Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How a Buddha Got Its Sight Back (April 13) "The small circular cavities visible on their faces once held inlaid ceramic or glass pupils. These were fixed in place using a technique known as qianmu, in which the eyes were inserted into carved sockets. Over the centuries, as Yungang’s soft sandstone yielded to wind and rain, and later to war and theft, these fragile elements loosened, slipped free, and vanished."

2. Countdown Standard (April 13) From xkcd.

3. ‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon (April 12, via) "The tactic of mass destruction of homes in Gaza, where Israel has been accused of committing genocide, was described as domicide by academics, a strategy that is used to systematically destroy and damage civilian housing to render entire areas uninhabitable."

4. “They Hopped” — Ken Ham’s Answer to Kangaroo Ark Migration Based on False Information (April 11) "The only placental mammals that appear to have reached Australia before human arrival are rats. And rats, as anyone who has studied dispersal biology knows, are perhaps the single most capable overwater dispersers among all mammals. The fact that only rats made it is actually powerful evidence for how difficult the crossing was, not evidence that a land bridge made it easy." (Similar to the video I wrote about here: Kangaroos and Creationist Fan Theories.)

5. 【可一儿歌】050 小燕子丨KeYi Children's Song丨【三淼儿童官方频道】 For those of you who are interested in what kind of Chinese songs my toddler is listening to.

6. Newcomb’s Paradox occurs in real life (April 17) "I’ve never heard anyone say, 'I’m a one-boxer if the second box contains $1M, but a two-boxer if the second box contains $1,001.'"

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ‘One of the good ones’ obscures a dangerous lie (April 9) "So this man who had fled a country where he had been beaten and imprisoned by military police for no reason encountered America’s militarized police who beat and imprisoned him for no reason."

2. And this take from the Onion (parody site, not actually true): Melania Trump Slams Baseless Reports Linking Her To Wrong Wealthy Pedophile (April 10, via) 

3. The American Gulag (April 6, via) "Damas and Lunas Campos were among the roughly 73,000 people whom ICE currently holds in a tangle of detention camps sprawled across the country. And more centers are under construction. Many of them are former warehouses designed to function, as ICE acting director Todd Lyons put it last year, 'like Amazon Prime for human beings.'"

4. Trump's 'Praise Be to Allah' Easter Taunt Should Be Immediately Recognizable to U.S. Christians (April 7, via) "When the Roman state executed Jesus, according to John 19:19, it placed above his head a sign that read Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."

5. Conversion therapy is soul-crushing — and it doesn't work (April 2, via) "I know this because I lived it for eight years. The guidance I was given ranged from the practical — “Don’t watch gay porn” — to the outlandish — “By developing platonic relationships with other men, my sexual desires for them would disappear.” But what it truly does is try to disintegrate a person’s body, mind and spirit."

6. Hegseth leads Pentagon prayer service with faux Bible verse made famous by ‘Pulp Fiction’ (April 16)

7. ICE detains 86-year-old in US to marry long-lost love, family says (April 15)

Update on that: 85-year-old French widow detained by ICE returns to France (April 17)

8. Amid quarrel with pope, Trump strips Miami charity of funding to house migrant kids (April 15) "'It’s incredibly psychologically harmful to be moved,' sometimes as stressful as serious illness or a death in the family, Latham said. 'For little kids, moving repeatedly creates bonding issues and destroys the sense of both self and community. They don’t know who they are and where they will be' from day to day."

9. Minnesota has charged an ICE officer with assault for alleged actions during immigration surge (April 16) "One victim told state law enforcement the encounter led them to believe there was a "crazy person driving down the road aiming guns at people," the complaint says."

10. She Helped the Authorities Deport Her Abuser. Then They Deported Her Back to Him. (April 6) "Carmen’s lawsuit, ICWC v. Noem, accuses the Trump administration of ignoring deferred action status and removing survivors from the country anyway; the administration is also deporting people like Carmen who don’t yet have the status but may be eligible once USCIS reviews her application. The case was filed against ICE and USCIS and seeks to represent a wide class of survivors who applied for U visas, T visas, and other protections under the Violence Against Women Act."

Really rich that these MAGAs are claiming they're "protecting women" by being mean to trans people. Here's something that would actually protect women: Don't deport immigrants who are survivors of domestic abuse.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. If AI’s Native Language Is English, Where Does That Leave China? (March 12) "Many non-English languages are often what researchers call low-resource (e.g., Swahili) or medium-resource (e.g., Vietnamese) languages. This means there might not be enough diverse and high-quality digital texts — such as scientific papers, business case studies, or legal documents — available in those languages to train AI models on."

2. Conquest Narrative // Good Relation (March 16) A Jewish take on the biblical story of Joshua. "We could stop here, read the Conquest Narrative as both warning and foreshadowing, and move on. But there’s something that sits wrong with me about this solution."

3. Apples, Oranges, and Genomes: A Critique of Dr. Carter’s Claims about Human-Chimpanzee Genetic Similarity (March 12) "Christians deserve better than to be told that the latest Nature paper confirms their faith when in reality that paper’s authors see nothing in their data that challenges the standard evolutionary framework, and when the data actually strengthen the evidence for common ancestry by providing a more complete picture of genomic evolution across the ape lineage."

4. Why Complementarianism Isn’t Actually About Men Really Leading (March 18) "Male leadership in complementarianism is not about men leading, but instead about men being free from accountability and responsibility." Yeah this is what happens when you have an ideology that says the husband is the leader because he's a *man*, so he just *is*, regardless of whether he actually has any qualities that fit any normal definitions of "leadership."

5. The structure of ideological abuse (March 9) "You must never require someone to share their inner life with you without their free, full, informed consent."

6. Cesar Chavez abused and raped women and girls, NYT investigation says (March 18) [content note: rape] "In a statement posted to Medium on Wednesday, Huerta wrote: 'I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.'"

7. Chuck Norris, martial arts master and actor whose toughness became internet lore, dies at 86 (March 21)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony (March 13, via) "In the hearing, an ICE agent identified as JB testified that his team was given a verbal order to target eight arrests a day."

2. Hypothetical Legal Advice to SecDef Hegseth on “No Quarter” Statement (from Office of General Counsel) (March 14, via) Hegseth keeps talking about how enthusiastically he wants to commit war crimes. WTF? Can we impeach him or something?

3. FCC chair threatens TV networks amid Iran war coverage — but his warning rings hollow (March 16) 

4. Top US counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war, urging Trump to 'reverse course' (March 18, via) "'This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,' the letter continued. 'This was a lie.'"

5. One Year Later: The Effect of US ‘Chainsaw’ on Global Health (January 20, via) "To date, 757,314 people – the majority children – have died from the funding cuts, according to ImpactCounter, which tracks the effect of USAID cuts via sophisticated modelling tools."

6. Zionist Institutions Spread Antisemitic Propaganda (March 15) "Israel and Zionist orgs in the US have effectively been releasing huge amounts of antisemitic propaganda, linking Jews to the action of a violent nation state and its policies of sweeping censorship, apartheid, genocide, and war."

Also from Everything is Horrible: Dems’ No Tax Proposals Are Reactionary Garbage (March 17) "When people say that US society is not affordable, they are saying they’d like to pay less for groceries. But they are also very much saying that US society is constructed in a way that is inhuman, cruel, and un-navigable for everyone but the ultra-rich."

7. Judge ends asylum claims for Liam Conejo Ramos and his family, orders family's removal (March 18) "Attorney Danielle Molliver, with Nwokocha & Operana Law Offices, told MPR News on Wednesday that the firm is appealing the decision handed down by U.S. Immigration Judge John Burns. Molliver said an appeal could take months or years."

8. Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds (March 20)

9. ICE officers are taking DNA samples from protesters they've arrested (March 19) "'What you worry about is an officer making a decision in the field that a person committed a crime when they might not have. Maybe they were doing something protected under the First Amendment,' Kerr says. 'The officer says, 'I think you crossed the line, I'm going to arrest you.' It turns out the officer was wrong, but the DNA test has been conducted, and the information has been entered into the database. What then?'"

"This advice isn't meant for abusive relationships"

Silhouette of a man and woman holding hands. Image source.

[content note: abuse, rape, victim-blaming]

Here's a good post from Sheila Wray Gregoire: Why You Can’t Say: “This Advice Isn’t Meant for Those in Abusive Marriages”. Gregoire has written many blog posts and books criticizing the harmful marriage advice that is constantly being promoted in Christian spaces, pointing out how this advice is often so bad, it will make an abusive relationship even worse. And sometimes people respond by saying this criticism isn't valid because the advice was only intended for normal, healthy relationships, not for abusive relationships.

(Here's a link with a bunch of examples of Christian marriage books with this kind of unhealthy advice.)

In her post, Gregoire says this response doesn't make sense, because statistically, something like 25% of the readers of these books are in abusive relationships. And people in abusive relationships often don't recognize the abuse until years later. They just read these Christian marriage advice books, and try so hard to follow the advice and fix their marriages.

This is a really good point and I'm glad Gregoire is writing about it. I want to add a few of my own thoughts here.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Draco Malfoy becomes unlikely Lunar New Year mascot in China (February 4) Lol, this is very funny. So the Chinese translation of Malfoy's name is 马尔福 [mǎ ěr fú], where the 马 [mǎ] is the Chinese word for "horse" and the 福 [fú] means happiness and good fortune and is used all the time at Chinese New Year. So now, because it's about to be the Year of the Horse, apparently Malfoy is a Chinese New Year mascot.

Chinese culture is weirdly into puns, so I am not surprised that suddenly Malfoy is a thing for Chinese New Year. I haven't seen any of these decorations myself in the wild, but if I do I will definitely let you all know.

2. This xkcd about Groundhog Day. Also this one about proofs.

3. Purity Culture is Pedophile Culture (September 8, 2025, via Why It Matters that Jeffrey Epstein Recommended James Dobson) [content note: child sexual abuse] This is a blog series about how most child sexual abuse is committed by a father, step-father, relative, or family friend- this is true, we have statistics on this, and James Dobson knows this- but instead of doing something to help protect children from father/daughter incest, Dobson and other purity culture leaders teach an ideology where parents have total control over their children's bodies, where a daughter's virginity belongs to her father until marriage, where the father-daughter relationship is described in borderline-creepy romantic terms. Yikes.

4. How to be less awkward (January 7, via) "I learned an important lesson that day: when it comes to being awkward, the coverup is always worse than the crime."

5. How to Teach Textual Criticism To Fifth-Graders (July 23, 2025, via) "If Billy wrote his primary copy in pencil, though, and you feel like messing with them even further, get an eraser and do a fairly sloppy job of erasing everything he wrote."

6. Bad Bunny's Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show (February 9) I don't speak any Spanish, so I'm not really able to tell you if this is good or not. But I liked it.

7. They're cured of leprosy. Why do they still live in leprosy colonies? (February 7) "In fact, leprosy — also known as Hansen's disease — is one of the least contagious diseases there is. Ninety-five percent of humans are naturally immune and it's not easily contracted by the other 5%. Today, leprosy is easily cured with antibiotics, especially if detected early."

8. The vegetables on VeggieTales are not Christian (December 10, 2025, via) "Mike Asparagus is not a Christian; he is an actor who occasionally portrays Christian characters. You might compare Mike Asparagus to Mark Williams, who is not a practicing Christian, but still portrays the fictional character of Father Brown on TV[.]" I am so here for this.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Pardon the Corruption (December 2, 2025, via) "DOJ lawyers normally apply standard criteria for pardons, these include: post-conviction conduct, character and reputation; seriousness and relative recentness of the offense; acceptance of responsibility, remorse, and atonement; and need for relief. The ideal case was someone who had served significant time, especially for more serious crimes, expressed remorse, and faced real hardship because of their conviction. Now, the ideal case is a wealthy supporter of the President who would prefer never to see the inside of a jail cell for their crimes."

2. Lawyers allege Dept. of Homeland Security is denying legal counsel to Minnesota detainees (January 19, via) "'One ICE agent said if we let you see your clients, we would have to let all the attorneys see their clients, and imagine the chaos,' said another attorney who asked not to be named. 'And I said to that person, yeah, you do have to let all the attorneys see their clients. You do have to accommodate that. That’s the Constitution. You chose to put them here. I didn't bring this guy here, you did.'"

3. Epstein Files Reveal How Pathetic Richard Dawkins & Other Men Are (February 6, transcript here) The Epstein files give an inside look at some drama that was going on with sexual harassment in the atheist community.

4. Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting (February 1) So... this is strange and I don't know what to make of it. I saw this news a few days ago but decided not to share the link yet, because it was only ProPublica reporting it, so I wanted to wait and see if it would be verified by other big news sites, before I shared the link. In the article here, ProPublica says they found the 2 names by looking at "government records"- but I don't understand what these "government records" are and how they got them.

So I guess let's still be skeptical about this? I'm sharing the link now because this was published a week ago and there still seems to be nothing mentioned on the other mainstream news sites (except The Guardian), and I find that very strange.

5. The unfathomable Minnesota transcript that must be read, as it tells the reality of America today (February 5) "What -- what can the Court expect going forward, because this is obviously not workable, and it's certainly not an example of complying with the Court's order, unless you feel it is?"

6. Trump refuses to apologize after posting racist meme of the Obamas (February 7) "'It's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,' said Scott, who is Black."

7. Immigrant whose skull was broken in 8 places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked (February 7) "He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend's car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Bridge Clearance (November 28) From xkcd.

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

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Links related to the antichrist:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Michael Tait | CCM's Biggest Star Abused Others For Decades [re-upload] (August 2) 1-hour-46-minute video from Fundie Fridays. I've posted other links about this before. Here is a long video which explains the whole entire thing. It's really horrifying the way he sexually abused people.

2. Israel strikes Gaza as both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of breaching ceasefire (October 19) 

3. Story of The Split: a zine about ace community history (October 19) "This term—this specific string of words—does not come from the ace community. It comes from people framing ace community vocabulary writ large as a threat to gay people."

4. Never Too Late: China’s Takeout Apps Remove Tardy Delivery Fines (October 20) "Under the pilot rules, drivers will no longer face immediate cash deductions for late deliveries."

5. Enchanted Capitalism (2023, via) "In the past, humans generally believed that the metaphysical structure of the world was determined by God. In a capitalist society, money plays that role: without money, you, or at least your needs as a human being, don’t exist."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. No Kings, October 2025 (October 18) "If you google 'how to prepare for a protest', I think the advice is overly cautious, preparing for the worst.  But the median protest is entirely safe."

Also: Photos: Scenes from the No Kings Protests (October 18)

Photos: ‘No Kings’ Anti-Trump Protests See Massive Turnout Across the Country (October 18)

2. As tensions rise in Chicago, volunteers patrol neighborhoods to oppose ICE and help migrants escape (October 17) "Witnessing ICE arresting people in this area has become an almost daily occurrence over the last few weeks, Ivan says. A few days ago, he took a video of an enforcement operation happening at the nearby grocery store." (I posted a different link about this same group a few weeks ago.)

3. The Pro-Massacre, Pro-Segregation, Pro-Eugenics Administration (October 17) "Put another way, we’re no longer in the usual realm of Republicans whitewashing or downplaying the darkness in our history, e.g., the Supreme Court saying we don’t need voting protections because racism isn’t so bad anymore. This administration has upgraded the earlier model, showing through word and action that it believes the shameful sides of America’s past were, in fact, good—even examples to follow today."

4. In Shambles (October 20) "Petro tweeted that 'US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty in our territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to drug traffickers and his daily activity was fishing.' He added, 'We await explanations from the US government.'"

5. Unfettered and Unaccountable: How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force (October 18, via) "Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the official rattled off scenes that once would’ve triggered investigations: 'Accosting people outside of their immigration court hearings where they’re showing up and trying to do the right thing and then hauling them off to an immigration jail in the middle of the country where they can’t access loved ones or speak to counsel. Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country, to a prison where there’s a documented record of serious torture and human rights abuse.'"

6. Adelita Grijalva was elected to Congress. But she's having trouble doing her job. (October 20) "Democrats in both Washington and Arizona have ramped up pressure on Johnson to schedule Grijalva's swearing-in ceremony, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Friday sending a letter to the speaker demanding he swear in Grijalva during a short session, as the speaker has done in the past with Republican members-elect."

The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God"

Image text: "A personal relationship with God", with a hand reaching down from the top of the frame, and another hand reaching up from the bottom. Image source.

"He must become greater; I must become less." 

- John 3:30

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In romantic/intimate relationships, it can be a red flag when there's a big power difference between the 2 people. A relationship between a boss and an employee, between a professor and student, etc- these are recognized as totally unethical because of the power difference. It's a situation where one person can be coerced into things they don't want in the relationship, because the other person holds such power over their life. 

But what if it was a relationship between a person and God?

I'm talking about this in the framework of romantic/intimate relationships, because the evangelical concept of the "personal relationship with God" is supposed to be that intimate. Actually, more intimate than that, I would say. God knows you completely. God knows every thought in your mind. God knows all your motivations for all the choices you will ever make. And you are supposed to dedicate yourself completely to God. Sacrifice whatever things in your life God doesn't like. Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Pray more- however much you are praying now, it would be better if you were praying more. Pursue God all the time, with all you have. No matter the cost. 

It's hard to imagine a more one-sided relationship than that. God is perfect, we are the ones who are imperfect, so anything that goes wrong in the relationship must be our fault. We are sinful. We didn't pray enough. We didn't love God enough. We are weak, and we are flawed, trying to reach through the haze to access the power of God and the goodness and joy of God, if only we would get our act together.

Oh, and in this ideology, God is all you need. Anything else in your life, if you lose it, it will be okay because you still have God. Rely on God to be your everything.

When I had a "personal relationship with God"... it was... I loved him. I was obsessed with him. I wanted to do whatever he wanted me to do, and I was willing to give up anything. I wanted God to speak to me, I wanted to feel his power, I wanted to see the amazing things he was doing in the world, I wanted to be part of it. 

If only I could know what God was telling me, what God wanted me to do- but it was so hard to hear him. It was so hard to know what I was supposed to do. I worried about making the wrong choice- I was supposed to do what God wanted, but what if I really didn't know what that was? Why couldn't he just choose for me? Why couldn't he just take away all my choices- wouldn't that make it easier for everyone? We're working with a belief system that says there *is* one specific absolute right thing to do, and God knows what it is, and I don't know what it is but I'm the one who has to do it. And I tried so hard to sit and pray and listen to God, this distant and noisy communication channel- doesn't this seem inefficient? Why doesn't God just take over my life and make all my choices for me- wouldn't that be the ideal?

And the way I had to police my feelings because of him. If I was in a situation where I felt "God wants me to forgive this person" then that was it, I had to forgive them. I had to. God wants it, and God is absolutely always right. I couldn't think it through, couldn't process my feelings on it, because we already know the right answer. To seriously think it through would be to entertain the possibility of not obeying God. My obedience must be absolute- how can there be any hesitation, when we already know God is right? If I question it, if I have feelings of not wanting to do it, that would be a sin.

Many many times, I had feelings about something, and I had to stomp them down immediately because they weren't what God would want. To linger on those emotions would be a sin- and every little sin is "an infinite offense against a holy God." I deserve to go to hell for that.

When you're in a relationship with a person, and you disagree about something, there's some give and take. You both are right about some things and wrong about some things; you both should listen to each other and learn from each other. Even if it turns out one person was pretty obviously right and the other was wrong, you still talk it through and work to empathize with each other and understand each other. I don't even know if it's possible to have a healthy relationship with Someone who is always right. Like, you already know it's pointless to try to tell them why you disagree with them on something. You're automatically wrong. To continue to talk about your wrong feelings and wrong opinions, as if they matter, wouldn't that be a sin?

And I believed that, if anything bad happened in my life, it was okay because it was God's plan. He could do anything to me, and it would be right- somehow, from God's absolutely correct point of view, it would actually be a good thing, even if it seemed bad to me. 

Maybe God would take away the things- or people- that I loved, in order to teach me to trust him more. Yes, plenty of evangelicals have anecdotes along those lines- something bad happened to them, and they eventually came to believe that God had deliberately caused it, in order to teach them something. Or, perhaps God destroyed something because you sinfully loved it too much, and it was distracting you from loving God. Yeah, the God I believed in back then would totally do that kind of thing. He was a jealous God, and we believed that was a good thing.

OH AND I almost forgot to mention, this God believed I was disgusting and dirty and never deserved anything good. All humans deserve to go to hell right now, but luckily God has a bit of a weakness and loves us, so we're able to get a sort of temporary delay in getting the punishment we deserve- we're living our lives here on earth instead of going to hell right now. And for those of us who believe the correct things about Jesus, Jesus covers up our sin well enough that God can finally bear to look at us. So basically, my natural self is really bad, but fortunately Jesus is changing me into someone that can maybe kinda sorta please God. I just have to pray all the time and pursue God with everything I have. Any deviation from this, and I'm a dirty sinner that God can't even look at.

(And I won't even get into this other goal that the "personal relationship with God" is supposed to accomplish: We believe there is a spiritual world, which we can't see but it's more real than the physical world that we can see. And the closer your "personal relationship with God" is, the more in-tune with God you are, the more you will be able to sense the actual real reality of the spiritual world. Sure, we believe it exists, but it doesn't feel real- but if you have a really really good personal relationship with God, you can get to the point that the spiritual world does feel real- and that's what we should be trying to do. You want to get yourself to where it's intuitive to interpret things that happen to you in terms of what's going on in the spiritual world, and ignore the common-sense physical-world understanding of what's happening.)

I'm describing it this way, and it probably sounds pretty bad, the way God treated me, the way I sacrificed my feelings and independence and personality for him. But at the time, I was happy. I was so happy, and I loved God so much. I was happy because I 100% believed in this ideology that says God is right about everything. It was so hard, all the things I had to do to obey him, but I genuinely believed that those were the right things that I should do, and that any alternative would by definition be worse. And all that stuff about me being a dirty sinner, it didn't bother me because I believed it was true. If someone calls you a dirty sinner, why would you take offense to that, if you know that you really are a dirty sinner?

(Years later in therapy it turned out it DID bother me!)

I loved this quote from John the Baptist, talking about Jesus: "He must become greater; I must become less." I worked so hard, trying to be that perfect pure conduit that God's power could flow through, trying to get rid of my own weakness and sinfulness. I've heard evangelicals say- and I believed this back then- it's not that God is getting rid of your personality and uniqueness; instead, the personal relationship with God is the ideal environment where your natural personality can blossom, and you really become the person God made you to be, when you're following God rather than being weighed down by sin. And yeah, to some extent that was true. I did devote my life to God in a way that was uniquely mine. But living that way, I wasn't allowed to have any real choices. That really cuts off a lot of one's personality and identity- not being able to think about what you want, and choose to do something just because you want to, not because you're "supposed" to.

And this whole time, I chased God and wanted God and listened for God, and also I believed all the evangelical ideology. All the culture war issues, I had the "correct" evangelical view, and I was sure that God did too- of course he did. All this time that I wanted to know him, and I believed he knew me completely, I was totally sure I had the right beliefs about all these things, and I talked to him with the assumption that he believed those things too. It all fit together seamlessly- my personal relationship with God, and my taking evangelical talking points as if they were just self-evidently true.

My "personal relationship with God" fell to pieces as I gradually realized that so many evangelical beliefs were wrong- but God cannot change- God still believed those things, and I couldn't any more. He was revealed to be a heartless bigot who bought into misinformation.

It was so bad, going through that. My whole identity had been in this God, and he turned out to be a monster and I needed to separate from him. Everything I had thought was certain, everything I had thought I didn't need to worry about because evangelical ideology had a pat little answer, suddenly all these questions sprang up like a whirlwind, all these reasons that showed God is not worthy of worship. And my whole life I had believed I deserved to go to hell but I wasn't worried about that because Jesus covered me so it was fine- but now that I was leaving this God, the full burden of my sinfulness in God's eyes fell on me... I couldn't stop thinking about how I was so bad, I was so dirty- because I had always believed that was everyone's default state if they didn't have a "personal relationship with God."

And here I was, no longer even *trying* to have a personal relationship with God. Hard to imagine anything more dirty and sinful than that.

Yes, evangelicals very explicitly believe that if you do not have a personal relationship with God, you are not a Christian. You are going to hell.

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It may come across as strange that I'm talking about the personal relationship with God in the language we use to talk about abusive relationships. The idea that the partner with more power can coerce the other into things they don't want- well, that's totally different when it's God we're talking about. God is always good and right, so if God coerces you into something, that's actually a good thing. The control that is a bad thing in a human relationship is a good thing in the relationship with God. ... Right?

(And yes, it is very common for evangelicals to talk about God coercing them into things. Giving testimonies along the lines of "God wanted me to do [something] but I didn't want to. Silly me, I'm so sinful and selfish, haha, you guys know how it is, lol. And then God caused bad/annoying/inconvenient things to happen to me, until I finally gave up, and agreed to do the thing that God told me to do. God always gets us in the end, haha. [audience laughs]")

I don't think that any more, because I don't have a God I can trust. The God I used to worship, I don't believe in him any more, but he was very real to me back then, and he controlled my life. There are many gods that people believe in- how can you give up control of your life to a God if you don't even know if it's the right one?

I believe in a God now, and I love Them, but I don't want to talk to Them. The power dynamics are too... I just can't, I just can't deal with anything that hints in the direction of an absolute "this is what God wants me to do"- it feels coercive. I can't deal with "here's God's opinion on this or that topic"- because if I agree with it, I can arrogantly feel like I'm automatically right, and if I disagree with it, I should be forced to change immediately. The absoluteness of it is just incompatible with thinking with my own mind and feeling my own feelings. 

I need some space away from God, to think my own thoughts and feel my own feelings. Let me be wrong, let me figure things out on my own, let me change and grow. I don't want to talk to Them.

Any time I say something like "God wants us to [whatever]", that's my own opinion, based on a bunch of reasons that I've thought about. It's not "these words were handed down to us from heaven and are automatically right"- I don't want that in my religion.

The power difference between a person and God is so huge, and we are told me must give ourselves fully to him, give up everything for him, obey him even when it hurts. And I used to do that. But I can't any more. I'm never going to be in a personal relationship with a God again. It's not safe to have a relationship that intimate with that big of a power difference.

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Follow-up posts: 

My Parasocial Relationship With God 

Good Christians Know My Problem is I was Doing it Wrong

Related

They Prayed About It (a post about the #NashvilleStatement) 

"Moon Knight" and Boundaries With God

Used By God 

My Identity was in Christ

This is what a "personal relationship with God" looks like. Be very afraid. 

I Deserve God's Love 

God and the Overton Window

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How to Make a Great Government Website (2024, via) "First is the required interview. Most of the time it’s a phone call. Often they’ll call from a blocked number. They’ll send you a notice of when your interview is scheduled for, but this notice will sometimes arrive after the actual date of the interview."

2. Beauty and the Beast - How bad was A.I.D.S.? (October 10, via) 56-minute video. It's a queer reading of "Beauty and the Beast," as is overlaps with what was going on with the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.

3. AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet (October 7) 12-minute video from Kurzgesagt.

4. This post about Copilot in Excel getting a simple sum wrong. Apparently it's because the prompt didn't actually include any info about what cells the data was in. The AI doesn't give an error message or anything, so there's no way the user would have known that.

I haven't ever used Copilot in Excel so maybe I'm missing some key thing, but, uh... my reaction is, excel formulas update when you change the data, but if I'm using an AI for something that matters, I would need to carefully check the output. Having a human pay attention to the output every time it changes seems incompatible with having things update automatically (which is one of Excel's biggest strengths).

Doesn't seem great if every formula in every cell of your excel sheet has a mind of its own and you can't rely on them being right.

5. U.S. measles cases continue to climb, with outbreaks across the country (October 12) "Before widespread vaccination, pretty much everyone got measles in childhood. And 400-500 people in the U.S. used to die from it each year."

6. Hamas releases 20 remaining living Israeli hostages after two years in Gaza (October 13, via) "Parents were reunited with sons and children with fathers as those held were handed over to the Red Cross before finally rejoining their families with the help of the Israeli army."

7. Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia (Official Music Video) (October 6) I like this song~

8. Michigan Republican pushing pornography ban linked to porn site, records show (October 7, via) So it was discovered that Schriver, a politician who's been trying to ban porn, used to have an account on a site with sex webcams and the like.

I'm posting this because people are calling it out as obvious hypocrisy, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. In conservative Christian culture, porn is seen as this evil bad thing that all men are naturally drawn to. If they don't have good enough self-control and/or restrictions on their computer, all men would go and make an account on a porn site. A lot of talk about how so many men are "struggling" with porn use, "addicted" to porn, how it's such a bad thing but they're all tangled up in it because it's so tempting.

It makes perfect sense to me that a lot of these conservative lawmakers supporting "porn bans" are men who have been part of this "struggling with porn" subculture- partly interested in it and partly repressing themselves and feeling so much shame- they try to make laws to ban it as a way to fight against their own "porn addiction"- as a way to show God that even though they keep failing in their resolution to not use porn, on some level they really are trying to fight it.

9. The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake (October 6, via) "And I think, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a test case. If someone’s rights are really at stake and they haven’t faced punishment yet—but they fear that they will—it’s legitimate for that person to sue. But what ADF does is really finesse the facts, often to the point of fiction, to justify creating a test case that the Supreme Court can use to change the law."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. No Kings is on Saturday, October 18. Go out and protest if you can.

2. Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche (October 4) "Authorities seized people first, without probable cause, treating merely living in the same complex as suspected undocumented migrants as a crime."

Also from Jay Kuo: The Hunger Games (October 3) "After all, why should the Democrats agree to keep the government open for another seven weeks to negotiate a “budget” if the White House can later refuse to honor it? What’s to stop the OMB from doing exactly the same thing with New York City transit funds and blue state energy projects even after a budget is passed and signed into law?"

3. Van Nuys car wash owner files $50M claim over injuries sustained during immigration raid (September 26) "Shouhed says he was terrified as he tried to explain to the agents that his employees were authorized to be on the job, yet he says they took at least five of his employees away in handcuffs. He says he screamed that he is a United States citizen and had proof in his wallet, but he says they did not listen."

4. 'I'm done being afraid': How the shutdown has led federal workers to speak out (October 10) "They say the best organizer is a bad boss, and we all have the same bad boss."

5. ‘Bring her back’: Delaware abuse victim rescued from ICE deportation (October 13, via) "Before agents rummaged through her home, Isabela demanded they show her an arrest warrant. They refused and broke down her door anyway, injuring her son with the doorknob as they barged in."

6. “I Don’t Want to Be Here Anymore”: They Tried to Self-Deport, Then Got Stranded in Trump’s America (October 10, via) "ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen Venezuelans who said they wanted to take the U.S. government’s offer of a safe and easy return. They signed up months ago on the CBP Home app and were given departure dates. But after those dates came and went, these immigrants said they feel betrayed by what the president told them."

7. MIT Rejects Trump’s Bid to Institute Trans Bathroom, Athletics Ban (October 11)

8. Multiple airports refuse to play Kristi Noem video that blames Democrats for government shutdown (October 13)

9. This frog protester in Portland, from this link: Everyone Is Pointing Out This 1 Reason Why The Anti-ICE Inflatable Frogs In Portland May Be The Best Protesters (October 14)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. ChatGPT is the new appeal to authority for right-wing Christians (July 21) "Right-wing Christians perform an ecstatic devotion they call speaking in tongues, and then try to get ChatGPT to guess the language they used."

2. Did this Kid Use AI to Fake Research About How Great AI Is? (August 21) "But this is not another case of a few fudged numbers. This is a case of a guy who just straight made up an entire study and convinced the world that it was real."

3. Ministry of Violence (August 22) [content note: physical abuse of children] One of the biggest things James Dobson was known for was his teaching about how to "discipline" your kids, ie, kids are evil little tyrants, and if they are ever stubborn or disobedient about anything, that's a power struggle that the parent needs to win, by hitting the child until the child totally surrenders. He gave detailed advice on how exactly to go about hitting your children.

I didn't mention it in my post because that aspect of his teaching didn't have much effect on me personally. But yes, I'm glad people are writing about this. This was a huge part of what he was teaching.

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Image text: "In The Lion King (1997), Scar makes false campaign promises by guaranteeing to eliminate hunger, but actively makes the problem worse instead. This is the most realistic part of the movie." Image source. (Fact check: It was 1994.)

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Living in the shadows: Why stateless people fear Trump's immigration crackdown (August 21) "An estimated 218,000 people in the U.S. are stateless or at risk of becoming so, according to the Center for Migration Studies."

2. Judge orders DOJ to give more info on subpoenas targeting trans minors' medical care (August 21) "The subpoena in question, issued to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia1 (referred to in court documents often as “CHOP”), is extremely invasive — not only as to the medical providers but, relevant here, as to their patients."

3. Special Report: U.S. Immigration Policy and the Mental Health of Children and Families (July 25) "Forced family separations, particularly those resulting from immigration enforcement (e.g., detention, deportation), introduce acute psychological risks. A national study of 547 U.S.-born adolescents ages 11 to 16 found that having a detained or deported family member was associated with elevated risk for suicidal ideation, externalizing behaviors, and alcohol use (Roche, et al., 2020). In young children, abrupt caregiver loss has been linked to sleep and appetite disturbances, emotional dysregulation, and developmental regression (MacLean, et al., 2019). Forcible separation from a caregiver is recognized as an adverse childhood experience (ACE) that contributes to toxic stress, ambiguous loss, and long-term risk for psychiatric disorders (Roberts, et al., 2014; Lu, et al., 2020)."

4. Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained by ICE during Baltimore check-in (August 25) "'God is with us. God will never leave us. God will bring justice to all of the injustice we are suffering,' Abrego Garcia said, fighting through tears."

5. ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ may be shut down before Halloween. Florida already has a backup plan (August 24) "The Miccosukee Tribe, a Native American tribe whose reservation lies within miles of the facility, raised serious concerns about the impact the facility will have on their land and the environmentally sensitive area, including the plants and animals that inhabit the Everglades."

6. Concentration camps are not just part of our past, but our present and future (August 22, via) "...the most important aspect of recognizing this history is not so those of us descended from settlers or who have otherwise benefited from the legacy of colonialism feel shame, but rather 'to recognize that these tactics, [a division into] savage vs. civilized, continues to inhabit our society. At any moment, these sentiments are still there and this way of thinking emerges.'"

7. Trump Admin Bans Coverage For Trans Govt Employees, Mandates Conversion Therapy Coverage (August 21) "On Friday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a memo announcing that, beginning in 2026, all federal employee health plans will be barred from covering gender-affirming care—including hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries—for both transgender youth and adults."

Blogaround

Hi all, I'm on vacation, but here are some links

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Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021) "First, the good news: there are hundreds of studies on whether X causes Y. The bad news? We need to throw most of them out."

2. John MacArthur, dead fundamentalist (July 22)

3. OZZY OSBOURNE - "Crazy Train" (Official Video) I seem to remember I used to play this song in Guitar Hero. (Posting this because, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76 (July 22))

4. The NSFW game purge (July 24) "If a conservative group can apply pressure to remove certain NSFW games, what’s to stop them from removing, say, LGBT content? I am here to tell you that it has already happened."

Also from Siggy: Journal Club: Demography of Asexuality and Aromanticism (July 24) "We’re happy to see that this article is far more willing than most scholarly articles to cite gray literature, including blog posts, tumblr posts, livestreams, and YouTube videos."

5. His name is Mohammad Al-Motawaq. He is 18 months old. And he is starving in Gaza (July 27)

6. Get ready, Brazil. The 'good mosquitoes' are coming (July 26) "Remarkably, this bacteria and the virus that causes dengue are unable to coexist inside the mosquito that transmits this disease."

7. Freakier Friday | Official Trailer | In Theaters August 8 (June 7) !!!! A "Freaky Friday" sequel that has Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan again! Very excited about this!

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. The Gloves Are Off | "I Absolutely Love That Colbert Got Fired" | Trump & Epstein's Wonderful Secret (July 22) 

And from npr: This was the week that comedy pushed back (July 27) 

2. From Joy To Justice (July 22) "Before I dive in, a special thanks to all of the lawyers, journalists, activists, Congress members and ordinary citizens who did not let this story go and never relented, applying constant pressure upon our government to undo its original illegal renditions. Whatever post-hoc reason the government gives today for its actions, we all know that the 252 men sent to CECOT would still be there were it not for the hard work of so many."

And from npr: 'Hell on Earth': Venezuelans deported to El Salvador mega-prison tell of brutal abuse (July 27)

And: Ex-marine convicted of killing three people released to US in prisoner swap (July 23) What! So is he just free in the US or what? I haven't found any reporting on whether they're just letting him go free or what's going on.

3. We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory (July 22) I had some opinions about this article, maybe I will try to blog about it if I have time. I want to say, in Christian "sexual purity" ideology, I have *definitely* come across the idea that the ideal case would be girls who are around 15 years old, right at the point where they've started having their period and are therefore able to get pregnant, getting married to adult men who are well-established financially. It's a pretty fringe idea, and I haven't met anyone in real life who was seriously advocating this, but I have seen the idea floated and it's totally consistent with the logic of purity culture, which says that the MOST IMPORTANT THING about sex and marriage is that you need to not have sex outside of marriage (oh and also, the husband has to be the leader). Other concerns, like actually treating each other right, are nice to have, but the main thing is DON'T HAVE SEX till that ring is on your finger.

(See my posts All of the LOLs for this Sermon on "Marrying Young" and Why Marriage as a Private Contract is a Bad Idea and Roy Moore Dating Teenage Girls "For Their Purity" is 100% Logical in Purity Land)

I never thought of that as pedophilia, but wow, it totally is.

4. US-funded contraceptives for poor nations to be burned in France, sources say (July 25) "One of the sources with knowledge of the issue said that the Trump administration was acting in accordance with the Mexico City policy, an anti-abortion pact in which Trump reinstated U.S. participation in January. The pact forbids the U.S. government from contributing to or working with organisations providing funding or supplies that offer access to abortions."

5. Fearing coverage could change, some parents rush to vaccinate their kids (July 25) How will I explain RFK to my children

6. PEPFAR escaped the rescission ax. But where does it stand? (July 26) "Since its founding, PEPFAR has put more than $120 billion into combatting the virus in more than 50 countries. The result of all that money and effort, it says, is clear, citing accomplishments that are widely accepted: 26 million lives saved, a plummeting of HIV infection rates and a rebounding of life expectancy, especially in Africa."

7. Trump administration hands over Medicaid recipients’ personal data, including addresses, to ICE (July 28) "Many people sign up for emergency Medicaid in their most desperate moments, said Hannah Katch, a previous adviser at CMS during the Biden administration. 'It’s unthinkable that CMS would violate the trust of Medicaid enrollees in this way,' Katch said."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Find out why your health insurer denied your claim. (via) "ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes and documents your insurer used when deciding to deny you coverage. Get your claim file before submitting an appeal."

2. Israel kills 32 Palestinians waiting for food at US-backed Gaza aid sites (June 2, via) "Condemning the attacks, the Government Media Office described the GHF distribution sites as 'mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points'."

3. Ultramarathon runner breastfeeds her baby 3 times on her way to a surprise win (May 30) Wow! Good for her!

4. MIT class president barred from graduation after speaking out on Gaza (June 2)

The speech is very good! Watch it here: MIT Class President Megha Vemuri’s Viral Graduation Speech on Israel’s Genocide in Gaza (May 30) 

5. Penn & Teller’s Entropy: ‘The Weirdest Trick We’ve Ever Done’ | Penn & Teller: Fool Us | The CW (February 22) This is fun, I like this.

6. How six months in the West Bank undid a lifetime of Zionist indoctrination (May 30, via) "Through All That’s Left, I began traveling regularly to the West Bank with a perspective wholly different from my 18-year-old self. I joined Palestinian farmers in their fields, accompanied shepherds grazing their flocks, attended protests against Israeli state violence, and eventually spent nights — then weeks, then months — in Palestinian villages. As part of protective presence activism, my fellow activists and I documented settler attacks and military incursions, hoping our privileged status in the eyes of the state might deter violence."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. This:

Image shows 2 photos: Kermit the Frog and Trump. Image text: "Here we have a photo of a commencement address being given by a puppet controlled by someone else... and a photo of Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address." Image source.

Wait, Kermit the Frog gave a commencement speech? Apparently yes! Kermit the Frog delivers commencement speech to University of Maryland graduates (May 23)

2. The Compassion of Strangers (June 1) "Witness what happened in San Diego outside the popular Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park. When I.C.E. showed up in its vans to detain workers—not criminals, but workers—the community did not stand idly by. They began to fill the streets, block vehicles, and were eventually dispersed with flash bangs."

3. Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes (May 30) "President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as 'rapists,' 'savages,' 'monsters' and 'the worst of the worst.' When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down."

4. Make America ChatGPT again: Experts say AI was used to create RFK Jr health report that cited false studies (May 30) "Analysis conducted by The Post found that at least 21 links in the original version of the report to scientific studies or articles were dead."

5. SCOTUS allows the Trump admin to end legal status for another half-million people (May 31) "'[S]omehow, the Court has now apparently determined … that it is in the public’s interest to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims,' [Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson] wrote."

6. The Trump administration is making the country less safe for domestic violence victims (May 30) "Funding pauses, cuts, firings and information purges have destabilized the infrastructure that helps victims of abuse. At the same time, federal teams dedicated to preventing sexual violence are being decimated. Departments in charge of administering grants that fund shelters for those fleeing assault have been deemed 'duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary.'"

You know how MAGAs are saying all these things about how we need to stop trans people from using the bathroom, because we care oh so much about preventing violence against women? Well, no, the MAGA government does NOT care about protecting women. (I don't make any claims about the average Republican voter, perhaps on some level the average voter *does* want to protect women from domestic violence. I'm just talking about what we can see the government is doing.) They are making cuts to the programs that actually help. Their talk about "protecting women" is actually just about scoring points in a culture war.

7. US judge rules prisons must provide gender-affirming care for trans people (June 3) "Even if it had extensively studied the issue before deciding to stop gender-affirming care, the decision might still violate the US constitution’s eighth amendment’s protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment, Lamberth wrote."

8. Impact Metrics Dashboard (via) A website that estimates the number of deaths due to USAID cuts. Current estimate is that over 300.000 people have died. (Some background information about where this page came from: Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts)

Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?

Abigail kneels down before David. Image source.

I've been reading Wilda Gafney's book, "Womanist Midrash," which is a womanist perspective on the bible. ("Womanism" means feminism from a black perspective.) I was really interested in her take on the story of David and Abigail, so let's talk about that.

This bible story in found in 1 Samuel 25. Let me summarize: This is before David became king. Saul is still the king, but there is a prophecy that David will be king eventually, so he is on the run from Saul. David and his men send a message to Nabal, a wealthy man, asking for him to give them some food. The message says that David's men had previously helped Nabal's shepherds and servants.

Nabal replies that he doesn't know who David is, and he's not going to give him anything.

In response to this, David is mad. He tells his men to get their swords, and they're going to go and kill every man in the house of Nabal. 

Nabal's wife Abigail hears about this. She gets a whole bunch of food ready, and comes out to meet David as he is on his way to attack Nabal's household. Here's what she does:

When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal. And let this gift, which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.

“Please forgive your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles, and no wrongdoing will be found in you as long as you live. Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling. When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel, my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.”

It works. She's able to talk David out of killing anybody.

David said to Abigail, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who has sent you today to meet me. May you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands. Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace. I have heard your words and granted your request.”

Then Abigail goes home, and Nabal is drunk, so she doesn't say anything to him right then. The next day, she tells him what happened. The bible says, "About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died."

When David hears that Nabal is dead, he sends messengers to ask Abigail to come and marry him. So she does. Also, David marries Ahinoam of Jezreel. And his first wife, Michal, was given to a new husband when David was on the run from Saul.

That's the story.

Now, this is not one of the really well-known bible stories that you always hear about in church, but it comes up if you ever do a bible study on the life of David. So I've read some Christian leaders' takes on it. Back when I was evangelical, here's how I viewed this story:

First of all, Abigail is the hero of this story. She was very wise and took action to stop David from overreacting and killing the men of Nabal's household. She was courageous, and she knew what to say to convince him. Good job. We love Abigail.

And Nabal- we don't like Nabal. He's rude to David. Abigail calls him a fool. He gets drunk and doesn't even know that Abigail is out there fixing the damage he's done and saving his life.

That's how the Christian commentaries I read long ago viewed Abigail and Nabal, and Gafney's take agrees with them. No issues there. The really striking thing is the difference in how they see David in this story.

I won't say "this is evangelicals' view on the story of David and Abigail" because this is not a well-known bible story, so most evangelicals don't have any opinion on it at all. But I remember reading a book about the life of David, back then, and reading bible commentaries. Here's what they said about David: When David announces that he's going to go and kill every man in Nabal's house, David is definitely in the wrong. Nabal was rude, and inhospitable, and that was a very serious thing in ancient near east culture- but you don't go on a murderous rampage because of that. Not cool, David. Good thing Abigail was there to talk him out of it.

All of us make bad decisions sometimes, and it's very important to have someone in your life- a trusted friend or partner, perhaps- who can call you out on it. It's so important to have someone like Abigail, who can see that you're making a bad decision, and has the courage to tell you (in a nice way) to stop. And you should have the humility to listen to them.

That's was how I viewed this story, way back then. David was in the wrong, but in the sense of "we all make bad decisions sometimes, and the lesson we learn from this story is that we should listen to wise friends who call us out on it." David is still the hero of the story- the good guy, though he clearly has flaws- and Nabal is the bad guy.

But then I read "Womanist Midrash," and I'm like, why did I think David was the good guy?

It is chilling as a modern woman to hear the beloved David of Scripture prepare to blame Abigail and God for the lethal violence he would have inflicted upon her in mere moments if she had not the God-given sense to hurry to him with gifts and obeisance. As a womanist, I am reminded of the ways in which batterers blame their victims for their assaults, sometimes invoking religious justifications. Abigail is not a romantic. The valorization of Abigail's buying her life and those of the servants and/or slaves on her husband's estate with her self-abasement and his pilfered goods overlooks her vulnerability to David. The union of Abigail and David is no more romantic than those of battered women who do and say anything to calm their abusers in the hope of preventing today's beating. Abigail's generosity and submission is a last-ditch, desperate gamble masked in charm.

!!!!

She's right.

When Abigail goes and bows down and apologizes to David and offers him a bunch of food, people's lives are in danger. I always read this story like it was about "is David going to commit a very bad sin or not" but that's not it at all. It's "there is a violent group of men coming to attack us, what can I do or say to save our lives?"

From Abigail's perspective, if her family is killed, it doesn't matter if they're killed by a "bad guy" or by a "good guy who has flaws, none of us are perfect ya know."

And Abigail's whole speech about "oh I know you're such a good guy and God has chosen you, and wouldn't it be such a shame if there was a black mark on your name for committing mass murder"- none of that is genuine. She is just saying whatever she needs to say to get him to not kill her people.

Like an abuse victim, being sweet and nice in an attempt to talk a violent man out of hurting her. Even when it works, when he calms down and says "I was wrong," that's still not a good relationship. It hasn't actually solved any problems. It just means that he won't hurt her this time.

Why did I think Nabal was the bad guy in the story, and David was the good guy? David asks Nabal for food, and Nabal says "who tf is David"- that was bad, so Nabal is a bad guy. David responds by announcing to his army, "LET'S KILL HIM," so David is... well we love David, David is a good guy, but he wasn't perfect, as you can see here.

Isn't David worse than Nabal in this story? Why did I think Nabal was the bad guy and David was the good guy? Aren't they kind of... the same?

"Womanist Midrash" says:

Abigail may have learned how to negotiate with a violent man in her own home. ...

She is clever and savvy and knows her way around a power-hungry man's ego.

The way I used to view this story is like... superhero morality. You ever watch a superhero movie, and the hero kills a bunch of the bad guy's minions without even thinking about it, and that makes him so cool and badass, and then the villain kills the hero's best friend, and the movie treats that as such a big deal? We know and understand the hero, so his actions may be wrong or violent sometimes but we still love him and see him as a good guy. And we don't care about his victims.

That's fine when it's a fictional story, but evangelicals believe that these bible stories really happened. That there really were innocent servants in Nabal's household, that David was going to kill- and don't their stories matter just as much as David's?

At the end of 1 Samuel 25, Nabal dies, and David sends messengers to ask Abigail to marry him. I always viewed this as a happy ending, like "oh it's so great that she doesn't have to be married to that jerk Nabal any more, now she can be with David, who is a good guy!" But, was David a good husband? Why do we think he would be better than Nabal? 

And did she even have a choice? David asks Nabal for free food, Nabal says no, and David's response is "LET'S KILL HIM." I wonder what would have happened if David asked Abigail to marry him and she said no.

Why did I think David was the good guy in this story? It's a result of a view of the bible which holds up certain characters as heroes, role models of faith, and we believe we should learn from their example. And we say "he wasn't perfect, he did bad things sometimes, and we should also learn from that, it shows us what not to do" but where's the compassion for his victims? It's all about what actions an individual should or shouldn't take, to be a good moral person, with very little awareness of how his actions affect other people.

I'll end by posting this tweet from 2021. (The tweet is related to the story of David and Bathsheba, which is not the one I discussed in this blog post- David rapes Bathsheba, murders her husband, and then marries her. Then the prophet Nathan comes and tells him that was wrong. The typical Christian framing of this story is "well clearly David did a bad thing, he wasn't perfect, but isn't it so wonderful that God used him anyway?")

Imagine how Christians would respond to sexual abuse in our ranks if we had been taught that the Prophet Nathan modeled true leadership because he risked his life by rebuking the king for his abuses of power instead of being taught that King David is the model for leadership.

— Rev. Benjamin Cremer (@Brcremer) February 12, 2021

When Abigail's servants' lives were in danger, it didn't matter if David was "a man after God's own heart." It didn't matter to Abigail, who said whatever she needed to say to talk him down. Why did I think David was any better than Nabal in this story?

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

Womanist Midrash 
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus 
The Second-Worst Bible Story 
Michal wasn't here for David's worship, and now neither am I
Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?
David's Womanizing
The Bible and "Purity"

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Related:

For Rizpah (or, a post about human sacrifice in the bible)

"Christians Aren't Perfect" When It's Convenient