I don’t know. Like, we’ve told him that he’s not supposed to, but he still does.’'"

5. Bridge Clearance (November 28) From xkcd.

6. Take up wickedness again (November 30) "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar."

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Links related to the antichrist:

(I don't really believe there's a specific prophesied "antichrist", but I just have to call him that because it's absurd how evangelicals, after spending so many years obsessing about which world leader might possibly be "the antichrist" and what traits such a person would have, are the ones selling their souls to him.)

1. MAGA’s Twin WTF Moments (November 25) "And that underscores a hard truth: MAGA is whatever Trump says it is at any given moment, even if that means abandoning everything it previously stood for."

2. Trump administration orders review of Biden-era refugees, memo shows (November 25) "The USCIS memo, dated November 21, said the agency will terminate the refugee status of people already in the U.S. if they are found to not meet refugee criteria."

Oh my god, they want to review 233,000 refugees and find whatever technicalities they can use as excuses to deport people. Refugees. My god. 

And: Trump administration pausing all asylum decisions after National Guard shooting (November 28)

3. House and Senate committees launch inquiries into second strike on alleged drug boat (November 30) "Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN that if the reporting on the second strike is true, “it seems to” constitute a war crime."

4. FDA to raise hurdles for vaccines, faulting COVID shots for 10 kids' deaths (November 29) Oh this is a terrible idea. Also, why isn't the public discourse highlighting the risks of *not* vaccinating your kids? *Not* vaccinating your kids can lead to measles and all kinds of other diseases.

5. Why clergy should risk assault to protest ICE (November 13, via) "For people wanting to experience God, we are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview facility than we ever were in church. I say that as someone who leads a church for a living. God does not live in our houses of worship, but instead chooses to dwell with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment." Preach.

6. ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Auction Raises More Than $1.5 Million for Public Broadcasting, Including New Record for a Bob Ross Painting (November 24, via) 

7. Crime in the Cabinet (December 1) "Even so, it was striking to hear two independent credible accusations of crimes by Trump cabinet officials in the same week."

Also: The Trump administration's lawlessness is front and center, on multiple fronts (November 30) "Despite the horrors and harm involved, all three stories show how important discussing lawlessness is to making accountability possible — now or in the future."

If heaven is so great, why did God even make this world?

Typical pop-culture depiction of heaven, with sunlight streaming through clouds. Image source.

[content note: stats about child death, discussion of hypothetical suicide and murder]

Let's suppose we believe that the world we live in now is flawed, and heaven is a perfect world where there is no suffering and all the wrongs are made right. (And yes I do believe this.)

Here is my big question: Why do we even have this world, then? Why didn't God just put us in heaven to start with? 

The idea of heaven seems like the kind of thing that people would come up with when they're having problems in this world. Longing for another world, which doesn't have any problems at all. 

But how about taking a step back and asking, if there really is a God who created a heaven, would this world we live in even exist? If we just start with the idea that there really is a God who wants people to live fulfilling lives- what kind of world would that God create? Would They create a world where the strong can take advantage of the weak, where some people are just born with fewer resources and fewer opportunities and that's just the way it is, and then make a second world which is perfect, which people go to after they die? Why even bother with the flawed world?

Christians have a few different ways of answering this, and I find them all weak:

1. Evangelicals (and many other groups of Christians) believe that only people who are "saved" go to heaven. Everyone deserves to go to hell because we're all sinners, but people who believe the correct things about Jesus are "saved" and can escape their deserved fate and go to heaven. So, people need to live on this earth because this is where they will choose if they're going to believe in Jesus or not, which is what determines if they go to heaven or hell. God can't just "skip" this life and put us all in heaven, because God only wants people who would freely choose that.

This argument doesn't mean anything to me because I don't believe in that kind of hell. Yeah, I used to be evangelical, and constantly worried about my non-Christian friends who were in danger of going to hell- I'm so glad I don't believe that any more. I sometimes say "I don't believe in hell" but I just mean it as a shorthand for "I don't believe that everyone deserves to go to hell, and I don't believe that one's religious beliefs are the determining factor in whether one goes to heaven or hell"- because I do believe there will be a judgment, and "the wages you failed to pay your workers are crying out against you." And "whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me."

(This argument also gets more complicated when someone asks "what about people who never heard about Jesus, and never had a chance to believe in him- it's not fair for God to automatically send them to hell" and then someone answers "God will judge them based on whether they *would have* believed in Jesus, if they had had the opportunity." So... so suddenly God is letting people into heaven based on what they would have done in a hypothetical alternate universe? Okay, then why not just judge all of us that way? No need to actually live out our whole lives on earth- God can just send us straight to heaven or hell based on what we "would have" chosen if we had in fact lived on earth. ... Honestly I've always felt this "God will judge based on what they knew" idea is just shoddily tacked on because we feel bad about people going to hell if they happened to live in a time or place where they never heard the name Jesus. "God will judge them based on what they knew" is not at all consistent with the rest of conservative Christians' beliefs about heaven/ hell/ God/ salvation/ sin/ evangelism/ missions/ etc.)

So the evangelical idea that the reason we have to live in this world is to see who chooses Jesus and who defaults to going to hell just doesn't mean anything to me.

2. In this life, because we have the choice to sin, because the world is not perfect, that's what gives us the opportunity for personal growth. To learn how to become better people, we need to be free to choose good or evil. And suffering helps us become stronger.

I don't think this argument is any good, and here's why: child mortality. Nowadays we have very good medical care and vaccines, so this is not something that most people in developed countries have experience with now, but for the vast majority of human history, it was normal for little children to die. For babies to die. For very rough ballpark numbers, I found this page from the CDC which compares current infant mortality rates to the rates from the year 1900. In the year 1900, ballpark numbers are around 10%-30% of infants dying before reaching age 1. (And if you're considering older children and not just infants, Our World in Data estimates something like 50% of children died before age 15 in the time period before 1700-ish.)

So how does it make any sense to say that it's important for us to live in this world first, before going to heaven, so that we can learn morality and make choices that shape who we are, when a significant percentage of people didn't live long enough for that to happen? And if we say heaven rights all the wrongs of this world, including infant mortality... then that means it's okay that those babies didn't live long enough to grow into people who could make good or bad decisions... if that's okay for them- and they're a significant fraction of the human population, like 10-30%- why isn't it okay for everyone? Why is it so necessary for the rest of us to live in this world, then?

If heaven is so great, why doesn't God just put us all there to start with? People have various answers to that, but the fact is, for a significant fraction of the human population, God basically *did* just "put them there to start with", ie, they died as babies. So if you say "oh but we have to live our lives on earth, to learn morality" well why didn't those babies then have to live their lives on earth, to learn morality? This is not some kind of rare statistical outlier- this is something like 30% of all people. Not *now*, thank goodness, because we have good medicine and vaccines, but if you look at all of human history.

3. There are good things we can do in this world that we can't do in heaven, like fight against injustice. And help people.

Uh... yeah it's good to fight against injustice, but wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to...? 

And hey maybe we can still help people when we're in heaven. Help each other with mundane low-stakes problems. That sounds nice.

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There's a weird paradox about heaven: we claim it's so good, and if you feel sad about someone dying, you can encourage yourself by saying "they're in a better place"- that in some sense it's good that they're no longer in this world, but they are in heaven instead.

But this needs to be just a nice thing to say to help people feel better, not something we actually literally believe. If we really did believe it's better to be in heaven than on earth, we should kill ourselves. "Ah," someone will answer, "God closed that loophole by automatically sending you to hell if you commit suicide." Okay, well then don't kill yourself- kill other people. You're helping them get to heaven, right? Maybe you feel like, if God sends you to hell to punish you for murder, that's an acceptable cost, you're okay with going to hell yourself because you know you've done so much good for other people.

This logic is especially monstrous when people believe in some kind of "age of accountability"- ie, children are innocent, and if they die they will automatically go to heaven, but adults will be judged for their sins and possibly sent to hell. So, it follows that it's better for children to die rather than grow up and be at risk of going to hell. (And there really have been people who murdered children because of this belief.)

And there have been politicians/leaders who didn't care about the large-scale effects of what they were doing, didn't care whether their policies would lead to more children dying or not, because eh it's all okay, it's God's plan.

If we truly believe we're going to heaven... well, then why do we see it as a good thing that infant mortality is no longer common? This weird paradox where we try to believe "they're in a better place"- but that has to be nothing more than a way to try to make yourself feel better about something you can't change. Not a belief that would then inform actual choices you make, which could have real effects in terms of people living and dying. It can't be that. It's just horrible to even begin to reason through the conclusions that follow from that belief.

My approach for dealing with this problem is to believe in heaven, but not with much confidence. I hope it's real, but I don't know. Don't bank on it. Don't go around murdering people (and/or deprioritizing investment in public health) if you don't even know if heaven is real or not, my god.

It's better to have less faith, it seems.

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So back to the main question I want to ask: Why didn't God just put us all in heaven to begin with? Why do we even have this world? And any answer you give has to take into account that God *did* put a nonnegligible percentage of people "in heaven to begin with" (ie, infant mortality rates have been very high throughout history). Apparently it's fine that, whatever lessons we were supposed to learn by living full lives on earth, a significant proportion of people just totally missed out on. And your answer should also take into account that we view it as an extremely good thing that in modern times, infant/child mortality is very rare. 

Advances in medical technology have very much changed the distribution of ages at which people enter heaven. Changed the demographics of heaven. Is that a good thing? Did God intend for it to be that way?

I don't have a good answer for this. I hope heaven is real, I believe in it, but this is an aspect of it that doesn't make sense.

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Related:

Sure Of What We Hope For

A Bit Suspicious That "Heavenly Tourism" Confirms Everything We Already Believe

xkcd comic where a biologist says "The heroes of my field have slain one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse." Image source.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. A third of kids want to be a YouTuber. Is that a problem? (November 10) "Except this whole thing is silly, because kids do not actually want to work these jobs more than other jobs."

2. How Online Privacy Has Been Championed by Dreamwidth (November 23, via) "In other words, the stated rationale for many of these laws as pro-privacy consumer safety laws is contradicted by Dreamwidth’s very existence."

3. Viola Ford Fletcher, oldest survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, dies aged 111 (November 25) "Nobody was ever held accountable for the violence and deaths and efforts to rebuild the neighbourhood were stymied by city officials."

4. In a new book, Rep. Jim Clyburn highlights the Black politicians who paved the way for him (November 25) 

5. ‘Do You Want Help?’: Inside Orange County’s Bet on Voluntary Mental Health Care (July 17) "It could take 20, 30 or 40 visits before a client accepts a bottle of water, let alone a prescription for antipsychotic medication, but Orange County officials say this is the only way to build trust with a population that is paranoid and distrustful by nature, or has had very real traumatic experiences of being forcibly treated or hospitalized in the past."

6. Watch China's Shenzhou 22 rescue ship arrive at Tiangong space station (video) (November 25) "Shenzhou 22 is an unprecedented mission for China — an emergency flight mounted on a short timeline to help out three astronauts who have been "stuck" on Tiangong for the past 10 days."

I try to keep informed about any stranded astronaut news. If there's ever a stranded astronaut news story and I miss it, please send me a link.

7. NZ Right-Wing Government Bans Puberty Blockers: "Sacrificing A Generation Of Trans Youth" (November 20) "'By pinning the resumption of prescribing to a UK trial result expected in 2031, the Government has effectively sacrificed a generation of trans youth. They are demanding a level of evidence for trans healthcare that they do not demand for hundreds of other treatments routinely used in paediatrics,' said civil rights organization Rights Aotearoa in a press release." Hopefully this gets challenged in the courts.

8. You don't want to date multiple people who are monogamous with you (November 27) "Your four wives are constantly sabotaging each other to try to cement their positions as your favorite."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Judge's ruling on feds' use of force in Operation Midway Blitz accuses Border Patrol's Bovino of "outright lying" (November 21) "The judge wrote body-warn camera video showed agents 'shoot pepper balls and tear gas at them without any apparent justification,' in direct contradiction to an agent's report claiming 'protesters were becoming increasingly hostile.'"

2. The kingdom of heaven is like: As immigration enforcement surges in North Carolina, Chicagoans share advice, whistles (November 18) "Enriquez said his group met virtually with several dozen political and nonprofit leaders in North Carolina last week. On the agenda were the whistle campaign in Chicago and the “magic school bus,” a volunteer group that escorts children of parents who fear being detained during school pickups and drop-offs."

3. Judge tosses Comey, James cases after finding prosecutor unlawfully appointed (November 24)

And related to that: “Anna, Lindsey Halligan Here.” (October 20) "When I received the 1:20 p.m. connection request on Signal—an encrypted messaging service that many journalists use to communicate with sources—my first reaction was that the user identified as “Lindsey Halligan” couldn’t actually be Halligan."

4. Pentagon investigates Sen. Mark Kelly for telling troops to refuse 'illegal orders' (November 24) ??? Not sure what there is to "investigate" here. 

5. Donald and the sexist, offensive, blatantly illegal, brazenly unpresidential week (November 22) "Those with the ability and power to push back on Trump’s crude authoritarianism make us all better off when they actually do so. It works."

6. Trump signs Epstein bill he once labored to kill (November 19) 

7. Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs for Spouses of U.S. Citizens (November 26, via) "Their interview last week was going smoothly, he said, until three ICE agents walked in and informed them that Ms. Paul, who was holding her infant, was under arrest."

Okay as a US citizen married to a non-US citizen, I have some feelings about this.

They're just trying to deport as many people as they can. This has nothing to do with setting up an immigration policy which is actually fair and reasonable. 

Trusting God, Predicting God, Controlling God

Aslan the lion and Lucy. Image source.

Recently I published Miracles and Exceptions, and here's another thing I want to say about that. 

So, in my experience in evangelical land, we very much believed that we should trust God. We are supposed to have a close "personal relationship with God", setting aside time to read the bible every day, praying about everything, etc. We are supposed to know God, and trust God.

But when you know someone really well, and you trust them, doesn't that also mean that in some cases, you can predict what they're going to do? For example, if I offer my son a choice between several things, and one of them is a picture of a big ugly bug, eww, I know he's going to pick that one. For another example, my husband and I have been together a really long time, and he does this thing where he predicts what I'm going to say. Like, if he tells me something gross that I don't want to hear about, he expects that I will say "that's nice" sarcastically. He often does my side of the conversation- like, he'll tell me something about our children's bathroom habits, and then he'll immediately say "that's nice" in a fake high voice, because he predicts that that's what I will say. And then I tell him, I guess you don't even need me, you are doing both sides of this conversation. In later iterations of this, he will also imitate that part. It's really meta.

There's sort of an element of ... playing around, sort of messing with each other and teasing each other out of love because you know each other so well. You can put them into a situation when you know they are going to react in a certain way- this is almost like controlling their behavior, isn't it?

When we're talking about people, this is really not a big deal, this is just joking around. Or, in the case of my son and his interest in weird bugs, it allows me to choose things for him (toys, books, interesting pictures I saw on the internet) and I know he will like them. This is all very good and normal in human relationships, but what would it mean in a relationship with God? 

Or, the examples I've given so far are just kind of silly joking-around things, but this kind of trust that allows you to predict someone's behavior also applies to more serious things- like knowing your partner well enough to know what they would do in an emergency, even though you haven't explicitly talked to them about it. It may even be the case that you're so certain about what you think they will do, that it then allows you to make a decision about what you should do in response, in order to help them. (For example, "if he got lost, he would have come back to this location to find me, so I need to stay here.") You predict their behavior, and rely on your prediction being correct- you can do that because you know and trust each other so well.

I'm realizing I never thought it was possible to do this kind of "predicting their behavior" with God. Why not? Well, several reasons:

It feels kind of arrogant, kind of wrong, to believe you can say what God is going to do. If it's the sort of thing where you have a role in setting up the situation, then you're *making* God do something, making Them respond in a certain way because you know Their character and Their behavior well enough. And what if your motives are that you want to prove something to yourself, or to other people- God is not willing to do parlor tricks for you to make some kind of point. (Whereas if my husband wants to "use" me like that, that's fine, we're just playing.) If your motivations contain even a trace of this kind of arrogance or desire to use God to make yourself believe something or prove a point to other people, to show off, well, God will just refuse. Or at least that's what I believed when I was evangelical. Evangelicals are all about overanalyzing our feelings and motivations and finding some small aspect which is "sinful" and therefore explains God's total refusal to answer your prayers and/or give you any evidence of his existence.

In a human relationship, you *could* view this as controlling or manipulating each other, but, come on, it's not really. You both know you're just playing. But with God, everything gets turned up to infinity, everything gets magnified, and suddenly we're calling it "arrogant" and "sinful" to expect God to play along.

But what does it even mean to "trust God", then, if we can never make concrete predictions about God's behavior? How on earth can this be a "personal relationship" if you can never actually make concrete predictions about what God will do?

One thought I had was, maybe it's like the feeling a baby has about their parents. The baby doesn't understand what's happening, they don't know what you're gong to do specifically, but they trust your character, they trust that you will make everything okay. Except, I don't think babies do trust their parents in that way. You want the baby to sleep in their own bed, and the baby cries like you've abandoned them forever. The baby isn't thinking "I don't understand what's happening, but I'm sure Mommy will make everything okay." They're thinking "I only feel safe when Mommy is holding me, this situation is intolerable, I need to cry desperately to get someone to fix it." I guess. I don't really know what they are thinking. They're very attached to their parents, but I don't necessarily think we can describe that as "trust." So I don't think this analogy is useful, for thinking about people's relationship with God.

Or, here's another type of relationship: Maybe you have an incredible amount of respect for someone you view as a leader, and you devote a lot of your time/energy/resources into following their mission- you're so dedicated that you could even say that you love them. This is how I feel about Jesus. But it's not a "personal relationship" and it's not really supposed to be a personal relationship. Yes, this kind of relation exists and can be a good thing, but it's not a "personal relationship."

Okay, let me walk us through some examples where Christians expect God to do some certain thing:

Suppose someone has some kind of problem, and they don't know how they will solve it, but they say "God will make it all work out." Like maybe you were planning to travel for a few days without your kids, and you had a babysitter lined up to watch the kids during that time, but then the babysitter had to cancel, and now you're all stressed trying to figure out what to do. In this situation, it's common to hear the advice "don't worry, just pray about it, trust God, God will work something out." So we are predicting God's behavior- that God is going to cause a solution to materialize.

And sure, usually you do come up with some way to solve the problem. I don't think this is because of God; I think it's just because generally people are able to come up with ways to solve their problems.

But my point is, Christians would view it as a positive thing to "trust God" in this case- to predict that God will make sure you find a solution to your problem. This expectation wouldn't be seen as sinful, or arrogantly trying to manipulate God, or anything like that. Well, but there's an exception: If you were so sure "God is going to work something out" that you believed you didn't have to do any work at all. Just sit there and do nothing and expect God to come solve your problems- no, that is the wrong attitude to have, that's sinful, and so God's not going to help you. *You* are supposed to do what you can to try to solve it, and God works with you on that.

Here's another example: Back when I had a "personal relationship with God," I would always feel really ... like ... emotionally intense when we sang worship songs at church. I felt like God was in my heart, like I could feel God, and I was really into that feeling. But then I went through a period of time when I didn't feel that. Participating in worship songs and not really getting any amazing feelings out of it. And I wanted to know, what's going wrong here? I expected God to give me those feelings, I relied on him for that, I assumed that he would, and then when it didn't happen, I felt like it was clearly a problem and I wanted to know how to fix it. Was the problem on my end or God's end? And I don't think that desire- to feel emotionally intense during worship songs- would be seen as sinful, or seen as arrogantly expecting God to perform tricks for me. I think it was very common for Christians to want and expect that.

But I can also see how one can overanalyze it and find ways to interpret it as something sinful. Like oh, it's not good enough that the bible says God is always with us, I need to also "feel" him, wow that's really arrogant. How dare I expect God to do this for me, as if he owes me something. Do I actually love God, or do I just love this feeling?

I can see how one could convince oneself that the problem is one's attitude, expecting God to do something, and God just will not tolerate that, and that's why God's not giving you those feelings you want.

As evangelicals say, "every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God"- so you find these very minor aspects of your thoughts and feelings, and blow them way out of proportion.

But what would it even mean, to know God, to trust God, if it doesn't mean we can expect certain behaviors out of Them? If we can't rely on Them to do specific things?

And I guess the answer is that a relationship with God is a completely different thing than a relationship between people. Okay, so, then I don't want it.

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Christians do sometimes get an idea in their head about a really specific thing they think God is going to do- like "I know that God will not let [some bad thing] happen, so I am going to structure my behavior around the assumption that [some other thing] is going to happen." And then sometimes the bad thing happens anyway. I've heard examples of this... really tragic things, like someone dying, when you've convinced yourself that it's not consistent with God's character to let them die, and so surely God won't let it happen. It's devastating not just because of the thing itself, but also because your God failed you.

And then the Christian either has a crisis of faith, or they convince themselves it was wrong for them to pin their hopes on a specific thing- they should have just "trusted God" in a vibes-based way, which doesn't really mean anything in concrete terms but I guess it's supposed to make them feel better.

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Well, let's back up... when I was evangelical and I talked about "trusting God," what did I mean by that? I meant that no matter what happens, God is going to make it okay. It's all according to God's plan. Literally any bad thing could happen, and I could reassure myself that somehow it was actually okay because it's "God's plan." So "trusting God" didn't mean feeling confident that some specific outcome would happen; it meant that there exists some "big picture" perspective where everything works out okay, and if that doesn't seem to be the case from *my* perspective, then that's because I'm focusing on the wrong things, and if I could just learn to view things from God's perspective, then I would see that actually everything is fine.

That all sounds very nice and logical when it's abstract... but then I had health problems, and felt sick all the time, and I had to leave grad school and go back to my parents' house and lay on the couch all the time. (This was around 2012 ish.) I never thought that could happen to me. I had plans for my life and everything. What did it even mean, to "trust God," if this "I can't do any work and I just have to lay on the couch all the time" is within the range of things that God can allow to happen?

The abstract idea that "literally anything could happen, and we can reassure ourselves that it's okay because God is in control"... and then something happened to me which falls under the category of "literally anything" and I found out that I *wasn't* okay with "literally anything" happening to me. I would like a better reassurance than that. If I can't even trust God to not let health problems derail my life for no reason, then the whole concept of "trusting God" is meaningless.

(That derailed my life for about a year or so but don't worry, I got better.)

This belief that "we can trust God, abstractly, but we can't trust Them to do any specific thing"... that doesn't seem to fit with the idea of having a "personal relationship with God", of "knowing" God. Are there any other situations where you know and love someone very deeply but you can never make any reliable predictions about what they will do?

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The thread that's running through this and tying this together is God's apparent policy against ever giving anyone ironclad evidence of Their existence.

Wait, God has a policy of never giving ironclad evidence of Their existence? Since when? Good question! In the bible, God doesn't seem to have any such policy. God/Jesus/prophets perform miracles openly, with no one ever saying "hey shouldn't we be, like, less obvious about these miracles? We don't want to get rid of the role of faith."

(Perhaps one example is when Thomas has not yet seen Jesus after the Resurrection, and so refuses to believe that Jesus really did come back from the dead, and then Jesus *does* appear and allow Thomas to see him, and then Thomas believes. Jesus then says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Is Jesus saying that belief due to an obvious miracle is less than ideal, and there's something *better* about having faith when you can't be totally certain? I don't really agree with that though.)

But modern Christians, as they argue with atheists, have made up this concept where faith is very important, and God doesn't want to make it so obvious They exist, because then there wouldn't be any room left for faith. God gives us enough evidence that you can kinda read between the lines if you're really motivated to do so, and figure out God exists. But if you don't want to believe in God, well God will let you go ahead and do that.

I don't buy this. It feels like something that we just made up because the atheists have raised a very good point about how God could have made it a lot more obvious that They exist.

So anyway, now we have this situation where supposedly we "trust" God, supposedly we "have a personal relationship" with God, but we can't ever count on God doing any specific thing. Because if you expect God to do any specific thing, well, no, you shouldn't want that, you should have faith that God exists anyway- you aren't supposed to, like, expect satisfactory evidence. That's sinful, and God won't play along.

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Or maybe it's like, there has to be a sense in which God is unpredictable, uncontrollable- dangerous, even- or else They wouldn't be God. As evangelicals say, "Aslan is not a tame lion."

They're so much bigger and more powerful than we can understand. They're unknowable. We can never understand Them well enough to make any concrete predictions of things that They will do. If we could, that would diminish Them; that would shrink Them down to fit within the limits of what we can reason about and predict. They wouldn't be God.

Yeah, I feel like, that makes sense. I believe that. And therefore I don't want to have a "personal relationship" with Them. I don't feel safe, and I can't trust Them.

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I don't have a personal relationship with God now- I don't want to- and it's because of questions like this.

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Related:

The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God" 

God and the Overton Window

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Here’s what’s in the opioid settlement against OxyContin maker Purdue and the Sackler family (November 19) "Most of the money will go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis, which has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999."

2. textual activism and the ancestral toolbox (October 20) This post is about the bible passage which says parents can claim their son is "rebellious" and have him stoned to death. Apparently there's an ancient Jewish tradition of rules-lawyering and malicious compliance in reading this passage, interpreting it so literally and narrowly that you would actually never end up having a real-life situation where all these requirements would be met. This is how the ancient rabbis turned something horrific into something more just.

I have a few thoughts about this... First of all, for the people who are doing this very narrow interpretation, it's obvious to them that this isn't what the passage was intended to mean, right? There are other bible passages where I've seen people claim "this is actually really progressive for that time period because what God really meant was [whatever]" (and I'm generally not on board with this) but surely in this case they don't *actually* think that what God meant was "you should execute a rebellious son, when all these complicated criteria are met, so actually, in practical terms, never." This reading of this bible passage feels like it's in conflict with the passage, rather than being a good-faith attempt to get at what the actual meaning was.

But if you're going to so strongly disagree with and fight against the actual intended meaning of the passage, why even pretend you're respecting and obeying it? Why not say "this bible passage is just wrong. Let's NOT obey this." I'm wondering what sort of circumstance this kind of interpretation could be useful in. It seems like it could only really work if you *know* the bible passage in question is teaching something abhorrent, and you strongly disagree with it, but there are societal pressures that force you to pretend that you are respecting and obeying it.

I think this also has to do with the differences between Judaism and evangelical Christianity in how we view the bible. From what I've seen, Judaism has a tradition of disagreeing with some parts of the bible, while at the same time taking it very seriously. Evangelical Christians, on the other hand, believe we can't ever disagree with something that God said or did in the bible.

3. Journal Club: Adults’ Perceptions of Sex Ed (November 21) "We noted many potential issues with the survey, including recollection errors (the mean age being 45), and leading questions (there weren’t any response options that allowed people to be negative about sex ed). The questions are asking about a counterfactual that people have no direct experience with."

4. Down the Toilet: Shanghai Bids Farewell to Chamber Pots (November 21) "The dense, labyrinthine layout of Shanghai’s shikumen or “stone-framed doorway” neighborhoods, as well as concern for preserving cultural sites, often meant that officials had to devise highly individualized solutions for each household."

I live in Shanghai but I had no idea there were homes here without actual flush toilets.

5. This post about how to turn off AI features in Gmail. (November 21)

6. The Trans Vibe of Lilo & Stitch (November 20, 33-minute video) "It might not be on the planet 'trans' or 'gay', but it's certainly orbiting the same solar system as those two."

7. Other people might just not have your problems (November 22) "I find this thought comforting. It’s not that I have failed to learn some trivially easy skill that everyone else managed to learn in kindergarten, and it’s not that everyone else has some cool lifehack that they’re hiding from me out of spite."

8. The female crash test dummy has been a long time coming — but she isn't here yet (November 21) "In the early 2000s, regulators added a small "female" dummy to tests — but it was just a scaled-down version of the male dummy, with breasts attached. That doesn't reflect the real anatomical differences between male and female bodies."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Slavery Was Defined by Sexual Violence (September 1) [content note: rape]

2. Trump Honors the Man Who Had Jamal Khashoggi Killed (November 19)

3. Lawrence: Humiliated Trump's dictatorship over Republicans is coming apart with the Epstein vote (November 19) 8-minute video

4. Some Democratic Congresspeople made a video to tell the military they should refuse illegal orders:

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.

The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.

Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r

— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025

Yes, just stating the unremarkable fact that the military is supposed to serve the Constitution and follow the law. Oh but it turns out I was wrong about this being an "unremarkable fact" because the MAGAs are treating it like it's extremely controversial and inflammatory.

Apparently that felon is out here posting on social media that these Congress members are guilty of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

Outrage after Trump accuses Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’ (November 20)

5. These families' health care costs will balloon if Congress doesn't act on the ACA (November 20) "Bixon says he knew he'd have to pay for health care out of pocket after retiring from his career as a small business owner. 'But,' he says, 'in my wildest dreams, I never thought a number close to $70,000 a year would be the cost that I'd be facing.'"

6. Baby, teenagers allegedly caught in San Antonio immigration raid (November 21)

7. A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness (October 29, via) "But don’t tell me that excusing that tattoo is good politics. It is the exact same politics that the right is selling, in a different outfit."

8. To Those Familiar with Purity Culture, Megyn Kelly’s Comments About Epstein and 15-Year-Old Girls isn’t Such a Surprise (November 18, via)

9. After unprecedented autism-vaccine messaging change, scientists, advocates say CDC no longer trustworthy (November 21, via) "Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into 'a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,' said Paul Offit, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. 'The CDC is being weaponized to promote RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine point of view. So why should you trust it?'"

Reviews of Kids' Books

Children's library. Image source.

I have kids, and every time I look at them, I want to buy them more books. Anyway, I've been writing a lot of book reviews here on the blog, so I want to link them all so they're easy to find.

Here's the post about kids' books related to Christianity: Reviews of Christian Children's Books

And here's everything else:

US history:

The Case for Loving by Selina Alko
America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney

Science:

The Book of Bok (also titled "Bok's Giant Leap") by Neil Armstrong and Grahame Baker Smith
Priddy Explorers: Dinosaurs by Roger Priddy
Good Night Sharks by Adam Gamble and Mark Jasper

Feelings:

I Want a Popsicle by Anna Huang

Lift-the-flap books:

Bizzy Bear by Benji Davies

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Graham Platner is an Embarrassing Liar (November 13) "They don’t care. They don’t think they’ll ever face consequences–not for the imperialism, the violence, the racism, the misogyny, and no, not even the Nazi tattoo because they know there will always be another white man in those Reddit comments explaining that it’s not a big deal and we just don’t understand what it’s like to be in the military."

2. The developing world needs more roads (November 11) "This problem shows up most clearly in the differences in land allocated to road networks: 27 percent of Manhattan is dedicated to roads, as is 24 percent of London. These cities are typical for their income group. ... For the average city in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, only 16 percent is reserved for streets. Just 12 percent of Dhaka, 10 percent of Kolkata, 14 percent of Dakar, 13 percent of Addis Ababa, 12 percent of Nairobi, and 14 percent of Accra are dedicated to roads. Instead, lax building rules have allowed homes and workplaces to take over public spaces."

Also from Works in Progress: How market design can feed the poor (September 22) This is an article about a system that was set up to efficiently distribute food to food banks. Instead of just assigning them whatever, like the old system did, the food banks have a currency called "shares" and they can make their own choices and bid their shares on the available food, according to their own needs. 

3. Philosophical issues with transness are a symptom of dysphoria (November 15) "But in my experience, if your hormones are on point and you’re generally seen the way you want to be seen, then it’s not a big deal if you’re in some abstract philosophical sense your assigned sex at birth. You might prefer to be in some abstract philosophical sense the gender you identify as, but it doesn’t cause you persistent unhappiness."

4. The U.S. just produced its last penny after a more than 200-year run (November 12)

5. A 'breakthrough' drug to prevent HIV, an 'unprecedented' rollout (November 18) "Just two injections a year provide near-complete protection against an HIV infection."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Epstein survivors release MUST-WATCH new PSA as Congress prepares to vote on releasing the files (November 17)

2. Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of 'Charlotte's Web' — warned us about (November 17) "But, to use a book authored by E.B. White as your name is an offense to history. White was a leading voice for American democracy and freedom and against fascism and tyranny. Abusing his life’s work like this cannot stand without a response."

3. State Department Reverses Course, Says Trans Passports Will Be Valid Until They Expire (November 18) There has been a lot of back-and-forth about passports for trans people. The latest update is that, even though the Supreme Court says the government is allowed to stop trans people from getting passports with their correct gender marker, the good news is that passports which already have been issued will still be valid.

This whole thing is extremely stressful for trans people in the US (and it's still going on). Cis people should all be thinking about what we can do to support them.

4. Food stamps are back, but millions will soon lose benefits permanently (November 15) "The loss of SNAP 'was really stark during the shutdown,' said Dottie Rosenbaum, director of federal SNAP policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 'But [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act] is the largest cut in the program’s history. That is also going to be really deeply felt.'"

5. What Counts as Political Violence? (September 26, via) "Ezra Klein did not write a high profile essay about how Villegas Gonzalez was doing democracy the right way by working hard and taking care of his kids."

Also from Noah Berlatsky: First-of-its-kind LGBTQIA+ hotline in Illinois offers support amid sweeping attacks (November 3) "One caller to Illinois Pride Connect, according to the caller description, was “a parent of a trans adolescent seeking information on the risks and benefits of applying for a passport to reflect her child’s gender identity.” The family had updated birth certificates and state ID but had not changed their passport or Social Security record, and was worried about trying to get through customs with inconsistent gender information."

And: Republicans Want Poor People to Suffer (November 4) "This is the Newsmax logic; if anyone anywhere is misusing federal funds, that offsets the benefits of 3 million children a month being lifted out of poverty. Stopping one evil welfare queen is worth starving any number of children."

6. U.S. deports dozens of migrants to Ukraine amid war (November 18)