Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. George Washington praying for the return of his slaves (May 28) "She boarded a ship to New Hampshire and never looked back. George Washington sent slavecatchers and government officials after her to recapture his “stolen property,” but her neighbors in the free state of New Hampshire helped her elude those kidnappers. Bounties and rewards were offered for her capture and re-enslavement for years afterwards."

Also from the Slacktivist: A first person, extremely possessive pronoun (June 1) "The subject of this song is, rather, a smallish neighborhood God. This is a puny God who is not the God of Haitian refugees, not the God of second-generation immigrants — not the God of LGBT people, not the God of women, not the God of widows and orphans and the poor, not the God of the sick and the immunocompromised, not the God of any of the billions of people living in any of the other 194 countries of this world, let alone the God of any of the billions of other stars in our universe."

And: Flattening and collapsing, egad! (June 2) "'Love your neighbor' is both necessary and sufficient." Preach!

2. What will it take to get a vaccine for the Ebola strain driving the current outbreak? (June 4) The good news is there's already a lot of scientific research and some vaccines that are likely to be effective. It's just a matter of actually having the money and resources to make it happen.

3. Interesting Pitch: ICR Says NO to Plain Reading of Noah's Ark (June 1, 16-minute video) Young-earth creationism says that the whole fossil record was formed during the year of Noah's flood, when all the animals and plants were buried, rather than being formed by millions of years of slow normal processes. And, therefore, all of the world's oil deposits come from the organic material buried during the flood. 

But, here's a problem: In Genesis 6:14, when God instructs Noah to build an ark, he says to coat it with pitch. !!!! Pitch! Oh no! Pitch comes from oil! There was oil before the flood? How can this be?

Please note that the bible does *not* say that all of the world's oil was formed by the flood. That's a young-earth creationist fan theory. And some young-earth creationists have realized that their fan theory contradicts the bible verse that says Noah used pitch to waterproof the ark, so now they have to come up with another fan theory about how it didn't really mean pitch, it meant pine sap or something.

Anyway, this is a video from Joel Duff which takes these young-earth creationist fan theories very seriously and explains why they don't make sense.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Todd Blanche says DOJ ‘not moving forward’ with ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (June 3) Hooray! But also, I don't think this is the end of it- they're probably going to do a lot of other shockingly-corrupt things.

2. Musk Attacks Nyong’o For The Same Reason Hitler Attacked Jewish Art (May 26) "Musk is not just some asshole complaining about Hollywood casting choices. He is one of the most horrific mass murderers in history."

Also from Everything is Horrible: Fascists Lie (Even When They Seem To Be Confessing) (June 3) This quote from Vivian Wilson: "Him going further on the right, and I’m going to use the word ‘further’ — make sure you put ‘further’ in there — is not because of me. That’s insane."

3. Republicans' sweeping election overhaul fails in the Senate (June 4) "The SAVE America Act, a far-reaching Republican election overhaul that President Trump said should be his congressional allies' top priority, has officially failed in the Senate." This is good news for overseas voters like me.

4. House passes war powers resolution directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran (June 4) This is good, but it would still need to pass the Senate and also the antichrist would have to sign it, in order to become a real law, so that is unlikely.

5. You Can’t Raise Children to Obey and Expect Them to Defend Democracy (June 4, via) "It begins when a child learns that the person with power does not have to be truthful. Or when a child learns that obedience matters more than conscience. Or when a child learns that being hurt by someone who claims to love you is normal."

6. Screwworm In Texas Cattle Could Drive Up Beef Prices—After DOGE Axed Prevention Efforts (June 4)

7. The Side That Won the Civil War is Now Banning Books About Why the Civil War Was Fought (June 3, via) "Censorship often works like this—indirectly, requiring no specified demands but rather a vague climate of intimidation that encourages “an abundance of caution” when making decisions about what voices should be heard."

8. When U.S. foreign aid changed, AIDS workers in Africa felt it (June 7) "The program is often cited as the most effective public health campaign ever, and is estimated by the State Department to have saved roughly 26 million lives since its inception."

9. Pete Hegseth shrinks military's recognized religions list, erasing atheists and Humanists (June 5) "The Department of Defense/War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, has just pared down the list of recognized religious labels in the military to a mere 31, making it harder for service members to use the proper identification. A decade ago, as part of a larger mission to be more welcoming to people outside traditional faiths, the list of labels had expanded to well over 200."

10. After D.C.'s Reflecting Pool gets repainted, visitors ask: What changed? (June 5)

11. Deported Filipino sailors say they were falsely linked to child sexual abuse material (June 6) "Soriano Versoza's organization, which helps Filipino sailors with paperwork and other support, documented hundreds of deportations of Filipino seafarers and all follow the same playbook: CBP agents board the ships in the morning at the dock, they round up a handful of Filipino mariners, take them off the cruise ship, and interrogate them."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Snake-in-the-Box Problem (August 6) From xkcd.

2. There are now more than half a billion mobile money accounts in the world, mostly in Africa — here's why this matters (July 7, via) "As the chart below illustrates, the percentage of people in Sub-Saharan Africa with a mobile money account grew rapidly, from 12% in 2014 to 33% by 2021."

Also from Our World in Data: Two billion people don’t have safe drinking water: what does this really mean for them? (June 23) "The vast majority of the two billion — around three-quarters of them — do have access to a piped water source or protected well that is probably safe to drink. But it’s either not located in their home, is not always available, or there’s no guarantee it’s completely contamination-free. That usually means they must travel to get there; whether that round-trip takes less or more than 30 minutes determines whether they fall into the 'basic source' or 'limited source' category."

3. You Can Now Buy Eggs From In-Ovo Sexed Hens! (July 17, via) "Most people are surprised, and often disturbed, to learn the truth: in the United States alone, approximately 350 million male chicks are routinely culled each year, typically by methods such as maceration (being ground up alive)."

4. The Element Song by Tom Lehrer

Posting this because Tom Lehrer, influential musical satirist, dies at 97 (July 27)

5. More than 1,000 rabbis and Jewish leaders denounce starvation in Gaza (August 1) The letter says they agree with Israel fighting this war, but don't agree with using famine as a weapon.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Cynicism Is the Enemy of Action (July 1) "I think back to the phrase climate journalist David Roberts coined a decade ago, the 'doing it wrong brigade,' for those people on the sidelines who tell those who are doing the work that they should be doing it differently, criticizing their tactics, goals, alliances, or some other thing that falls short of perfection since as Hayes and Kaba point out, when you're not doing anything you can set impossible goals and then lounge about figuring out how those doing the work fall short."

2. Federal agents spread out across D.C. streets amid Trump's vow to crack down on crime (August 11) "He offered no explanation for where homeless people would be sent, but in a social media post last week Trump suggested he is considering a federal takeover of policing in Washington."

3. Asylum-seekers thought they were following the rules. Now some are told to start over (August 10) "'You're literally making documented people, again, undocumented, and they're already in here,' said Michelle Marty Rivera, an immigration attorney who has dozens of clients who have received these letters. 'You are canceling employment authorization. You're virtually converting people that are following the normal traditional asylum rules and leaving them without a status and without protection and asking them to show their faces to ICE.'"

So the strategy that the MAGAs are using is to find some minor thing where somebody's asylum-seeking process didn't go exactly according to the "rules" (even if this was the government's fault for not having availability to do interviews) and then saying that means the entire thing is invalid. It comes across as "the government is out to get you" rather than "there should be a system where people with genuine reasons are able to claim asylum."

(I have some thoughts about the similarities between this and conservative Christian ideology about sin and hell. Maybe if I have time I'll write a post on that. See also: ICE and Hell)

Update, I wrote the post: When You Believe God is Out to Get You

4. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposts video of pastors saying women shouldn't vote (August 9) Ah, the pastor in question is Doug Wilson. How will I explain Doug Wilson to my children?

5. A family's fishing trip ends with the dad at 'Alligator Alcatraz.' Here's their story (August 9) "Unable to show a driver's license, the couple were arrested and taken to a local jail where they were separated. M. says this was the last time she saw her husband, before he joined the hundreds of detainees at the controversial makeshift detention center, which has been dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." She told NPR their story on the condition of anonymity for the entire family, because she fears retaliation from immigration officials."

6. Texas Showdown (August 6) "When people ask, 'But what are Democrats actually doing to save our country from MAGA fascism?' point them to the brave men and women of the Texas state Democratic House caucus. They are risking their political careers and even their personal freedoms, not to preserve their seats and their power, but to preserve our right to a fair and representative system."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. GOP Rep. who wanted to “protect” girls from trans people arrested for preying on young girl (March 18, via) "Eichorn is a co-sponsor of S.F. 2531, a bill that would allow anyone to accuse a female athlete in school sports of being transgender. Any player accused of being trans would then have to get a signed physician’s statement indicating the athlete’s sex that is based solely on their internal and external reproductive anatomy; their naturally occurring level of testosterone; and an analysis of the student’s chromosomes."

2. Lungfish (March 17) From xkcd.

3. Jury says Greenpeace owes hundreds of millions of dollars for Dakota pipeline protest (March 19) "In the lawsuit, Energy Transfer says Greenpeace participated in a publicity campaign that hurt the project and the firm's bottom line — allegedly raising the cost of construction by at least $300 million."

4. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth after 9 months stuck in space (March 19) Very happy to hear this! This is why I'm not going to space. I don't want to get stuck up there.

5. Ohio Appeals Court Rules Trans Care Is Healthcare, Strikes Down Ban For Trans Youth (March 19)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. As always, if the news is stressing you out, you don't have to read everything. Instead, make sure you *do* something. Make friends with immigrants, protest, donate money, check on your trans friends, etc. Here's an action item, for Americans: Submit a public comment about the Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations (via). Deadline is March 27. Here's some info on what the NEPA is: Trump Administration Seeks to Unravel NEPA 

2. Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True. (March 15) [content note: child death] "Another household kept alive by American aid was that of Jennifer Inyaa, a 35-year-old single mom, and her 5-year-old son, Evan Anzoo, both of them H.I.V.-positive. Last month, after the aid shutdown, Inyaa became sick and died, and a week later Evan died as well, according to David Iraa Simon, a community health worker who assisted them. Decisions by billionaires in Washington quickly cost the lives of a mother and her son."

3. I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped (March 19, via) "Everything felt like it was meant to break you. Nothing was explained to us. I wasn’t given a phone call. We were locked in a room, no daylight, with no idea when we would get out."

4. 15 Ways You Can Fight for Democracy (March 19) 

5. March 17, 2025 (March 18) "The rejection of a government that works for all Americans in order to concentrate power in the executive branch appears to serve individuals like Musk, rather than the American people."

6. Protesters arrested after storming Trump Tower to demand release of Mahmoud Khalil (March 13, via) "'As Jews, we’re here today, mere hours before the holiday of Purim begins – a holiday where we honor Esther who used her voice to speak out and demand that the king not commit genocide,' the woman said in the video. 'Today we are using her same courage to speak out.'"

Related: ‘Rules aren’t clear anymore’: Trump crackdown on student protesters sends shock waves across US universities (March 18) "'This case sets a terrifying precedent for all students, particularly international students, particularly those on visas and green cards, but I think students in general should be horrified,' said Zaid, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of retribution."

7. First They Came for Columbia (March 14, via) "So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education. That must change."

8. Justice Dept. says ending Louisiana petrochemical case helps ‘dismantle radical DEI programs’ (March 8) What?

9. Here are all the ways people are disappearing from government websites (March 19) "'And that's a tragedy because it's going to make our military weaker,' says Fulton. 'It's not just about getting rid of trans people and gay people and women and black folks. It's about getting rid of leaders. It's about disrupting units, taking people out of those units who are fully trained and fully qualified and replacing them with who? People who pass Trump's ideological test?'"

10. “Soaked in Animus”: Federal Judges Strikes Down Trump’s Trans Military Ban (March 19) "'Neither document contains any analysis nor cites any data,' Reyes writes. 'They pronounce that transgender persons are not honorable, truthful, or disciplined—but Defense counsel concedes that these assertions are pure conjecture.'"

Blogaround

1. Air Bud: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (Web Exclusive) (posted April 25) Here's John Oliver overanalyzing the 1997 movie "Air Bud." I love it.

2. Sudoku's Craziest Ever Puzzle? (posted 2021) A 57-minute sudoku solve video. I love the ones (like this one) where it takes forever for Simon to even figure out where to start. This is an amazing puzzle.

3. Elon Musk buys Twitter. What could possibly go wrong? (posted April 26) "It’s worth remembering that those who frame themselves as free speech advocates are more often than not hate speech advocates."

4. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (posted April 25)

5. Critical Spiritual Warfare Theory (posted April 29) "Show me a Pentecostal/charismatic church practicing 'spiritual mapping' to confront the demonic 'strongholds' of its city and which therefore champions the removal of Confederate monuments and maybe I’ll start to rethink that conclusion. But somehow that never seems to be what 'Spiritual Warfare' white Christianity produces. That tells us everything we need to know."

6. Becoming a Mother in Louisiana Has Only Made Me More Supportive of Abortion Rights (posted May 4) "Fifty-nine percent of people seeking abortions already have children; that’s because parents know. We know the financial, physical, mental, and social costs of parenting. Becoming a mother has made me significantly, unequivocally, more pro-choice, not less."

Blogaround

1. Regis Philbin, beloved TV host of 'Regis and Kathie Lee' and 'Who Wants to Be A Millionaire,' dies at 88 (posted July 27)

2. U.S. Missionary With No Medical Training Settles Suit Over Child Deaths At Her Center (posted July 31) This is about Renee Bach, who I wrote about last year. The whole thing is so tragic and should cause white American Christians to completely change the way they talk about missions.

3. the tree who set healthy boundaries: an alternate ending for Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" Yes!

4. 'The Magic School Bus' Series Author Joanna Cole Has Died (posted July 15)

Renee Bach, who had no medical training, opened a clinic in Africa. Just like missionaries are supposed to.

Map of Uganda. Image source.

So I need to talk about Renee Bach, the white American woman who went to Uganda as a missionary and set up a health clinic even though she had no medical training, and now 105 Ugandan children have died under her care.

NPR has an article about it: American With No Medical Training Ran Center For Malnourished Ugandan Kids. 105 Died. I recommend reading this; it gives a good overview.

(And I also posted another link about it on my June 27 blogaround, with my comment: "Oh wow this is terrible. And the only thing I can think is 'God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.'")

What strikes me about this story- the reason I feel, ahem, "called by God" to blog about it- is that what Bach did is EXACTLY what the romanticized missionary stories I heard my entire life in the evangelical church say to do.

To be clear, most missionaries don't do things as reckless and bad as what Bach did. Most missionaries are more grounded in reality and common sense. I find her story so striking because it sounds exactly like the idealized version of missions that is presented in American evangelical churches.

This is what happens when somebody actually "steps out in faith" and literally goes and does the things that, according to American Christians, perfect godly missionaries do. This is what happens when that naive romanticized ideal collides with reality. In this case, she claimed to be able to provide medical care for severely malnourished kids, and she actually just made things worse, and many died.

A bit of background about myself: So, I'm a white American Christian who's been living in China since 2013. I do not identify as a missionary. The first time I came to China was in 2010 on a short-term mission trip, when I was a college student. Back then, I was "on fire for God" and totally bought into radical Christian missions ideology. However, there were a lot of things I did NOT buy into- I did not believe God was "calling" me to go to China, and my motivation was NOT "we need to go help those pathetic Chinese people"- instead it was more along the lines of "the image of God lives in every person in every culture, and if I only know my own American culture, I'm missing out on so much of knowing God." That mission trip left me with an overwhelming, obsessive desire to move to China long-term, and I devoted myself to learning Mandarin Chinese- which I am now able to speak, read, and write. I researched a lot of different options for how to move to China- and many of them would have involved being a missionary. Personally, I didn't care that much about whether I came through a missions organization or just a normal secular job. I just wanted, needed, to be in China- and I believed "All Christians are missionaries wherever we are." Looking back on it now, I'm glad none of the missionary opportunities ended up working out. Back then, I was in the early stages of leaving evangelicalism, and I'm glad I didn't end up in an organization where I would have to constantly explain to my colleagues how I can be a Christian if I don't believe in "God called me" and all those other things I no longer believe in. Anyway I moved to China in 2013 and now it's 2019 and I'm still here.

So yeah, I have Some Things To Say about missions.

I want to touch on a bunch of aspects of Bach's story, and how they relate to the way white American evangelicals talk about missions:

Africa

So ... in my experience, white American Christians seem to think that countries where most people are not white are poor and unsafe and those people are so sad and need our help.

Before I came to China for the first time, I had never traveled to any non-Western countries. I didn't really have any idea about any specific country's characteristics; it was all just a vague mass of "exotic." I didn't choose China for any particular reason. It was just the mission trip opportunity I happened upon when I was like "I want to go on a mission trip this summer."

In particular, Africa is seen as a pathetic, needy land where everyone is poor, everyone lives in a dusty hut with no food, no water, no medical care. Where everyone just spends all their time being sad about how poor they are, I guess.

IN REALITY, Africa is a whole continent, with over 50 countries, all of which are unique. It's extremely diverse. Statistically, it is true that the poverty rate is way too high, and lots of people don't have access to clean water- but that doesn't tell the whole story. That doesn't mean everyone lives in the middle of nowhere with no resources. There are cities. There are universities. People are full people with full lives- not stereotypes.

(And I'll stop there because actually, I too know basically nothing about Africa...)

But white American Christians have this idea that these places are so poor, they have nothing, they don't know how to take care of themselves, and therefore if we just waltz in and improvise something, well even though we don't really know what we're doing, at least it's better than nothing.

This bit from the NPR article describes it very well:

"Just think of the arrogance," says Lawrence Gostin, who heads the Center on National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. "Who are you to assume that you can do better than they can? It's not your judgment call to make."

Gostin adds that while the circumstances of Bach's case may seem exceptional, he sees her actions as stemming from an attitude many Americans bring to developing countries.

"The American cultural narrative is that these countries are basket cases."

And so, says Gostin, Americans assume that whatever their qualifications, they're sure to be of help.

The result, Gostin says, is that everyone from college kids to credentialed doctors routinely parachute into poor countries for medical missions that completely disregard local laws and conditions.

"People think that they're doing good. And they have no idea how much harm they can cause."

And people back home in the U.S. are often complicit, says Gostin. Because when these volunteers write blogs or post videos to share their exploits, "They're celebrated."

Yes, reading Bach's story, I get the impression that she felt like, "I'm not qualified to help- but there is no other option, so I have to." Umm. Yeah, not true. There are real hospitals. There are real doctors. There are real laws about how you can't just go around trying to provide medical care if you're not qualified.

God's calling

Yep, Bach believes she was "called" by God to do this.

On her first trip, in 2007, she worked at a missionary-run orphanage — staying on for nine months.

Once back home in Virginia, Bach — now 19 years old — came to a life-changing conclusion: She should move to Jinja full time and set up her own charity.

In an interview with NPR, Bach says it felt like a calling from God.

"It was a very, very profound feeling and experience. It's kind of hard to even describe in words," she says. "Like there was something that I was supposed to do."

This kind of thing- the idea that an average American Christian suddenly gets "called by God" to go do some absurd unrealistic thing in a foreign country- is how missions is portrayed in the American evangelical church. Yes, back when I was a teenager, I totally 100% believed that I could be just minding my own business and then suddenly God might "call" me and then I would have to go live in a hut on the other side of the world and be a missionary. I assumed that's how people became missionaries. It was totally a real, believable possibility that could totally happen to any Christian.

Notice, also, that God apparently called Bach to "move to Jinja full time and set up her own charity." Yes, not just move to Uganda, but SET UP HER OWN CHARITY. See, the more daunting and unrealistic the task from God is, the better the story. Of course it sounds impossible! That's why we need God's help! And God will make it a success.

In my case, back in 2010 when I was considering going on the mission trip to China, I did not feel that God was "calling" me. I just really wanted to go- and it confused me so much. Am I allowed to go on a mission trip just because I really want to, or do I need a special invitation from God? I always imagined that God's calling would be commanding me to do something I didn't want to do.

And after that, when I came back from that mission trip with an obsessive desire to move to China long-term, that didn't feel like "God's calling." It wasn't some out-of-context command to do some weird thing I didn't want to do. It came from my own realization about how little I knew about the world, and how I hated that about myself. After being in China, I just COULD NOT STAND living in a culture where I'm the majority and I have privilege and I understand how society works. I felt like it tempted me to believe that I understand the whole world, when in reality I only know a tiny tiny fraction.

I spent so long praying about my decision to move to China. Because God didn't "call" me. And so I worried that I wasn't "allowed" to do it. At times, I attempted to redefine "calling" so that "I have a huge internal desire to do this thing, perhaps the desire was given to me by God" would count. I'm no longer interested in redefining the term "calling" so at this point I just say no, God didn't call me to move to China. I just did because I wanted to.

But yes, the way Bach talks about being "called" by God to go start a charity in Uganda is 100% a normal thing people in American churches would say.

Being unqualified

The article says this:

Except Bach was not a doctor. She was a 20-year-old high school graduate with no medical training. And not only was her center not a hospital — at the time it didn't employ a single doctor.

She was completely unqualified. She had no business opening up a medical center.

But in the missionary stories I always heard in church, being unqualified- by "worldly" standards- was seen as a good thing. Christians like to say, "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

It wasn't about your own abilities. It was about God doing this amazing, seemingly impossible thing, and giving you the opportunity to be part of it, if only you'll trust God and jump in way over your head.

The less qualified you are, the better the story. And so, even though in reality, most missionaries spend years training and studying the culture of their destination country, they emphasize their lack of qualifications when they tell their story to the supporters back home. This is not good.

Bach was so young- only 20- and she moved to Uganda and started a charity for starving children. Wow. Look at how impressive that sentence is! How young- only 20! How scary and foreign Uganda is! How huge the task- starting her own charity! And how poor and needy the targets were- starving children! Wow! Hard to imagine a missionary story better than this- according to the way missions are talked about in American churches.

In reality, though, when a thing looks like it's impossible and it's going to fail spectacularly, typically it ends up failing spectacularly. "God" doesn't "work a miracle" and make it a success against all odds. In reality, when you have no medical training and you let people think you're a doctor, and you attempt to treat their extremely vulnerable children ... in reality it's not good.

And here's the part that scares me even more: Was she "stepping out in faith" when she took risks with these children's health care? I didn't see anything about this specifically in the article, but I know how American evangelicals talk about things like that. What if, when Bach didn't know how to help a patient, she prayed about it, and got a "feeling" from God telling her what to do, and she went ahead and did that even though she had no actual medical knowledge indicating it was actually the right thing to do?

Because that's how the stories go, when they tell them in church. God sends you into some situation where you are horribly unqualified, you're in way over your head, you have no idea what you're doing. And then of course, you encounter problems and you need to make a decision about what action to take- but there's no way you have the ability to make a good decision. Not on your own, at least. But you pray, and you get a *feeling* about what God wants you to do. And then, even though you still have no idea what you're doing, even though you're terrified, you "step out in faith" and do the thing. That's how the very best role-model missionaries live.

Wow, that's horrifying, to imagine someone might use that method IN THE ACTUAL REAL WORLD when caring for a starving child in a medical setting.

And I want to be clear, nothing in the article said Bach actually did that. But it said she made medical decisions without any actual doctors present at the center. I personally believe it is extremely likely those decisions were based more on prayer than on actual medical knowledge.

The missionary blog

Oh, the missionary blog.

NPR's article mentions Bach's missionary blog several times. When I went on my China mission trip in 2010, missionary blogs weren't really a big thing yet- THANK GOODNESS. Instead, I sent email updates only to my family and people who had given me money for the trip. I remember a few years later, seeing kids from my church posting links on Facebook to their own mission-trip blogs, and the concept felt very cringe-y to me.

Why? Because if you're going to some country where you've never been before, you're gonna have a ton of culture shock, you're gonna be so clueless about everything that is happening- do you really want your initial reactions to that to be there on the internet for everyone to see, forever? *cringe*

Like yeah, my first day in China I had a lot of opinions about things, a lot of wide-eyed "wow can you believe this is how they do things here????" and I now realize all of that was incredibly naive and I didn't have A CLUE what I was talking about. So good thing I didn't broadcast that to tons of people all over the internet.

If you go on a short-term mission trip, don't make a blog about it. Because that's the culture shock talking, and the more you learn about the place where you're traveling, the more you'll realize you knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at the beginning and you don't want the whole world reading that. Yeah, sure, it makes sense to send emails to your family and people who gave you money, but don't post stuff more publicly than that.

(As for me personally, when I first started this blog I used to do more posts about "wow look at this interesting aspect of Chinese culture", but the longer I've lived here, the more I've realized I don't know and it's not really my place to be acting like an expert on China.)

Bach's blog wasn't a short-term-mission-trip-my-first-day-in-this-country blog; she had been to Uganda before. But still, in my opinion, the posts mentioned in NPR's article have that wide-eyed-cluelessness "I'm on a grand adventure from God where I am the main character" feel.

Yes, let's talk about that part. So, when you go on a mission trip, one of the main goals is getting the people you meet in the destination country to become Christians. And maybe offering them some kind of service (in Bach's case, food and medical care) because they are in need. And both of these aspects are things you don't actually want them to know. You don't tell your targets "my goal is to get you to become a Christian." You don't tell them "I came here to help you because you're so poor and deserve my pity, look at me being such a good person, a white savior who stoops down to help you." But when you talk to your supporters back home, you do say those things.

And so when people write a mission trip blog, the audience they have in mind is those supporters back home, and other people from their own American Christian culture, who hold the same beliefs about missions.

But. It's the internet. Everyone can read it.

And people in your destination country have smart phones.

So you get missionaries posting photos of those "poor, needy" people they met, sharing romanticized versions of these people's stories- all without their consent. Treating them as stereotypes, as objects in a grand adventure that God is directing. What happens if those people- who, in reality, are intelligent human beings with a whole life, just like you- find your blog?

It's not very likely ... because of language and cultural barriers, it's not likely that people in your destination country are browsing around the same areas of the internet that you are. Except ... except for Facebook. What if you post links to your mission-trip blog on Facebook, and then you find "wow, our new friends we met in X country have Facebook, this is great, we can keep in touch!"

What if they read what you really think about them? *cringe*

The things people write on mission-trip blogs- those are the things that we're not supposed to say out loud where our evangelism targets (and other non-Christians) can hear us. The internet connects people in ways that they maybe didn't realize they didn't want to be connected.

Here's an excerpt from the NPR article:

Ten years ago, Renee Bach left her home in Virginia to set up a charity to help children in Uganda. One of her first moves was to start a blog chronicling her experiences.

Among the most momentous: On a Sunday morning in October 2011, a couple from a village some distance away showed up at Bach's center carrying a small bundle.

"When I pulled the covering back my eyes widened," Bach wrote in the blog. "For under the blanket lay a small, but very, very swollen, pale baby girl. Her breaths were frighteningly slow. ... The baby's name is Patricia. She is 9 months old."

See what I mean? It reads like "wow, here I am on this amazing adventure that God has sent me on. I met this mind-blowingly sick baby- isn't it exciting?" Do you think the parents want this dramatized account of their child's life-threatening condition broadcast for American Christians to read?

But that's how Christians talk about the people they meet on their mission trips. That's how they've always talked, when they go back to their home churches and share their "mission moment" during the Sunday service. That's bad enough. But now, in the 21st century, when blogs allow them to share their ignorant stereotypes with a much wider audience than before, ooooh I cringe.

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Bach's story is exactly what would happen if someone literally did all the things that American Christians say missionaries do. Go to Africa, a land so backwards that they don't know how to do anything, a land where they're desperate for help from random unqualified Americans. Follow God's "call" and put yourself into an absurd, impossible situation so you can watch how amazing it is when God turns it into a success story. Go even though you have no qualifications and don't have a clue what you're doing- that gives God an even bigger opportunity to show off. And document it all on your missionary blog- all the one-dimensional people you meet, all the shocking situations you end up in because you had faith and obeyed God's call, all the excitement and fear of living this wild adventure that God allows you to be part of.

The most impressive missionary stories in the white American evangelical church have people doing exactly the things that Bach did. In reality, though, she did a very bad thing. She was reckless with children's lives, and many of them died.

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Related:

This whole thing reminds me of the news last year about John Allen Chau, another missionary who did all the things that a perfect role-model missionary should do. Here are my posts about him:
This Is Exactly the Martyr Fairy Tale We Aspired To
Evangelicals Agree With What Chau Did (And It Makes Me Angry): Here Are The Receipts

And another related post:
Runaway Radical: The Stories You Can't Tell In Church

Blogaround

A puppy on a leash. Image source.

1. This neural net knows your secret recipe (posted June 20) "It figured out that it was supposed to be making easter eggs, but apparently didn’t know how and sort of panicked."

2. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods could lead to a Bible shortage in the US (posted June 19) Well this is just FASCINATING- it's an intersection of a bunch of different things: white evangelicals' support for the orange antichrist, the economic reality of tons of stuff being made in China (even stuff you wouldn't expect), and the way white evangelicals are OBSESSED with the idea of having a physical printed book as if that's what "knowing God" means. (Apparently only a few people could be Christians before the invention of the printing press?) And also, not mentioned in the article is all the evangelical myths about Christian persecution in China. (Which is why it feels so surprising to find out that ACTUALLY a significant proportion of bibles are printed in China.) Persecution DOES HAPPEN, but not at all in the way that American Christians imagine it.

(Ahem, please note that I live in China.)

3. Migrant children describe neglect at Texas border facility (posted June 21) This is bad.

4. Facebook cofounder says the company's cryptocurrency plans are 'frightening' (posted June 21)

5. Honest Trailers | MCU (posted June 18) "Are you sure you know how to fly this thing?"

6. Black People’s Land Was Stolen (posted June 20) "But in addition to invoking the 40 acres black people never got, the reparations movement today should be talking about the approximately 11 million acres black people had but lost, in many cases through fraud, deception and outright theft, much of it taken in the past 50 years."

7. This group found thousands of offensive Facebook comments by police. Here's what you should know (posted June 20)

8. No White Saviors: Woman Accused of Letting African Babies Die at Fake Medical Facility in Uganda (posted June 25) [content note: child death] Oh wow this is terrible. And the only thing I can think is "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

9. Young Earth Creationists and the Flat Earth Conspiracy (posted June 24) "I am absolutely confounded as to how Faulkner can write this. He works for Answers in Genesis." Libby Anne responds to an Answers in Genesis post bemoaning the fact that some Christians have so little scientific understanding that they accept conspiracy theories about the earth being flat, and it's FANTASTIC.

Runaway Radical: The Stories You Can't Tell In Church

"Runaway Radical" book cover. Image source.

[content note: spiritual abuse]

The book Runaway Radical: A Young Man's Reckless Journey to Save the World, by Amy Hollingsworth and Jonathan Hollingsworth, tells the story of how Jonathan left college at the age of 20 and moved to Cameroon to work at a missions agency. He planned to be there for one year, but things went very badly and he ended up coming back to the US after only 4 months, with his mental health and his faith in ruins. This is a true story. (Amy is Jonathan’s mother; they wrote the book together.)

I 100% recommend this book to anyone who has been part of radical Christian missions culture. Jonathan’s story is so important because it’s the kind of story you never hear in church. It’s the kind of story we’re not really allowed to tell.

First I’ll summarize the story. There is a movement, especially strong with college-age evangelicals, which teaches we need to follow Jesus by being radical, by making huge sacrifices, taking massive risks and then watching as God turns them into miracles. In this ideology, if you want to be the best Christian you can be, you move to Africa. You give everything up and go live with the poorest of the poor. You show them God’s love. You learn to rely on God when you are in need.

I know all about this ideology. I’ve heard it preached explicitly- especially at Urbana conferences. We’ll talk about it more in another post next week. Anyway, that’s what Jonathan believed, so he raised money and moved to Cameroon, in West Africa, to work at a missions agency. They told him he would be teaching guitar lessons to children and helping to build a church and bakery.

But it turns out the missions organization was SHADY AS HELL. Here’s a bit from Amy’s journal, before Jonathan left for Africa:

We found out yesterday that the workers who are building the church in Cameroon are waiting for Jonathan to arrive (and even give him a day to recover!) before laying the foundation stone. (page 80)

This was completely false. Just after Jonathan arrived, the rainy season started. It rained for 3 months. Just like it does every year. So no, they didn’t start construction, and they KNEW they weren’t going to be starting construction then. And school let out for the summer, so he couldn’t teach guitar lessons. They had promised he would be working on these different things, but that was a lie.

And it got worse. Jonathan soon found out that the church there was really into "prosperity gospel" ideology. Apparently, in African Christian culture, it’s normal for pastors to be rich and tell their congregations to keep giving more and more money and God will make them rich too. Here’s an excerpt from page 84:

During another church service Jonathan attended, the pastor turned the word “testimony” into “taste of money.” He insisted that part of each believer’s testimony- his or her personal story of faith in God- should include a taste of money.

Yeah. Wow. That’s … that’s not good.

Furthermore, the African church had a lot of rules, like Christians aren’t allowed to drink or smoke. But Jonathan’s reason for coming to Cameroon was to share God’s love, so he would go out and meet people and if they were drinking or smoking, he would join in. Yeah, he got in trouble for that; they said it “threatened the reputation of the mission agency” (page 47). And he found out that they didn’t want him interacting with non-Christians or Christians who were “the wrong kind.” They basically just wanted him to preach in front of big crowds. Preach things that violated his conscience.

They limited his freedom more and more, but it took a long time for Jonathan or his parents to understand how bad the situation really was. The radical Christian teachings that Jonathan believed said we are supposed to suffer for God, that it was a test, that he had to stay there and put up with it because that’s what it meant to be obedient to God. But finally, he and his parents realized the truth, and they knew he really really needed to come home.

The missions agency wasn’t letting go without a fight though. They said he couldn’t leave. They refused to give him his plane ticket. Finally he was able to get back to the US, but the missions agency never refunded any of the money from Jonathan’s donors.

So he comes back home and has to figure out how to put his life and his faith back together. But it gets worse: Jonathan’s church in the US made him agree to not tell anyone what had happened. He was told to say he had “philosophical differences” (page 135) and that’s why he left Africa. The US church wanted to cover it up. Oh and also, they told him it would be very wrong for him to stop attending their church while he tried to figure out his faith.

So it’s a story about spiritual abuse. He experienced spiritual abuse in Cameroon and in the US. One of the African leaders, Peter, knew how much Jonathan feared his own selfishness, how he believed he was supposed to sacrifice and suffer more and more and that’s what God wanted. Peter used that against him.

And then when Jonathan came back to his church in the US, here’s what happened:

The senior pastor opened their secret meeting by pulling out his Bible and reading a passage:

Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
The one… who keeps an oath even when it hurts,
and does not change their mind.
(Psalm 15:1a,4b)

Peter had shamed Jonathan by using his own words against him. More effective still was to use God’s word against him. (page 133)

This is evil. This is evil. This is spiritual abuse.

And at first, Jonathan and his parents agreed to keep quiet. But they realized that the shame was destroying him, so they decided to write the book to tell his story.

This is the kind of story that never gets told in church. You only hear the miracles and success stories. You only hear about how great missionaries are. In general, the white American church preaches an extremely romanticized view of missionaries, and Africa in particular. Page 83 says this:

Jonathan believed what he read in missionary books and saw in documentaries, that the hearts of African people were simple, noble, and pure. Africa, once called the Dark Continent, was now the last bastion of light, maybe the last sacred place on earth. Stories abound and are quickly disseminated about African children sharing freely; in one popular story they refuse to compete for a single basket of fruit, but hold hands and run toward the coveted prize set before them by an anthropologist. Beautiful and barely dressed, they are the antidote to Western greed. Tired of American materialism, Jonathan hoped not only to live among the poor but to learn from them. To see firsthand those who didn't use monetary metaphors like "value" or "worth." To live with people who cherish others more than possessions (which must be easier to do when you don't have many). To experience those with the innate ability to look into someone else's eyes and understand how important they are.

Yep. All of this sounds so familiar to me. That's exactly how people talked about missions trips in church. But when Jonathan got to Africa, he found that people there had the same sorts of problems with greed and legalism that he had seen in the US. How bout that.

And all I ever heard about missionaries is how they're so amazing, they're basically the most Christian of all Christians. They gave up everything to follow God and go to some awful backwards place where people don't even know how to do stuff. (I got a lot of this sort of reaction from church people when I decided to move to China.) They're preaching the gospel to the groups that haven't heard. They're risking their lives in places where it's illegal to be a Christian. They need to rely on God for everything. They take so many risks and they pray so hard and God does miracles for them.

If that's your view of missionaries, then the fact that leaders at the mission organization totally screwed Jonathan over is just unbelievable. Seriously. I never could have imagined a missionary doing something that bad.

I think maybe the biggest reason behind this over-the-top awe for missionaries is that they depend on other Christians to give them money, so they're not really able to honestly tell those Christians about their problems. If you're trying to decide which missionary (or charity) to give your money to, are you going to pick one that's like "look at all these wonderfully successful things, we are totally changing lives, the people here are so desperately in need and you HAVE TO send money to continue this amazing work God is doing" or one that's like "this is hard, and sometimes I wonder if we're really making a difference or not"? So missionaries only ever talk publicly about the good things. And personally, I don't see how it could be any other way, when you have a system where missionaries need to convince donors to support them financially. They have to say what the donors want to hear, or else they won't get money and can't continue being missionaries.

So you see why a mission agency would want to cover it up when they commit abuse. And if you buy into the whole "missionaries are the best Christians ever and they're doing God's work so many times better than the regular church people", then it almost seems reasonable to cover it up. The organization is in Africa so they're clearly doing amazing things, right? That's so important, wouldn't want any bad news to get out and hurt their ministry.

Jonathan did everything that the church said we should do. Giving everything up, stepping out in faith, moving to a foreign country, in a situation where he was in way over his head and needed to trust God- and it ended disastrously. That's not a story you're allowed to tell in church. But it's a true story and it needs to be told.

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Posts about Runaway Radical:

The Stories You Can't Tell In Church
Radical Christian Missions
What Feminism Taught Me About Saving the World

Blogaround

A cat sticks its head *just perfectly* through a hole in a drawing of that scene from "The Lion King" where Rafiki holds up Simba. Image source.

1. When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Princess Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher) (posted December 28)

2. Within weeks they’ll be re-opening the shipyards (posted December 19) "You might, for example, convince them that the Death Star’s main reactor required a thermal exhaust port that would leave the entire machine vulnerable to destruction."

3. Years after transatlantic slavery, DNA tests give clarity (posted December 31) "We use 'African-American' synonymously with things like 'Irish-American' or 'Scottish-American', but those are countries, and Africa's a continent, and there's 54 countries on the continent of Africa. And so, to be able to say 'I'm Ghanaian-American, I'm Nigerian-American' is actually a significant difference."

4. The clarity of a dead end (posted December 21) "This is where that road takes you. It’s where you’re bound to end up if you drive long enough using only the segregationists and the wealthy donors as your GPS."

5. No, Jesus Wasn’t Born To Die (The Part of the Christmas Story We Screw Up) (posted December 22) "In the Bible, the birth announcement that the Christ has come is made by the angels to shepherds– and what’s interesting is that there’s no mention of God’s anger, wrath, or anything else."

6. Why I Quit My Job at an Evangelical Missionary School (posted December 29) "In my reply to the superintendent’s request, I stated that it has always been my guiding Christian ethic to stand with the vulnerable and marginalized, and to not do so would be unconscionable to me before God." Every time I read something like this, it makes me SO GLAD I'm not evangelical anymore.

7. The Conviction of Dylann Roof Represents The Very Least We Can Do (posted December 15) "Understand that if the Emanuel Nine had instead been shot by trigger-happy police in individual traffic stops, none of their killers would see a day in prison. Understand that they lived every day knowing that."

8. 8 Things in Rogue One That Drastically Changed Key Scenes in Star Wars A New Hope (posted December 27) [spoilers for Rogue One]

9. Flooded with phone calls from voters, House GOP drops effort to gut ethics panel (posted January 3)

10. Jesus never read ‘The Bible’ (posted December 29) "And, of course, Jesus also didn’t have a nicely bound paper book with the whole thing in one package, neatly divided into chapters and verses to facilitate their quotation out of context."

11. Media bias should be Good News (posted January 2) "Yet the story of local hungry children being fed is not usually reported as a Good News story."

12. I Was Taught That Saint George Fought a Dinosaur (posted January 4) I used to be a young-earth creationist. None of this is the least bit shocking to me.

13. The Many Colors of Rogue One (posted December 27) [don't worry, no "Rogue One" spoilers in this post] "About half an hour into the show I realized that none of our five plucky adventurers were white caucasian males."

14. Reading 66 books in one year (posted January 3) "Say you decide, after recommendations from a couple of good friends, that you’re going to read Gillian Flynn’s popular thriller Gone Girl. It seems unlikely that you would take this 422-page novel and decide to set aside a few minutes each morning every day to read 1.15 pages so as to finish reading the book in a one year. That’s not how the book is supposed to be read. It’s not how any book is supposed to be read."

15. This is what happens when you reply to spam email (2015) LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

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I'm going to the Gay Christian Network Conference today! Very excited~

Blogaround

Oh, dogs. Image source.

1. I Wasn't Raped, But I Was Still Violated (posted March 10) "Because if I had signaled the attendant, it would have been, ‘God, I’m just trying to make conversation. A guy can’t talk to a woman at all now? What are you, some kind of anti-social bitch who over-reacts at everything?’"

2. Our Ugly Jesus (posted March 11) "But, I like the idea of this ugly Jesus who chose to take human form and, in doing so, remain lowly–not elevating Himself in any way, including in His physical appearance."

3. Dip Oreos in colored white chocolate for an amazing display (posted March 8) Well, this is awesome.

4. The Christian Guide to Atheists: Never Really a Christian (posted March 11) "When we start to talk about whether or not someone was a 'real believer,' we negate their story and that can be a hurtful thing."

5. The God Who Does Nothing (posted March 5) "God didn’t do much when I was ill."

6. when this is a post about justice for victims & survivors of sexual abuse -- from danielle (posted March 12) "Whereas an unjust system seeks to silence the voices of rape victims, a just system seeks to amplify them."

7. Protection by Discrimination: Not a Solution for Bullying (posted March 12) "I believe that in many cases, the idea that a policy 'is for X group's protection from harassment' is a politically correct excuse given by those who are simply uncomfortable by others' differences."

8. Why the Rebelution’s Modesty Survey Was A Bad Idea (posted March 13) "We gave legitimacy to the idea that they had a right to speak about women’s clothing choices simply because they were male." (And see also my post about how "the modesty survey" affected me: The Story of Me and Modesty.)

9. Christian QUILTblogs list tops 100 blogs (posted March 13) "I dare you to go read their blogs and then come back and try to tell me that these are not your brothers and sisters in Christ."

10. when this is just a rant (posted March 13) "We sometimes think God's biggest concerns are reducible to whether someone can check the box YES on their will I go to Heaven?​ membership card."

11. It’s not your ‘stance,’ but who you’re standing with (posted March 14) "We seem to make that mistake a lot, which is why Christians keep confusedly acting as though their primary allegiance is to the institution of the church — defending the institution at all costs, even if that means silencing or shaming the victims of abuse, or covering up for the predators who abused them."

12. The Bible: It's Just Not That Into You (posted March 15) "...thus leading the reader away from the original corporate intent of the passage to a reaffirmation of the individualistic, me-centered, and consumerist tendencies of American religious culture." Amen to that.

13. Fasting... a Capitalistic Venture? (posted March 13) "A friend’s church even gave away a Kindle as a prize for raising money."

14. Making Compassion Last (posted March 15) "[Americans] don’t know Senegal, they don’t come to Senegal, so there’s no reason to be concerned. It’s not somewhere close like Haiti that people maybe have been to before."

15. Do You Have A Playstation? (posted March 15) "Young boys in the Congo were forcefully swept into a real-life war so that little boys in the West could play electronic war games."

16. On Hoarding Manna (posted March 16) "I never know how much is too much, whether giving up air conditioning matters while my family still pays $200 a month for cell phone access, and if having a hundred bucks in the bank is responsible stewardship or if it’s hoarding riches so I avoid the question altogether and buy a Blu-Ray player because, well c’mon, we need one, right?"

Blogaround

Image source.

1. Why I Never Play Hard To Get (posted November 9) Yes! The idea that women are supposed to "play hard-to-get" leads to the assumption that when a woman says "no", what she REALLY wants is the guy to try harder. Wow, that's pretty messed-up. Why don't we just have, you know, honest communication?

2. On Modesty and Male Privilege (posted December 5) "If men are skeezy pervs, that's decidedly an issue for men to address."

3. CHRISTIANS: 4 tips for talking to your gay friends (posted December 4) A great video from Justin Lee.

4. Good News (posted December 6)  "For the first time in the history of public education in Saudi Arabia, new textbooks will feature photographs of women."

5. When the War on Christmas Goes Too Far... (posted December 7) An atheist blogger comments on an issue where residents of a senior apartment complex were told their Christmas tree in the apartment's common area needed to be removed. He calls it for what it is- ridiculous.

6. Why Does a Southern Drawl Sound Uneducated to Some? (posted December 7) Accents and stereotypes.

7. Your Husband Will Never Be Edward Cullen (posted December 6) "All of those beliefs are present in Twilight. Love is irresistible. Love is natural. It will satisfy your inner soul. It will be intensely emotional at every moment. All lies."

8. Women, Bodies, & Temples of the Holy Spirit (posted December 7) "Over time, I realized that the teaching that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit directly counteracted every other lesson being taught to young women about their bodies."

9. Why Should We Care About Privilege? (posted December 7) "The point of me realizing that I have the privilege of being an able-bodied person is not so I can feel bad about all the people out there who do not have the same physical abilities as me."

10. Help. (posted December 1) "Do you want to give food? Add up its retail price. Take that money out of your wallet. Flush 90% of it down the toilet. Send the food bank the rest. You’re still helping more than if you gave the food."

11. Africa For Norway Oh no! Apparently Norwegians are all sad and pathetic, freezing to death, and Africans are saving them by sending radiators.

Blogaround

1. What About Divorce? (posted September 29) A thorough analysis on what Jesus/ the bible has to say about divorce. "Divorce, in and of itself, is not inherently evil"- for one thing, the bible often uses the metaphor of God divorcing Israel because of their rebellion. This post is totally worth reading- it brought up a lot of ideas I'd never thought about.

2. Niger's hunger brides- in pictures (posted September 28) Girls as young as 11 getting married because their family can't support them and needs the dowry money.

3. Ask a stay-at-home dad... (response) (posted October 2) "We could not have picked a 'better' church to visit on our first Sunday, as the pastor was speaking that week – scratch that; he was shouting – about 'biblical' gender roles, referencing stay-at-home dads as 'abnormal' and it being against God’s will for a wife to have a larger income than her husband. Needless to say, we failed to fill out a visitor’s card." To be honest, I'm SHOCKED to hear this.

4. Ikea's Saudi Arabia catalog erases women; company expresses regret (posted October 1) Some examples here. Not cool.

5. Is ambition a sin? (posted October 3) In which Rachel Held Evans challenges the thinking that says it's wrong for Christians (particularly women) to promote their own work (blogs, writing, etc) because it's selfish ambition. AMEN TO THIS!

6. First World Problems Are Real Problems (posted September 28) This is a really interesting perspective.

7. The hardest day, or, Your life matters (posted October 2) "From the time we walked up to the nutrition area to the time we walked away, no one had come to help him. I didn’t help him. I couldn’t. I walked away with weak knees and a weaker promise. I will remember you. Your life matters."

8. Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate (posted October 3)

9. Why the Church needs to stop reaching out (posted October 5)

10. Idolatry of the Family (posted September 11) "When I read the Bible, I get the distinct sense that Jesus wasn’t interested in saving the nuclear family from a windy onslaught of liberal opinions. I rather get the impression that he was concerned with diving headfirst into the unvarnished messiness of the human condition and saving us— as individuals, as families, as communities, as people— from our own unhinged self-absorption and festering lovelessness."

11. Five Ways Christains Must Stop Failing the Poor (posted October 1)

Blogaround

The Blue Angels. Image source.

Interesting stuff from around teh intarwebz:

1. Recalculating: How Study Bibles Can Limit Bible Study (posted July 11). This post compares a study bible to a GPS device- it tells you the "answers" but in the end you have no real knowledge of the bible/city.

I had never thought about this before. I've always had a study bible, until earlier this year when I got a Chinese/English bible (so it's technically 2 bibles- no room for little notes). I think it's really important to know about the culture/ historical background/ writing style of the bible- but we definitely shouldn't think that the commentary in a study bible is going to tell us all the "answers."

There have been many times I read a bible story and I was like "what was with that?" (for example, when God was about to kill Moses but then Moses's wife saved the day by quickly circumcising their child- WHAT?) and looked for answers in commentaries or the notes in my study bible, and none of them addressed the obvious question: "WTF?" They either ignored the passage completely or said vague things.

2. So a Girl Walks into a Comedy Club... (posted July 10). This is so horrible. Comedian Daniel Tosh, in response to being "heckled" by a woman in the audience, says, "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now?" and other horrible things.

And the reaction on the internet: you have some people saying "I can't believe this- this is so horrible" and some people saying "but he has free speech, and you have to expect rape jokes at his show, duh. Oh and rape is funny."

There's nothing I can even say because this story is so obviously disgusting and appalling and terrible. I cannot comprehend the existence of a line of "reasoning" that says it was "funny" and totally okay for him to threaten her like that.

3. Here's something a bit nicer. This chicken stole some kittens from their mother and pretended they were her own. The pictures are pretty cute. Found it on reddit. And don't worry, the mom cat got her kittens back.

4. Pornography, Respect, and Responsibility: A Letter to the Hotel Industry (posted July 9). The authors request hotels to stop offering pornographic movies, because porn is degrading and is about treating people like objects. I don't know enough about this issue to say much, but it is worth reading.

5. Mandarin Chinese cover of "Oh Happy Day," a worship song. This is one of my favorite Chinese songs.

(Here is the link to youtube.)

"Oh, happy day, happy day!
你洗净我的罪 [you washed away my sins]
Oh, happy day, happy day!
生命完全改变 [my life is completely changed]
永远不再一样 [never again the same]"

6. This blogger is currently in Ethiopia, and she wrote about meeting the leaders of a village that is being assisted by Food for the Hungry. I found this very interesting because it shows some of how things actually happen in a practical sense when you give money to organizations like that. Also this is a cute story about meeting her sponsored child.

Any other cool links you want to share? What's going on on your own blog lately?