Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. 'Big Bang' Fix Puts Voyager Across the 'One Light-Day' Mark (November 6, via) It's amazing that the 2 Voyager spacecraft are still out there, plugging along, in the cold depths of space.

2. Russell Brand sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for rape and sexual assault (November 9) 

3. “Biological Men” Is a Slur (November 10) 10-15 years ago, when I first started reading about what it means to be transgender, this is what I read: "Sex" and "gender" are 2 distinct concepts. "Sex" is your biological sex, that you were assigned at birth, and it's "male" or "female." "Gender" is your gender identity, your own understanding about your identity, and it's words like "man", "woman", "nonbinary", etc. So a trans woman is male and a woman.

IMPORTANT: This is no longer the right terminology that allies of trans people should use! (And even back then, as much as the "trans 101" resources said that "male"/"female" are the words that refer to "sex", and "man"/"woman" are the words that refer to "gender", in practice people just used "male"/"female" when they wanted an adjective and "man"/"woman" when they wanted a noun.) Allies of trans people should *not* refer to trans women as "male." (The right terminology for that is "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth" but obviously you should only use those if you're talking about something where it's relevant what gender they were assigned at birth. Not like, bringing it up just to fearmonger about trans people.)

4. Sheol’s Origins as a Hurrian Goddess of the Netherworld (October 29) "But over time, a number of different religious trends converged to “de-divinize Sheol” and reinvent Yahweh as a universal deity with power over the afterlife."

5. Thousands without shelter face lethal conditions in storm-hit Gaza as they wait for 150,000 tents (November 11) "'All our clothes were soaked. My kids are all sick and I can’t afford to buy them more clothes,' said Raed Jamal, a displaced Palestinian. 'Watching them suffering in the cold is heartbreaking.'"

---

Links related to the antichrist, also election news:

1. Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms makes history as the first Black woman ever elected governor (November 4) Wow, I had no idea that we hadn't had any Black women governors.

And in that vein: Abdul El-Sayed becomes first Muslim elected to US Senate (November 4)

2. The Dam Broke, the River Roared: More on That Magnificent Election (November 8, via) "Because even as Trump got elected twice over the past decade, the majority of Americans still believed in climate action, reproductive rights, the rule of law, and had to be manipulated and deceived into turning on immigrants, trans youth, and other vulnerable populations to the extent they did."

3. Post-Midterm Cold Open - SNL (November 8, via) James Talarico on SNL!!!

And also this SNL skit from several months ago, which is worth watching after the election:  Mom Confession - SNL (via)

4. Incoming Texas AG Will End “Abortion Trafficking” Ordinances (November 10) "These local laws make it illegal to help someone get an abortion—including by using a county’s roads to drive a woman across state lines for care."

5. A Haitian 8-year-old was taken by ICE at routine check-in, rattling a San Diego school district (November 10) "The boy, who has not been identified by name publicly, is a third grader at Fay Elementary School. He was stripped of his immigration protections this summer after a Supreme Court decision allowed President Donald Trump to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, according to a letter school district officials sent Friday to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement."

6. US citizen shot by ICE officer near children’s bus stop sues government for $25m (November 9) "Afterward, FBI agents followed Jimenez to a hospital and “interfered with his medical care”, including by pulling a nurse away and preventing him from talking to medical staff, the suit alleges. FBI agents removed Jimenez from his hospital bed, locked him in a waist restraint and drove him back to the scene of the shooting for an “interrogation” while a bullet remained lodged in him, the complaint continues."

7. Thomas Massie files articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (November 9) Don't get excited, apparently the House Republicans have already blocked it. But yes he should be impeached.

8. The Free Press Deletes Video In Which Reporter Is Scared Of The Word “Habibi” (November 9) "In the video itself, Sulkin blankly stares while footage of El-Sayed's speech rolls in a little box below her, before she says, “OK, so that is the first Muslim senator in American history, giving his victory speech in Detroit in Arabic." But he merely stated his full name, along with a couple of common Arabic words, in a speech largely delivered in English. To build her case, Sulkin also noted that El-Sayed jokingly called Vice President J.D. Vance "habibi." Concerning."

9. “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed ... and we will deserve it” (November 4)

10. Kennedys sue to block Trump’s gilded arch, saying it would ‘cast shadow’ over JFK grave site (November 10)

11. Texas voters oust Candy Noble, architect of the Ten Commandments in Classrooms law (November 10) A lot of this is a transcript of a Texas House session from a few years ago, and I think I've probably read it before, but wowwww Talarico is good. He's really getting at the fact that the Christians who want these "schools are required to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom" laws are doing it because it's part of their identity, to see themselves as people who believe in and value the bible and are therefore superior to everyone else, and it has nothing to do with actually putting effort into *following* the Ten Commandments *themselves*- in fact, they are confused by the idea.

Like here:

TALARICO: Would you be open to an amendment to the bill saying that if a member of the legislature violates these commandments, that we can no longer mandate public school teachers put it in classrooms?

Dayyammm.

And

TALARICO: The Ninth Commandment is “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Are you aware of any legislators who have lied about anything?.

NOBLE: [Long pause]… You know, there might be one coming up in a minute if you keep talking, we’ll see.

TALARICO: The Seventh Commandment is “Thou shalt not commit adultery”?

NOBLE: Yes.

TALARICO: Do you think that members of the legislature should focus more on trying to follow the Ten Commandments rather than telling others to follow them?

11. First Lawsuit Filed Against Washington Anti-Trans Ballot Measure, Days After The Election (November 11) "Likewise, the law clearly discriminates against transgender and cisgender girls more broadly when compared to boys: “No student who seeks to play boys’ sports must verify their sex,” reads the complaint."

12. A Special Post-Election Edition (November 5) Jay Kuo has a social media roundup of news and reactions to the election.

"Contributing to the Problem"

Book cover for "Boundaries in Marriage"

I read Boundaries in Marriage, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend (published in 1999), and I'm not going to write a whole review of it, but there was one part that I want to comment on. (Little-known fact: I don't write a blog post about every book I read! Sometimes I have opinions and just don't tell anyone.)

One of the things this book mentions is that if you think your spouse is not acting right, and you want them to change, you also need to look at the ways you are "contributing to the problem." Here's an anecdote they give on page 223 to explain this:

Pam and Al illustrate this point. Al, on the one hand, bossed Pam around and disregarded her point of view in decision making. She, on the other hand, would become quiet and withdraw love from him. For example, Al didn't like a dress Pam was going to wear to a party. He said abruptly, "I don't like that on you. Put another one on." Pam complied. However, she didn't say more than ten words to Al at the party or for the rest of the night.

Cloud and Townsend then discuss how both Pam and Al need to change their behavior. Al should stop bossing Pam around, and Pam should stand up for herself more. Even if your spouse doesn't change, you should still do your part to change.

I wanted to discuss this because I think the concept of "contributing to the problem" can be interpreted 2 different ways, and the way Cloud and Townsend mean it is likely not the way a lot of their readers will interpret it.

Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Artwork showing Jesus being detained by ICE. Image source.

Here's a quote from page 8 of "Beyond Welcome." This chapter is about "assimilation", about the idea that immigrants' cultural backgrounds shouldn't matter, America is a big melting pot, etc. The author says now she doesn't believe in that at all, and it is important to seek out perspectives from a diverse range of people, because people's experiences really are different.

Strangely, this idea had never even presented itself as a possibility in the church. We talked so much about our identity in Christ, and yet all our leaders, authors, and theologians were white men. Never was I even given a framework for considering my own experience as different and in need of processing. In all our conversations about racial reconciliation, not once did I hear a Christian leader suggest that I would experience God differently through my gender, culture, and language-- that God would meet me as an immigrant woman of color. In fact, looking back I see that though these leaders meant well, our conversations never amounted to much except to make white Christians feel better without having to give up power or be uncomfortable.

---

Posts about "Beyond Welcome":

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)
Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Related:

Judges 19

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Texas Christians and ‘biblical literacy’ (November 2) "They have eyes to see and ears to hear, but not to see and hear this. They have a baseline of biblical literacy that teaches them to tithe their dill and cumin, but neglects the weightier matter of justice."

2. ‘Star Trek’ Actor Wil Wheaton Tells Stephen Miller to Keep Patrick Stewart’s Name Out of His ‘Nazi Mouth’ (October 31) "'Stephen Miller, on behalf of Star Trek, and everyone who knew and loved him, keep my Captain's name out of your f–king Nazi mouth,' he wrote. 'He despised you, and everything you stand for.'"

3. “Believing Victims” - A Primer (January 22) "There is a huge gulf between the spaces where the advice of “believing victims” sprang up and the kinds of places where it is invoked now. I first started to hear this language in college when I was doing bystander intervention training to prevent sexual assault, or to assist someone who has been the victim of a sexual assault. If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, investigating whether or not they were is not your job (unless you are a law enforcement agent). Your job is to provide them with care to make sure they get the help that they need quickly, and resources to make a decision about what they will do next. Of course in this situation you should operate from a posture of belief. You should not refuse to take your friend to the hospital because you are not convinced they were raped (do you really need me to say that?). Take them to the hospital. The truth of what happened is not the immediate concern."

4. Journal Club: Christian Women make sense of sexual pain (October 25) "If people like intercourse more than other kinds of sex, that’s one thing. But these are specifically women who have experienced pain during intercourse, so maybe they should reconsider whether it should be the primary kind?"

5. Take the elevator up (2023) My younger kid has been watching a lot of Ms. Rachel. This song perfectly captures what it's like to live in a big city.

6. Newsom moves to clear out California’s 548-person death row in largest such clemency act (November 6) "Notably, and unlike former President Joe Biden’s clemency grant to most people on federal death row at the end of his time in office, Newsom made no exceptions to his clemency on Thursday."

7. Salon, internet’s oldest general interest publication, shuts down after 31 years (November 5)

8. ‘Every day, someone loses a hand or a leg’: the brutal reality of India’s textile recycling industry (November 6) "During numerous visits to spinning units and factories, the Guardian did not see anyone wearing any kind of safety gear. None of the workers interviewed reported having safety training."

---

Links related to the antichrist, also election news:

1. Mike Rogers' Religious Bigotry Threatens All of Michigan’s Jews (October 26, via) "It’s the same sort of fact-free fearmongering that has led to the greatest tragedies of the last century. It lurks in the dark heart of every blanket accusation against George Soros. It courses through the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that now animates the Trump State Department and echoes the propaganda of Nazi Germany."

2. US midterms voters said: enough is enough. Is this the beginning of the end for Trump? (November 4)

Impeach him! Seriously, no messing around- I want the Democrats to take action and charge people with crimes if they committed crimes for him. Who's covering up the Epstein files? Who is giving training to ICE officers that they don't need to respect people's rights? What did DOGE do with Americans' personal data? What about members of the government ignoring court orders? No one is above the law. Charge all these people with crimes if there is evidence.

3. Democrat James Talarico turns Texas Senate seat blue, defeating Ken Paxton (November 4) !!!!! Texas!

4. This post from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 4) "In 1860, an enslaved man named Sheppard Peek was listed among the possessions of William Peek, a white man in Crawfordville."

5. Iowa Democrat who quit race wins seat anyway (November 4) Good job!

6. Minnesota Provider Essentia Health Violated Equal Rights Laws By Dropping Trans Youth Care, Lawsuit Alleges (October 30) "'Nobody should receive a major health care access update ‘through the grapevine,’' a statement from Gender Justice said. 'Essentia’s failure to communicate with families wasn’t just cruel. It put patients at increased risk by creating confusion and giving families a limited timeline within which to find alternative providers.'"

Also from Erin in the Morning: A Stunning Rebuke Of Anti-Trans Politics: Republicans Spent $200 Million Attacking Trans People And Lost Everything (November 4) "It was also a big night for transgender candidates. Washington state will have the first out Black transgender woman elected to a state legislature in Jaelynn Scott, and Michigan will have a trans woman legislator as well in Joanna Whaley. But perhaps the most stunning result when it comes to transgender people winning their elections was Allison Montgomery, who won in a relatively conservative suburban Huntsville, Alabama, district."

And: Don’t Mess With Blexas: Anti-Trans Ads Fail To Stop Texas’ Blue Tsunami (November 6) "'I have people [telling] me they can visit family again, that they would consider moving back,' wrote Gwen Howerton, a Texas culture reporter, on Bluesky. 'It’s early but I cannot really overstate how much the bleeding on LGBTQ+ rights in Texas has stopped essentially overnight.'"

Evangelicals have always been suspicious of empathy

Image text: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9 KJV" Image source.

I read this post from Wonkette and I have some thoughts: Evangelicals Pretty Sure That Jesus Wants You To Be A Sociopath! Apparently, this is a thing that right-wing people are saying in public now- that empathy is bad and dangerous.

Basically what I want to say is, this idea that "empathy is bad" isn't new. Back when the big issue was marriage equality, in 2010ish, I was also concerned that there was something wrong with my feelings of empathy.

Back then, the evangelical position- which I believed- went like this: So, obviously, God says marriage has to be 1 man and 1 woman. God says nobody is allowed to have sex outside of this '1 man + 1 woman' construct of marriage. For people who "struggle with same-sex attraction", they should dedicate themselves to God- maybe God will change them to be straight. They need to either be single and celibate forever, or marry an opposite-sex partner. If they accept their gay identity, and get into a same-sex relationship, that would be really unhealthy for them. You see, God created sex and marriage, God knows the correct rules for sex and marriage, and if we don't follow these rules, it might feel good at the time, but it's really bad for us in the long term.

(See these posts for my current opinions on why it's not just "obvious" that this is the "correct" structure of marriage, straight from God: The Bible and "Purity" and The Bible and Polygamy)

Believing in this ideology is doable if you don't know any gay people, and you just believe the evangelical propaganda about how gay people are all creepy and obsessed with sex, and probably want to abuse children, and they all hate God and want to destroy marriage, etc.

But, outside of the evangelical bubble, you may happen across the fact that gay people are just, like, trying to live their lives. They want very normal things, like to have rights, to be with the person they love, to accept themselves, etc. And so you might start to feel empathy- you might start to feel sad about the way *your* religious group is hurting them and fighting against their rights. *Your* beliefs are actively hurting people.

You may start to think, maybe these beliefs are wrong, and we should just listen to people and believe them when they talk about their needs.

But the answer to this, in evangelical ideology, is: watch out! Don't be deceived by empathy! Jeremiah 17:9 says "The heart is deceitful above all things"! We already *know* the truth, which is that the only correct kind of romantic/sexual relationship is 1 man + 1 woman, and if we stray from this model, there will be all kinds of terrible consequences (heartbreak, STDs, going to hell due to sin, etc). Don't abandon God's truth just because you, like, feel bad for people. If you condone their sin, you're not actually helping them in the long run! What they truly need is to commit themselves to following God.

So, in 2010ish, the situation for evangelicals who truly wanted to care about gay people was like this: our conscience and empathy struggled against our faith. "Faith" meant holding on to the "truth" that God told us: acceptance of same-sex relationships is wrong, it's just wrong, it just is. Even when everything around you, the reality you can see with your own eyes, is telling you differently, you have to have faith, keep believing in God's truth. Even when you can see how much damage these beliefs are doing to gay people, and you can see how much better it is when they accept themselves- have faith, have faith! Don't be led astray by your heart! Don't be like the serpent who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, saying, "Did God really say...?" It's off-limits to even wonder if those rules might perhaps not really be from God.

Long story short, I lost my faith. 

So my point is, this has always been a *thing* in evangelical ideology. Trying to enforce our rules on other people's lives, seeing how damaging it is, wanting to care about that, and then insisting that we can't let our feelings take us off course- we already know the right answer from God! We already know these rules are the right rules for everyone!

---

Related

ICE and Hell

Maybe I had more faith when I was complementarian, and that's a bad thing

Gag Reflex (a response to TGC)

"Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" (What is this book actually about?)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Walter Koenig obituary (October 28) "A year later, he was cast in the programme as Ensign Pavel Chekov, the baby-faced navigator of Russian parentage on the bridge of the starship USS Enterprise."

Sulu and Chekov, from the original "Star Trek" tv series. Image source.

2. Remembering Patrick Stewart, the Ham (October 30) "The history of Star Trek is just full of ham actors, and is so much the better for it."

3. The schedule of every evangelical marriage retreat, ever (October 29) "WITH YOUR REGISTRATION: Wives get a syllabus and discount code for 25 books on being more Christ-like. Husbands get a free porn-blocking app."

4. For voters from immigrant families and new citizens, voting is bigger than themselves (October 30) "'Being a first time voter here in the United States is something that's profoundly personal and emotional for me because I understand the power of what a vote can do in service of the greater good, in service of the community, in service of the of the future that you want to see for your community, your state and your country.'"

5. Like dinosaur eggs in the sand: the pterosaur museum built to thrive in the Gobi desert (October 16, via) "Despite the intimidating conditions, building the museum in the area is important from a scientific perspective because this is where the fossils were buried and found, Xiaolin says. Keeping the fossils local protects the fragile relics and lets visitors see them in their geological context, he adds." This is really cool!

6. Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 1 (October 2) "I think the uncomfortable possibility remains that Flynn and Botner really did read their Bibles and pray together and came to the conclusion that they were supposed to be together. And I think Flynn really did fast and come to believe God was prompting him to kill his wife. I don’t think he was insane. I don’t think he was hallucinating. I think this just fit with his belief system. But how?"

Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 2 (October 2) "They will tell you that God forgave David, that David was sorry, and God continued to use David and restored him to his former glory. God’s grace is so powerful, they will tell you, that God could overcome David’s sin and still use him for his purposes. That’s not the story. That’s not what happened."

Caleb Flynn and the King David Problem, Part 3 (October 4) "This is where things get a little darker. The ubiquity of “but King David” language, and the ease in which it is deployed in the face of even staggeringly dark acts, is beyond the claim “God can forgive anyone” or “There is hope for anyone.” It’s a preemptive narrative explaining why some men (and it is always a man) have a right to do anything and be rewarded for it."

And part 4 and part 5

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Judge tosses Trump's attempt to block Alaska Senate results if GOP incumbent loses (November 1) "'The absence of any explanation from the United States as to how its requested relief could redress its alleged injury while simultaneously maintaining the secrecy of the ballot is telling,' wrote Gleason, a nominee of former President Barack Obama."

Judges 19

Artwork showing the woman laying on the doorstep, and her husband finds her. Image attribution: "By Gustave Doré - National Library of Poland, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=182444497"

[content note: rape]

I have some thoughts about this post, Fearless Ones and Fallen Sparrows: A Meditation on Judges 19 by Helen Paynter. I came across it via this post by Sheila Wray Gregoire, PODCAST: Why Is the Old Testament So Cavalier About the Abuse of Women? feat. Helen Paynter.

Let me first give a summary of the bible story in question, Judges 19. Trigger warning: It's about a brutally violent gang rape, and the victim dies from her injuries. It's about a man (referred to as "a Levite" in this story) who was traveling with his concubine, and one night, the place where they were staying was surrounded by a group of men, telling the owner of the house to send the man out so they could rape him. But instead, he told them they could rape his concubine, and sent her out to them. They raped her the whole night, and she died. Then the man cut her body into 12 pieces and sent them out to various places in Israel, to publicize what had happened. This continues on into chapters 20 and 21 with a violent battle, and then men being very proud of themselves for their clever plan to capture a bunch of women and force them into marriage.

So the whole story is terrible.

Before I clicked on the link to Helen Paynter's post, I was thinking about what it might say. From the perspective of Christians who believe in the bible, well, what do you do with this story?

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. AOC Rebukes Anti-Trans Democrats, Calling Them “Shameful” And “Wrong” For “Scaring So Easily” (October 23) "She then went on to fully defend transgender people, calling the attacks on trans people an attempt to demolish Title IX: 'So this administration, in focusing and trying to gin up hatred against trans Americans, the Trump administration, while everyone was focused on that, quietly defunded the civil rights division of enforcement in the administration on Title IX. And so understand that when they attack trans girls in sports, they’re also attacking all women’s ability to stand up against their abusers, their rapists, and their assaulters on campuses across America. And that’s why I think it’s very important for all of us to understand and to feel and to know that our fight is united. It really is united.'"

Also from Erin in the Morning: Iowa Dem Josh Turek Releases Anti-trans Ad Calling For A Federal Funding Ban On Trans Care (October 26) "But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive."

And: Don’t Vote For The Worst Anti-Trans Democrats (October 26) "What I am asking is that transgender people, and the people who care about us, find the line they would draw on any other fundamental human rights issue, and draw it here: do not give the worst anti-transgender Democrats your vote. Leave that line blank, vote for every other candidate, and make sure the story of 2026 is not that the Democratic Party has to accept anti-transgender policy in order to win."

2. The Jewish and Pagan Mythological Origins of Revelation 13: The Beasts from the Sea and the Earth and the Fear of Nero’s Return (April 24) "These coins featured the portrait of Nero, sometimes with additional elements depicting the emperor as divine. Before long, it would have been difficult or impossible for Jews and Jewish Christians in Palestine to engage in commerce without handling these new coins."

Interesting article about how "the mark of the beast" could have been "idolatrous" images on Roman coins.

3. Reel to Real: The ‘Voy Boys’ and the Movie That Never Was (October 27) "Blind football [soccer] uses a modified ball with bells inside, allowing players to locate it by sound, and is played on an enclosed 40-by-20-meter pitch. Each team fields four visually impaired outfield players, all in blackout eye masks, and one sighted or partially sighted goalkeeper. Teams can also use a sighted off-field guide to call and direct players toward the goal."

4. Asexual Portals and Dank Feelings: Review of Debbie Urbanski’s Portalmania (June 3, via) "While reading the collection, I was hit very hard by this ace character and the unbearably punishing tension she experiences as a result of the presence of permissible ongoing sexual assault by her husband, bolstered by a rape culture of friends, therapists, and family who continually excuse it by pathologizing instead asexuality."

5. Patrick Stewart, a perceptive patriarch in 'Star Trek' and 'X-Men,' dies at 86 (October 29) As a Star Trek fan, I love him.

Captain Picard, the character that Patrick Stewart played on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Image source.

6. Pope Leo will vote from the Vatican, by mail, in Illinois midterm election (October 30) Love to see Americans voting from abroad!

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Vivek Ramaswamy discovers that voters have their limits (October 26) "Now, with the torrent of media coverage that has resulted, anyone who sees the ad won’t say, “Jeez, if her own mother says she’s a liar, I’d better not vote for her.” Instead, they’re more likely to say, “Oh, there’s that ad with Amy Acton’s mother, the one who let her daughter get raped by her dirtbag husband. What the hell is wrong with Vivek Ramaswamy thinking this is going to make me want to vote for him?” And even those who will never see the ad know all about it."

2. The Stakes of What’s Happening at Christianity Today (October 24, via) "A journalistic enterprise that caves under a complaint from one pastor is doomed."

(Sometimes it's hard to sort which links are "related to the antichrist" and which aren't. This one, I decided, *is* related, because it's a direct result of the way evangelicalism has sold its soul to him.)

3. Former Miss Switzerland Beatrice Keul Alleges Donald Trump Raped Her at the Plaza Hotel in 1993 (October 26)

And the full report, published by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, with accounts from 5 women who "have directly accused Trump of raping or sexually assaulting them in Epstein’s company or direct physical presence": We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ's Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)

I read the book Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration, by Karen González (published 2022).

I really enjoyed this book. It's about how we have to move beyond a viewpoint where "we" are helping "them," as if immigrants are helpless and can't do anything and don't have anything to teach us. Instead, we need to learn from them, value their perspective, read bible passages through the lens of immigration rather than centering a white American point of view, have immigrants in leadership in our churches and our outreach organizations, etc.

---

About the author

González was born in Guatemala and immigrated to the US as a child. There are many places in the book where she talks about her own experiences, her identity as a Latina woman and as an immigrant in the US, her feelings about what it means to be an immigrant, and how those feelings have changed throughout her life. (For example, her ideas about what it means to be a "good" immigrant, and her ideas about assimilation, and how those views have changed.)

---

Assimilation vs integration, in the bible stories of Joseph and Moses

The book discusses many bible passages through the lens of immigration. I think this is great; this is something I want to pay more attention to when I read the bible. I think, in my experience, it's easy to feel like all the bible characters were over there in the desert in the Middle East, as if it's just all one culture. We don't realize the ways that bible characters might have felt out of place when they moved to a different country, the ways they tried to fit in, difficulties with foreign languages, etc. There is a LOT of migration in the bible. There are a lot of interactions between characters from different nations- much of it is conflict and war, but also we have characters like Ruth. She was a Moabite woman who came and lived among the Israelites, and Boaz (an Israelite man) made sure she was allowed to gather food from his field without anybody bothering her, and eventually they got married, and this is a great romantic story that everyone loves, even though God commanded the Israelites not to "intermarry" with other nations.

I think, for white American Christians who have never had the experience of being a minority, feeling out of place in an unfamiliar culture, struggling to understand the language that everyone else is speaking, they often don't even notice when bible characters are in situations like that. Immigrants notice that kind of thing. We need to learn from immigrants when we read the bible.

Here's an example from the book: In Genesis 37 and 39-50, we read the story of Joseph. His brothers sold him as a slave, and he was taken to Egypt. In Egypt, he eventually worked his way up to being second-in-command to Pharaoh, because he had the ability to interpret dreams, and predicted that there would be 7 years of famine, and so Pharaoh wanted him to be in charge of storing food to get ready for this famine. A lot of things happen, I'm just giving a short version here, eventually his hometown is also affected by the famine, so his brothers come to Egypt to buy food, there is some drama, and eventually he reunites with his family.

In Genesis 47, we're in the middle of the famine, and the Egyptian people are desperate because they've already spent all their money to buy food. So they tell Joseph to take their livestock in exchange for food, and he does that. Then, later, they need food again, so they tell him to take their land, and take them as slaves, in exchange for food, and he does that.

(To me this reads not like a true story, but like somebody asked "why is it that Pharaoh owns all the land in Egypt, except for the priests' land?" and then somebody made up this origin story.)

What Joseph did was, uh, kind of messed up. Authoritarian dictator behavior. He exploits the Egyptian people, during the famine, forcing them to give up everything and even sell themselves into slavery. Even though it was their food in the first place, that the government had collected during the 7 years of plenty, that he was then selling back to them.

"Beyond Welcome" asks, why would Joseph do this? Could it be because, even though he had lived in Egypt for a long time, and had basically assimilated, he still felt that he needed to prove his loyalty to Pharaoh, or else people would think he wasn't Egyptian "enough"? As immigrants, there is pressure to fit in, to go along with unjust systems that exist in the country you have immigrated to. You don't want to stand out. You don't want people to see that you're different. So you don't take a stand and challenge things that are clearly wrong.

Then the book contrasts this with the story of Moses (starting in Exodus 2). Moses was an Israelite, born during the time when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. As a baby, he was saved by the daughter of Pharaoh, who then raised him as an Egyptian. But when he grew up, he saw that his people were suffering, and (okay I'm simplifying the story a little bit) he took action and went to Pharaoh and said "let my people go" and brought them out of slavery.

Moses was not Egyptian, but he grew up in the world of the Egyptians, and totally understood how to navigate that world. But he also maintained his identity as an Israelite, and made the choice to help the Israelites, taking a stand against the oppression of Egypt. This is called "integrating" rather than "assimilating"- learning about the culture of the place where you live, gaining the skills to live in that society, but still valuing your identity, from your place of origin. Don't sacrifice your identity and values just for the sake of "fitting in."

Immigrants can bring this kind of "outsider perspective" - they can see the problems more clearly, because they haven't lived their whole lives with the idea that all of it is "just the way it is."

Both Joseph and Moses lived a significant part of their lives in a culture where they were outsiders. Joseph "assimilated" and participated in the the Egyptian government's oppression of its people. Moses "integrated" and gained skills to navigate Egyptian culture, but also challenged the aspects of Egyptian culture which were wrong.

---

This book had a lot of very insightful things to say. I plan to post some more quotes from the book in future blog posts.

---

Posts about "Beyond Welcome":

Beyond Welcome (a book about listening to and learning from immigrants)
Beyond Welcome: Experiencing God Through Your Culture

Related

"The Case For Open Borders" (book review)

What is a Queer Reading?

2026 Ace Community Survey

Heyyyyy the 2026 Ace Community Survey is here!

The 2026 Ace Community Survey is now open

It’s that time of year again - we are now recruiting participants for the Ace Community Survey!

The Ace Community Survey is run by the Ace Community Survey Team–a community-based volunteer organization.  It collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community, including asexual, demisexual, gray-asexual, and related identities. Participants also have the option to make data available to external researchers, or only to our team.

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or questioning. As long as you are 13 years of age or older, we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other potentially interested individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.

Click here to take the 2026 Ace Community Survey: 

https://forms.gle/s79nxyvNqnKWJsrM7 or https://tinyurl.com/AceSurvey2026

You will be able to view any published results from the survey at https://acecommunitysurvey.org. If you would like to receive an automatic email update when new results or announcements are posted, you can subscribe here.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. A Rickety Closet (July 28, with more discussion here) "If so, some would say that Elliot’s exalted reputation among evangelicals should be reevaluated. I think that they are right, but there is a bigger takeaway here: conservative evangelicals’ own lives testify to the untenability of their teaching. Even their most exalted teachers fail to embody the purity that they themselves demand. And this revelation, quite apart from any one individual’s legacy, is the secret that evangelicals want to keep in their closets."

There is a claim that Elizabeth Elliot (a writer who was very influential in evangelicalism and the purity movement in the 70's and 80's) had some kind of lesbian relationship. We have no way of knowing if this is true, and no details about what exactly happened- but the significant thing is how evangelicals don't want this to be true, don't want anyone to even suggest it or talk about it. 

Part of it is hypocrisy, and part of it is how evangelicals made same-sex relationships such a big huge deal, when they should just be people's own personal business.

2. Olivia Rodrigo - expectations (feat. Chappell Roan) (Official Music Video) (October 16) Hey this is pretty cool, the first verse is straight and the second verse is gay, and it's like, both are treated as normal situations to be in, like it's not a big deal.

3. ‘I’m Not Going to Have Blood on My Hands’ (October 14, via) "A few weeks after my last day, a former coworker sent me a link to ESPN’s website. They had posted an interactive gambling story—a primer on how to gamble on sports. I opened it and it literally made me sick to my stomach. The animations are bouncy and bright; it’s pretty much made for kids."

4. The Most Polarizing Books on Goodreads Aren’t Actually Polarizing (October 20) "A five-star rating can mean “I loved this book.” It can also mean “I love this author,” “I love this series and am excited for the next installment,” or “I support what this book represents.” A one-star rating can mean “This is a terrible book.” But it can also mean “I hate what this author represents,” “I am angry about something the author did,” or even “I am angry that this book isn’t out yet.” A rating, in other words, is not necessarily a rating of the book."

Somewhat related, I wonder a lot about the overall landscape of Patreon and GoFundMe. I bet there is a huge number of Patreons that have $0 worth of subscribers. 

5. Those Democratic fundraising texts you keep getting? They're scams (October 22) Maybe calling them "scams" is taking it too far- they *are* raising money for the campaigns, *but* only a fraction of your donation actually goes to the campaigns. 

Here's their advice on how to donate: "To donate, go to the candidate's campaign site and make your donation directly. That eliminates at least that scam fee. The candidate may ask you to donate to ActBlue: that's a reasonable, not-crooked choice. The candidate may let you donate via a credit card directly, usually through an online card processor like Stripe: If that's available, do that. The processor takes a small fee, on the order of 3-5%, but paying by credit card insulates you from most possible scams."

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. How Trump’s FBI purge saved Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn from a bribery investigation (October 20) "Today, there is no one left to look into Kao’s explosive allegations, as the Trump administration has abandoned any pretense of prosecuting public corruption. The case is dead."

2. A letter from an ICE detention center: A pastor writes from inside (October 14, via) "They are fathers and sons. They are husbands and friends. They are people who are frightened. They are people who make mistakes. They are people who pray. They are people who need lawyers, information, medical care, compassion and sometimes simply another person willing to sit beside them when they believe they cannot keep going. They are human beings."

3. Supreme Court rejects Trump admin’s request to end trans-related care in prison (October 22) Some good news from the Supreme Court, for once.

4. U.S. measles cases more than double what they were last year as outbreak spreads (October 25)

Why I am Not an Effective Altruist

World map that scales each country according to its population. Click here to see the full-size version.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. 

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

---

What is effective altruism?

Effective altruism is a movement about "doing the most good." It says, we have a responsibility to help the world- and it's better to have a bigger impact- let's use math to figure out how to have the biggest impact we can.

Effective altruists have done research into different charities, and determined the top few which are the "most effective." It's a lot of work to do this kind of research- you can't get this from looking at fancy marketing materials on a charity's website; you have to actually find out what it's like on the ground, how much money are they taking in, what did they use the money for, how many people were affected, what was the actual benefit to those people (if any) compared to if the charity hadn't done anything, and so on and so on. Outside of the effective altruist movement, I've seen people typically judge charities based on what percentage of their money goes to overhead costs, and what percentage goes to their actual work- but it really doesn't make sense to treat that as the end-all-be-all of evaluating charities. I totally agree with the effective altruists on this. It doesn't really matter what percentage of an organization's money goes to overhead costs. It matters what they actually did, and how that actually benefitted people's lives.

The effective altruist movement has 3 main areas: global poverty, animal advocacy, and AI risk. I'm just going to talk about the global poverty aspect, because I'm not very familiar with the others. Basically, the math shows that if you want to help the most people for every dollar you donate, it should go to people in extreme poverty. The less money the recipients have, the bigger the difference it makes. This is intuitively true, and then they have the math to back it up. 

The effective altruist organization GiveWell has done the math. Here's their page showing their top picks. These are very good charities that really are saving lives. I'll go ahead and plug the first one there on that page: Malaria Consortium.

I'll also plug GiveDirectly, which gives money directly to people in extreme poverty. Studies have also shown this to be very effective at saving or improving people's lives.

GiveWell's top charities are estimated to be in the ballpark of 1 life saved for every $4000 you donate. This doesn't mean they give 1 person medicine and it costs $4000 and saves their life- no no, that's not what it means, let's make sure we understand what it means. It means $4000 can pay for anti-malarial medicine/ mosquito nets/ etc for a large number of people, and statistics tell us that of that large number, on average 1 person would have died if we hadn't done this. This is based on how likely it is for people to get infected with malaria, how likely it is for someone to die if they are infected with malaria, how likely it is that they actually use the mosquito net if you give them one, etc. Anyway, $4000 to save 1 person's life is a very good deal. I'm glad that GiveWell has done this work and identified these extremely good charities to donate to.

Compare this to other charities, which advertise by saying "it costs $5 for this medicine that can save a child's life!" Sure, okay, there may be some situation where that medicine makes the difference between life and death, and the medicine itself costs $5- but that does *not* mean that typically that's what happens when you donate $5 to that charity. The charity needs to build a whole system to find people who need that medicine and distribute it to them. When charities advertise "$5 to save a life!" that is really misleading and dishonest. Effective altruist groups have actually done the math, taking all of the factors into account- the *total* amount of money that the charity spends on all of its programs and overhead costs, and how many lives are saved, compared to if they had done nothing (because if you did nothing, people can still recover from sickness on their own, it's not like they all definitely would have died- just because you treated X number of people doesn't mean you saved X lives). When effective altruist groups give these numbers (in the ballpark of $4000 to save 1 life), it actually means something.

The effective altruist movement says that those of us who are financially comfortable have a moral obligation to give our money to help others. Yes! I agree with this! They typically recommend giving 10% of one's income. I like that they use 10% as the target- it's a big enough donation that it will make a difference, but still doable if you're a financially comfortable. I think it's good to have this as a target number- otherwise you have to constantly be stressed about "what's the bare minimum amount I can live on- I'm morally obligated to give away all my money beyond that bare minimum" which is no way to live.

I guess I'll admit here that I give less than 10% of my income. I hope to increase it gradually every year and get to 10% eventually. It's okay if you give less than 10%! The worst thing would be if you say "well 10% of my income would be [does some calculations] holy crap that's a huge number, no way, I can't afford to give that much" and so then you just do nothing. No! Don't do nothing! Pick a different number, a number that does feel doable for you, and give that much. 

Why not start now? Here are the links again:

Malaria Consortium 

GiveDirectly 

There are some things about effective altruism which are very good. Yes, rich people *should* donate their money! And the focus on what's actually going to help people, rather than the donors' personal feelings. And the way that it values all human lives equally- a commitment to donate wherever it will help the most people, even if it's helping them with some problem that we can't relate to at all (extreme poverty, malaria, etc).

So, I'm glad that the effective altruist movement exists. If you are an effective altruist, and you are giving a huge chunk of money to help impoverished people in developing countries, great! Keep doing that! But I personally do not follow this philosophy when I donate money/ attempt to help the world.

I don't like the way effective altruists often claim that their approach to charity is the *correct* one, because they did *math*, and that everyone else who is giving to "ineffective" charities is doing something wrong. No, I don't agree with this. Effective altruism- specifically the part about global poverty- is very good, but that doesn't mean it's the One Correct Way To Do Good In The World. 

Here's my criticism of EA: It doesn't take into consideration the way that problems in this world are connected to each other, the way that people are connected to each other, the way that we are also part of this world and these systems. It views us as objective outside observers to the problems of the world, and our money is just a bunch of money that didn't come from anywhere. 

On the contrary, I think it does matter who we are and how we are connected to other people.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The Unacknowledgeable Work of Pastors’ Wives (September) "She is expected to have the church be her primary social outlet, but every church member is a little bit her husband’s boss. Complaining about marital problems more severe than her husband’s former difficulty putting away his socks (but he’s much better now) undermines him and endangers his position in the church. Pastors have been fired because their wives complained to the wrong person(’s wife)."

2. Ukraine did not Stop the Russian Bots (October 16) I guess I missed this whole story, but apparently people on social media were saying that Ukraine's bombing of a Russian data center caused a bunch of MAGA accounts to go offline, proving that the MAGA accounts weren't real people but Russian bots. Well turns out this is not true! Don't believe everything you read on the internet!

3. ‘A hermeneutical Pandora’s box’ (October 13) "That raised the stakes. It was no longer merely 'Yes, but if we read the Bible this particular way — selecting and emphasizing these particular passages in this specific way — then we can justify injustice.' It became 'We must read the Bible this particular way — selecting and emphasizing these particular passages in this specific way, or else we will fall into sin and go to Hell to be tortured for eternity.'"

This is spot-on. Also this post reminds me, I want to read Mark Noll's book, "The Civil War as a Theological Crisis."

4. Decades after apartheid, South Africans seek justice for crimes of the past (October 17) "At least 69 people were shot by police that day [in 1960]. They had been demonstrating against the country's pass laws — which restricted black people's movements and where they could live and work."

5. They told Christian girls to submit. Now the Botkin Sisters say they were wrong. (October 19) "Let’s not forget this didn’t just happen in a vacuum. Their father shaped the message. Vision Forum gave it a platform. Churches promoted the book and film. They all taught girls to cram their hopes and dreams into a man’s plans for them, and they all bear responsibility for harming the people who took their advice seriously."

So, this didn't affect me- when I was evangelical, I never heard of the Botkin sisters, or the stay-at-home-daughter movement, or Vision Forum. I only heard about all this when I started reading ex-evangelical and ex-fundie blogs. But, apparently, the "stay-at-home-daughter movement" said that girls and women all need to be under a man's leadership, and need to dedicate themselves to serving a man. For married women, it's the husband. For unmarried women, it's the father. So, unmarried women need to stay home and serve their father. (Even as adults.) Don't go to college, don't get a job, those things are evil and worldly and will lead girls into all kinds of sin.

So anyway, I read the Botkin sisters' whole post about how they've realized that teaching was harmful and they are apologizing for it. I have a few observations:

One, over and over they reassure us, don't worry, we haven't become feminists. They still believe in strict gender roles. They still believe married women need to focus on being womanly and domestic. They still believe women can't be pastors.

So what changed is, they no longer think that unmarried women *must* stay home and serve their fathers. They believe unmarried women have other options besides that. Uh, okay.

And second, the way they reference bible verses. Throughout their whole post, they cite so many bible verses to support their point of view, and the way it comes across to me is like... It's a bit jarring to me how they pull verses from all different parts of the bible, different cultural settings, across hundreds of years, and treat all of it like it's the teaching for our lives. Like all of it is equally in authority over us.

The most jarring one was:

Yes, God loves submission to lawful, God-appointed authority. But He also loves freedom and personal responsibility. For instance, even though voluntarily becoming a bondslave is lawful (Deut. 15:16-17, Ex. 21:5-6), He says it’s better for slaves to get their freedom if they can (1 Cor. 7:21).

So for the "voluntarily becoming a bondslave is lawful" they cite Deuteronomy and Exodus- passages that were set right after the Israelites came out of Egypt, were in the process of figuring out how to be their own nation, and God gave them laws, and some of those laws were about how to practice slavery. And then for "it's better for slaves to get their freedom if they can" they cite 1 Corinthians, where the apostle Paul is writing to the Christians in Corinth, living under the Roman empire, some of whom were slaves, telling them that their status as slaves doesn't make them any less in the eyes of God, but also if it's possible to get freedom they should totally go ahead and do that.

Slavery in ancient Israel, vs slavery in the Roman empire, it's a completely different thing. But these are cited like they both simply have something to teach us about submitting to authority, and that's all.

But, I mean, yes, if you believe the bible is totally true, then for every single passage, it's just a matter of pulling out the lesson that it's meant to teach us, and all of those messages are equally binding on us. Why would it matter what part of the bible it came from?

And also, like it's just fine that these passages talk about slavery like it's no big deal. There's no... like... there's no sense that they're kind of tiptoeing around it because it's problematic that the bible condones slavery. 

Same thing for this part:

Even concubines (wives who came into a marriage without a dowry, and thus were financial dependents, unlike “true” wives who had their own capital) were permitted to leave a marriage merely if their physical needs weren’t being provided for (Ex 21:10-11). Again, in our experience, many stay-at-home daughters had to provide for their own needs but were still forbidden to leave; they were considered even more bound to their fathers than these wives were to their husbands.

Just, like, the breezy way they talk about concubines, like... For me, when I read bible verses about concubines, I feel horrified by how women were treated in ancient times, like property, like their bodies and sex lives and childbearing abilities were just things for men to use.

But I have to say, I know how it is to have so much faith in the bible, to so wholeheartedly believe that the bible is true and right, to have such complete trust, that these issues don't even register as issues, as things that should disturb me. I had so much faith, back then, I could talk about how God killed people in the bible, I could talk about all kinds of horrifying things, and I truly truly believed that it was all right because God said so, not even realizing that these things are horrifying and I should be horrified by them.

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trauma after a parent’s deportation could affect Iowa children for decades (October 14) "'Not knowing if their parents will be there when they get home, not being sure of what will happen to their families. It’s a very real reality to the students that I work with, and it’s definitely a fear that’s grown within them and within their families,' Meyer said."

2. Man shot by ICE in NYC's Marble Hill said federal officers never identified themselves (October 14) "The men — who Belgal said he only later learned were ICE agents — did not appear to be law enforcement or identify themselves as immigration agents, the petition states. They did not present him with an arrest warrant, say his name or provide any other substantive explanation for the encounter as they confronted him through his partially rolled-down car window, the filing states. One of the agents pointed a weapon inside the car, leaving Belgal “terrified” for his and his son’s lives, according to the filing."

3. Trump cancels public execution, but a line may already have been crossed (October 15) "'Hegseth is, for lack of a better term, obsessed with the Crusades,' Taylor said."

4. Family of man killed by tiger criticise online content after Trump reposts video (October 14) This is not normal. A man was killed by a tiger, and the president posts the video like it's some interesting content to share on social media????

5. Obama calls Trump officials’ investigation of Ilhan Omar ‘appalling’ (October 19) "'Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen,' Obama wrote. 'Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case.'"

Inspiration and Incarnation: How Many Gods

Ancient artwork depicting Egyptian gods. Image source.

I've been reading the book "Inspiration and Incarnation" by Peter Enns. Right now we're in the middle of chapter 3, which is about how different parts of the bible say different (or even contradictory) things. In this post, we'll talk about whether the bible teaches there is 1 god or many gods.

Basically, there are 2 different perspectives, presented by different passages in the bible:

• There is only 1 god.
• There are many gods, but our God is the most powerful one of them, and you should *only* worship this *one*.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. AI Just Crossed the Terrifying Line - Now What? (October 5, 21-minute video) Good video from Kurzgesagt explaining the Hugging Face hack. This is indeed terrifying- and there should be consequences for OpenAI. When AI agents do something illegal, it shouldn't just be "oh it went rogue"- the company that made the AI should be held responsible.

2. In China’s Universities, Students Are Majoring in Second Chances (October 12) The education system in China is a lot more rigid than what I experienced in the US. Here's an article about how one specific aspect is starting to change- it's becoming easier for college students in China to change majors.

3. Evangelicals Keep Blaming Rape Victims Because They Don’t Understand Trauma (October 13) [content note: rape] "But perhaps if we better understood what trauma looked like, we would start being able to help girls like Vera, and read between the lines when they came to us, confused."

This post makes a really good point about how feeling guilty for consensual sex is a very different thing than feeling traumatized after being sexually assaulted. Wow, yes, back when I was in purity culture, I did feel guilt about not being "pure" enough due to consensual things (kissing, etc), and also I was afraid that I could get into a situation where "one thing leads to another" and *somehow* I would have sex and it would be my fault. (Fortunately did not happen to me, but if it had, I definitely would have blamed myself.) In purity culture, these are blurred together into the same thing- but wow, turns out they are very different, and they feel very different. One is consensual and one is not.

There are a lot of warnings, in purity culture, about how you shouldn't get into a situation with "temptation"- ie, if you go to a boy's room because you're attracted to him, and you're hoping for something romantic to happen, and then he sexually assaults you [in purity ideology they don't label this as sexual assault though], that's your fault because you had the "impure" desire and you took actions to pursue that, and then things spiraled out of your control- well, that's just what happens when you don't follow the purity rules.

When I started reading feminist blogs, and I read that "consent can be withdrawn at any time" and "just because you consent to one thing doesn't mean you consent to everything", I was completely shocked. That was totally opposite to so much of purity culture teaching.

See also:
"Boys Can't Stop"
6 Ways Purity Culture Did NOT Teach Me About Consent

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. You Can't Run From Christian Nationalism (October 8) "As Longwell says, Republican voters need a permission structure that allows them to get off the Trump train. White evangelicals need that structure to be a God-ordained superhighway with blinking neon lights citing quotable Bible verses."

On the one hand, yes. White evangelicals won't be willing to stop voting Republican, unless you can convince them that such a thing is compatible with being a good bible-believing Christian. On the other hand, I could easily build a superhighway out of bible verses, but they won't pay any attention to it, because all that stuff about devoting your life to Jesus and obeying the bible no matter the cost, it was all fake. They don't actually believe that. Those of us who really and truly believed it, we followed Jesus right out of evangelicalism.

2. Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans. (September 9) 

Ectopic pregnancy symptoms often begin with abdominal pain and bleeding, which send women to emergency rooms. There, doctors use ultrasounds to locate where the pregnancy has implanted. 

However, embryos are often not visible on an ultrasound early in pregnancy. That could mean the pregnancy is ectopic, but it may also be a miscarriage or normal pregnancy that’s too small to see. Doctors can also assess whether the pregnancy is likely ectopic through blood tests over multiple days.

If the pregnancy is ectopic, the risk of rupture increases the longer treatment is delayed. In a state without a ban, a patient could decide at any point that that risk is not worth taking and opt to terminate the pregnancy.

In a state with a ban, however, that option may not exist. If doctors can confirm the pregnancy is ectopic through an ultrasound, they can protect themselves from having their decision to terminate questioned, perhaps by a zealous prosecutor. But waiting for this can delay treatment by days or even weeks. 

This is so messed-up. Signs point to a likely ectopic pregnancy, but in many cases the doctors can't say with 100% certainty, because they can't find where the embryo actually has implanted. The patient should be able to weigh the information- it's *probably* an ectopic pregnancy, and if it is and we do nothing, you could die- you can make the choice about whether you're willing to take that risk. But in "pro-life" states, you can't make that choice. If there's not definite proof it's an ectopic pregnancy, apparently we have to let you die?

And, not that it should matter, because people should be able to access abortion healthcare regardless of their reasons, but most of these are wanted pregnancies. These are not women who *want* to have abortions, they are women who want to have a baby, but terrifying and life-threatening complications have made it impossible for their embryo to actually grow into a baby.

3. ICE agents shot at man in car with his 5-year-old son (October 11) "Belgal has been transferred to a detention center in Brooklyn and spoke to his attorneys Friday, telling them he was in pain, still had a bullet in his body and wanted to see his family, the attorneys said."

Sexual Pain, Ignorance, and Purity

Scene from "Enchanted." "And when you go out, you don't wanna wear too much make-up, otherwise the boys get the wrong idea, and you know how they are, they're only after one thing..." "What's that?" "I don't know, no one will tell me." Image source.

[content note: NSFW language describing the mechanics of sex]

I have some thoughts about the good pure girls who follow all the rules, and then sex is painful. (Sort of inspired by this post, How Evangelical Women Navigate Sexual Pain Disorders: New Peer Reviewed Paper!)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Talarico (D) Is Just a Letter to Me Now (September 21, via) "On September 9, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico went on Fox News and publicly walked back his support for trans rights. He hedged—moderated—waffled—caved—folded." Vote for him if you are in Texas. But know that he is not standing up for trans rights the way he should.

2. A Call for Mainline Christians to Reach Out to Evangelicals (September 30) "In my experience, the issue of women being subordinate in evangelicalism is seen by more mainline Christians as merely a doctrinal choice, or a theological difference, rather than as an issue of justice."

This is spot-on. In my experience, there are some churches/ Christian groups that are like "women have to submit, we don't have women pastors, that's what the bible says" and some churches/ Christian groups that are like "well in our church we have women pastors, we don't restrict women, but we understand that different Christians have different opinions on this issue." Like come on, take a stand! Where are the churches that say "restricting women is just WRONG, I don't ****ing care what the bible says"?

3. The Bisexual Problem (August 22, 2-hour-6-minute video, via) "And 'one true love' logic demands that you disavow and de-emphasize all the frogs you loved before. Your current relationship is the only real one, and all your past attractions and relationships were mistakes on the way to finding your soul mate."

This video starts out talking about bisexual representation in media, and how it's difficult to portray bisexual characters because the audience will think the character is "actually" gay or "actually" straight depending on who they end up with. Even review sites which specifically rate the queer representation in movies/tv will look at a story with a bisexual character having relationships with men and women, and say it's "queer baiting" or it's "fake." The resolution of a love triangle becomes "political" rather than just about picking a person.

And then the video moves on to talk about how the entire concept of bisexuality doesn't fit into the gay rights movement which is so focused on "born this way" and "it's not a choice." Bisexuals *do* have a choice, so under this model, it doesn't make sense to fight for bi rights. There are bisexual asylum seekers who aren't able to get asylum because judges think their situation/identity doesn't fit into the guidelines of who qualifies for asylum, even though they genuinely are at risk of violence because of their queerness.

What all of it leads to is, bisexuality just doesn't fit into the "born this way" model, and we need a new model.

4. Disney World solved a problem that could save America billions every year (October 1, via) "Singapore has also spent years building out walkable utility corridors that operate much like the Magic Kingdom’s, transmitting water, data, and energy from the safety of well-organized underground tunnels. Some of Tokyo’s largest districts store their cables and gas lines in huge concrete utility ducts, and many Parisian water lines and fiber optics are kept across the city’s centuries-old sewer system, a catacombs of waste made easily navigable by blue-and-white street signs that correspond to the avenues above. Many university campuses across the US also boast their own sprawling utilidors."

5. Raw Milk Nearly Killed 2 Kids & Authorities Did Nothing (October 1) "Meanwhile, California authorities decided not to pursue criminal charges against her, despite the clear history of Facebook posts and text messages and hospital records that prove she sold tainted milk to be given to children, and continued selling it after being informed of the children’s condition."

6. Review: Portalmania (October 6) "In over a decade of asexual blogging, here is what I know: there are many people who will share personal experiences relating to asexuality, but nearly nobody will share stories of marital rape. Marital rape certainly happens, but the telling of it does not."

(See also, The Great Sex Rescue: Marital Rape)

7. Jim Bakker, the godfather of scamvangelism, is dead at 86 (October 7) "So what’s his legacy? Saying he was a Christian hypocrite would be too easy. He’s someone who realized early on that religion could be used to fleece people—and that television was an excellent way to get his message out to the most ignorant viewers in the country. By constantly scaring them, then offering his products as the only biblical way to respond, he became wealthy."

8. The iconic Arthur Read made his TV debut 30 years ago (October 5) "Arthur" was my favorite show, back in the day.

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. The family of Renee Good files lawsuits over her death during Minneapolis ICE raids (October 1) "'The fact that there's been no accountability, no investigation, no expression of condolence, no change in policy is completely mind-blowing,' Brent Ganger, Good's brother, said. 'We will not wait any longer. The time is absolutely now for accountability, for the deep damage done by ICE and others. We will not be quiet. We will not go away.'"

2. How Desperate To Delete Voters Are Nativist Bigot Republicans? THIS Petty And Desperate. (October 2) "If you are a US citizen living abroad, yes, you are allowed to vote, yes, even if you no longer have a US mailing address, yes, even if you’ve been gone a long time, yes, even if you’re retired and you ain’t comin’ back, and yes, you still have time before the midterms, even in states where you have to mail back your ballot. If you need help — or if you know anyone who lives abroad who you think might, and this includes anybody you know who has a kid studying abroad this semester — then hit up Vote From Abroad and/or their special page just for students."

Wow, very cool to see a big platform like Wonkette talking about how it is for Americans abroad, like me, and plugging the Vote From Abroad website. Yes, if you are a US citizen living abroad, vote!

3. Trump approved the military's 1st firing squad execution since WWII. Why now? (October 7)

4. She got Trump's $500 check for health insurance. To her, it's a 'political stunt' (October 7) "'This reads like electioneering,' says Kathleen Clark, professor of legal and governmental ethics at Washington University law school in St. Louis, Mo. 'This reads as though it's intended to influence votes. That is prohibited by law.'"

5. Afghan wartime allies freed by the U.S. 25 years ago are now fearful and frustrated (September 10) "'What's going to happen if my current status isn't approved? What's going to happen if somebody knocks on the door?' he says, aware that the fear of being pursued has in some ways followed him from Afghanistan to America."

I'm so mad about what's going on with refugees from Afghanistan, the ones who risked their lives to help us fight the Taliban, and now the US is saying, no we don't accept any refugees. Also, the article talks about a mother who was separated from 2 of her kids during the rushed evacuation, and the 2 kids are still in Afghanistan and she hasn't been able to bring them to the US, for 5 years. Don't let those MAGAs ever trick you into believing they care about "family values."

6. KY Gov. Beshear Has Message For Anti-Trans Dems: “We Don’t Throw Anybody Under The Bus.” (September 30)

Also from Erin in the Morning: "Vote NO": Colorado's Top Medical Groups Formally Oppose Anti-Trans Ballot Prop. 135 (October 6) "It is a broad, one-size-fits-all ban that goes far beyond what voters think they’re being asked to approve. It could block necessary care for kids who aren’t transgender, including teens facing testicular or cervical cancer, endometriosis, or intersex conditions."