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

I got this book for my kids: I Want A Popsicle!: A Story About Dealing With Anger. My son likes it a lot. Here's my review of it.

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It's a book for Asian children about feelings

The author's website says, "We are on a mission to provide bilingual resources for Asian American families to explore and understand emotions." Currently, Asian characters are underrepresented in English-language books for children. And also, I've heard Asian American people say that their parents didn't really talk to them about feelings- and even in China, I've met Chinese people who said they find it more natural to talk about feelings in English, because they've had more exposure to it in English, and their parents didn't really talk with them about it much in Chinese. (This would apply to Chinese people who have significant English-language influences in their lives. Not the average Chinese person.)

I am a white lady so I don't have direct experience with this myself, but I really wanted to get this book for my kids because they are mixed-race white + Chinese.

So that's where this book is coming from- trying to address this gap. It's a book about anger, where the characters in the story are Asian. And also, the book is bilingual, available in several editions: English + simplified Chinese, English + traditional Chinese, English + Cantonese, English + Korean, and English only. (We have the English + simplified Chinese version, because mainland China uses simplified Chinese. This version also has pinyin, which indicates the pronunciation of Chinese characters in Mandarin.)

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The plot

The little girl in the story sees an ice cream truck, and she really wants a popsicle, but her parents say no, she should wait until dinner time. She is really mad about this. Her parents help her manage her emotions- take deep breaths to calm down, talk about how she feels, etc. They tell her it's okay to cry, and everyone gets mad sometimes, and they love her no matter what feelings she has. In the end (spoilers) she has a popsicle at home after eating her dinner.

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My son's opinion

My son really likes this book. I asked him why he likes it, and it turns out it's because he finds it very relatable. Sometimes he really wants a popsicle. ("Or ice cream," he added, helpfully.)

(Oh okay, I just read it to him again, and I asked, "Do you like it because of the popsicle, or because it's about taking care of your feelings?" and he said "taking care of my feelings" but probably he just said that because I made such a big deal out of it.)

I'm not sure how much he really *gets* the message about feelings, but I always tell him it's okay to be angry sometimes, or cry sometimes, and the important thing is we can make choices about what to do with our feelings. So that's good for him.

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Related:

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

"America: A Patriotic Primer" (Kids' Book Review)

Reviews of Christian Children's Books

I need to talk about this "selfish and small" nonsense

Image text: "Love yourself." Image source.

[content note: this is about patriarchal Christian men talking about sex. first paragraph is sexually explicit.]

So, on March 1, The Gospel Coalition posted some, uh, Christian patriarchal smut, about how a man pouring out his semen during penis-in-vagina sex is the ultimate example of generosity, and a woman allowing it is the ultimate example of hospitality, and this shows us the gospel, and Jesus also penetrates the church. (Yes really, that's what it said.) This was, uh, quite possibly the most WTF thing I had ever heard, and I wrote my response here: This May Be The Most WTF Christian Article On Sex I've Ever Read. My entire Twitter feed was full of people talking about TGC's article. It was such a terrible article.

Anyway, on March 6, Denny Burk (a big-name complementarian Christian) published a post, saying that he didn't agree with the explicit sexual language in TGC's article, but still, a correct Christian approach to sex should place a higher priority on procreation than on pleasure. Here's the excerpt that has people mad, from his post Taking a Dog by the Ears [archive link]:

The egalitarian rejection of asymmetry necessarily backgrounds procreation and foregrounds pleasure and physical climax. Physical climax becomes the necessary focus of egalitarian sex because it’s something that, at least in principle, can be mutual. This is the entire point of books like The Great Sex Rescue. Perhaps there is a place for focusing on such things, but when you do it to the exclusion of procreation, you turn sex into something that’s finally selfish and small, because it’s focused only on the couple, and not the bigger world that together they can create.

UGHHHH.

So, he's saying, sex is supposed to be about procreation, first of all. We shouldn't focus on pleasure, that would be "selfish and small." By some WILD COINCIDENCE, men's orgasms are a key part of this "procreation" aspect, but if we want to say "women's orgasms are just as important as men's", well, that's selfish and small. If procreation is the most important, men get to have orgasms, and women get to throw up a hundred times and get all their internal organs smushed during pregnancy. Just a total coincidence that it worked out that way. Not misogyny at all.

(As an aside: I gotta say, I was very surprised to see Burk saying sex has to be about procreation. I've never heard that idea from anyone in evangelical culture [complementarians like Burk are part of evangelical culture]- isn't that more of a Catholic thing? In my experience, evangelicals are like "there's this stereotype that Christians think sex has to be just for procreation, with the lights off and get it done as fast as possible, but that's not right! Actually sex is a beautiful gift from God and it's supposed to be fun!" Though, to be fair, I don't think Burk is saying that literally every time you have sex, you have to have the possibility of getting pregnant, you can't use birth control- I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying something more along the lines of, you have to have sex in a way that resembles the way that people get pregnant, though you don't have to literally not use birth control etc. Similar argument to how anti-gay Christians say marriage has to be a man and a woman, because that's where babies come from, and then people respond by asking "so, you wouldn't allow an infertile straight couple to get married? You wouldn't allow a straight couple that's, say, 60 years old get married?" and the anti-gay Christians respond, "well it's not like *every* couple has to literally be able to have babies, but they have to at least be different genders, to point to the idea of having babies." I am very curious about whether he believes, as many complementarian men do, that a wife should do oral sex or a handjob on her husband when her vagina is not available [having her period, just gave birth, etc] because men "need" it. That would not be consistent with the idea he's presenting here, that sex should at least have the appearance of the kind of sex that leads to pregnancy.)

Ugh, okay. Ugh. Usually my approach is to present some logical arguments about why some idea is right or wrong, but I'm not going to do that here. Instead, I just want to talk about why this makes me so mad.

Okay, so, here's why it makes me so mad: There's no way to argue against this "selfish and small" idea, from within the evangelical ideology that I used to believe. It's a whole logically-consistent system, where one of the foundational axioms that it's built on is that we can't just enjoy things because we want to. That would be "selfish." If you're doing something that makes you happy, you have to have a more holy-sounding reason than just "it makes me happy, and that is a good thing in and of itself." No. That's "selfish." Maybe even sinful. 

Your happiness can only be a byproduct of obedience to God. You seek God first, you obey God, and as a result, you have a happy life- but of course that's not the motivation, that would be selfish, of course the motivation is that we obey God's rules simply because it's the right thing to do and we love God so much, and then as a cool side-effect, it makes us happy.

It really is an entire system where people are not allowed to listen to their own feelings and their own desires about what they want. You're not allowed to pursue what you want unless you have a sufficiently religious-sounding reason why it's what God wants you to do.

So... why would female orgasms matter, in that system? Simply because a woman wants to have an orgasm... no, that's not a good enough reason. That's "selfish and small." And for cis men... I mean, they do have a "good enough reason" why they need to be having orgasms, it's because it's necessary for pregnancy. But cis women... sure it's fine if the orgasm happens as a side effect of your very godly hetero having-sex-in-the-way-God-intended, but you can't prioritize it.

My point is, the reason this makes me so mad is that you can't argue with it, from within that system. Makes me feel trapped, just thinking about it.

All you can do is fall into depression, and then go to therapy, and have your therapist tell you over and over that you have to accept yourself, you are good enough in yourself, you can't base your self-worth on anyone else's opinion (not even God's). Until you finally believe it. 

And then you come out of it mad as hell. When you realize for the first time what they took from you. You weren't allowed to want what you want. You weren't allowed to feel your feelings. You weren't allowed to enjoy things simply because you enjoyed them. You had to be suspicious of everything that made you happy, because it might be a sin.

Scene from "The Avengers" where Bruce Banner says, "That's my secret, Cap... I'm always angry" before turning into the Hulk. Image source.

This isn't about orgasms. (I'm asexual.) This is about an anti-human ideology where you have to "put God first." Has to be in this order- "Jesus, others, yourself." You can't just be happy. You can't just pursue what you want- you have to make yourself believe that "God called me" or whatever.

I'm angry because Denny Burk said "selfish and small" and I know I have no answer that would mean anything at all from an evangelical perspective. It's an ideology that does not consider human happiness to be an inherently good thing. The only good thing is following God.

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Related:

Christianity and "Selfishness": Here are the Receipts 

I Deserve God's Love

Accepting Myself (or, I'm Great, and It Doesn't Matter What God Thinks) 

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

On Telling My Chinese Husband What I Want For Christmas

On HR and Being a Legal Immigrant (Don't Turn the Other Cheek)

Meme that says "Brace yourself: HR just sent out another email." Image source.

Recently at work, HR sent out an email about an annual tax form that everybody has to submit. I've done this in the past- there's an app, you just log in and your salary and tax information is already there, and you click "submit." It's quite easy.

So I tried to log in, but I couldn't. A week later, HR sent out a reminder about it, and I tried to log in again- 1 day before the deadline. Still no luck, so I emailed the HR manager, Jessica, to ask for help.

I got a reply from another HR employee, Anna, telling me that foreigners can't do it on the app, and I have to go in person to some tax office and bring my passport, work permit, etc. And as I said, the deadline is tomorrow.

Ugh, I was so mad! The way she just dumped this on me like it's no big deal, like oh guess what, because I'm an immigrant I have to do this whole complicated extra task, and she just leaves me to it and moves on with her life, while I try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. Like it's totally fine for HR to just tell me, 1 day before the deadline, oh by the way here's the address for the tax office, have at it.

SOOOO MADDDDD.

Here's the way I see it:

Things that are my job:

• Be a software engineer

Things that are not my job:

• Understand all the legal implications of me, an immigrant, working as a software engineer in China

Nope, not my job. That's HR's job. And I've worked at several companies where I was the only international employee, so I've run into this kind of problem a lot. Something I have to do that's different than the Chinese employees, and HR doesn't have a freakin' clue. (A while back I wrote about the worst one.)

I believe in boundaries now, and that means, since I'm the one who will suffer if this bureaucratic stuff isn't done correctly, I have the right to push HR about it as much as I feel is necessary. If, for example, my residence permit doesn't get renewed on time, which of us is worried about getting deported- me, or Anna? See, even though it's Anna's job to do it, I'm the one who suffers massively if it doesn't get done right. So I no longer just "trust" that HR knows what they're doing and they're going to take care of it. No, I tell them "it's time to start the process of renewing my residence permit" and then Anna replies "we don't have to start yet, it only takes 2 weeks" and then I get angry as I remember all the past renewals where various bureaucracy problems came up and it definitely took MORE THAN 2 WEEKS- but I don't show her I'm angry; I need to be polite and calm and professional. But I don't accept her nonchalance about it, and I push her to get started on it now. And if she doesn't, then I bring my manager into it and tell him that the process of renewing my residence permit every year is very stressful for me so I want to get it done as early as possible.

I'm the one whose worst-case-scenario is getting kicked out of the country- even though it's HR's job to do this stuff. So I get to decide how seriously HR needs to take it. That's boundaries.

Anyway, I'm usually good at guessing which legal policies won't apply to me and then asking HR to clarify what I should do. (Even though it should be THEIR JOB to notify me, without me asking.) This tax thing caught me off guard, though, because in previous years I just used the app like everyone else and it worked. Apparently this year the system is different. 

So, as I said, I was SO MAD.

Going to the tax office isn't a big deal. I can do that. I can accept that I need to do that, as an immigrant, even though the Chinese employees don't. That's fine, I understand that for practical reasons, that's the way the world works. The reason I was mad, though, was because THIS IS NOT MY JOB. Figuring out how my specific situation as an immigrant should be handled is NOT MY JOB. That's HR's job. If they had told me 2 weeks earlier, that would have also been fine. But 1 day before the deadline, just mentioning it like it's no big deal, no, that's not okay. That's not fair to me. I deserve to be treated better.

And then I thought, you know, if I was still in a "personal relationship with God," I would have accepted it. "Submit", "turn the other cheek", "put others first" and don't stand up for yourself because that's "selfish." I would have just told HR "okay" and gone to the tax office. And then I would remember, and be mad about it again every time HR acted like it was no big deal to just put new requirements on me because I'm an immigrant. Get more and more mad about it every time, as the accumulated list of injustices against me that HR never even acknowledged grows longer and longer. Every time, remembering every single previous incident and how I was wronged and I just suffered it without standing up for myself.

I would have thought that's what a good Christian should do. And that I'm even more sinful for continuing to have feelings about things that happened years ago.

No, now I believe in boundaries and standing up for myself. Now I believe in "that's not my job" and "I deserve to be treated better than this." I didn't know about those things before. I used to just trust whatever HR said, and do whatever HR said.

So anyway, continuing on with my story. Anna came to my desk to ask me if I'd gotten her email, and I tried to take the polite approach of "I'm concerned about if I go there tomorrow and there are problems and I can't get it done" rather than the more blunt "this is your job, not mine." Anna said oh the tax office isn't that far away, you could go and come back in less than an hour, hey how about today you go there and confirm what materials they need you to bring, and then tomorrow you go again.

And I was like "... you want me to go twice?"

And I was like "how about YOU go today and confirm what materials I need to bring, and then I go tomorrow?"

And she said she can't go, she doesn't have time. And I said WELL YEAH I can't go, I don't have time.

(But, actually, I did have time. Or rather, by "I don't have time" I did NOT mean "there are extremely urgent things I need to do today and it's just not possible to rearrange my schedule", I meant "I am not willing to treat this as a higher priority than the other things I was planning to do today [because, even though those things aren't very urgent, this is NOT MY JOB]." So. That is also boundaries.)

So then I was more mad at Anna, and I said she should have told me about this 2 weeks ago.

So later I went to the HR director, Jessica's, office to talk to her. My manager, Han, happened to be there, so that was good. So I told them "I'm concerned about what if there are problems when I go tomorrow and I can't get it done" and we talked about it and they offered suggestions and help, and Jessica called Anna in and told her to call the tax place and get a better idea of what exactly I need to do. I really felt a lot better after this conversation, because Jessica and Han acknowledged that this really is a lot of trouble for me, and really I should have been told about it earlier (but that HR didn't know either because it's a new policy).

Then I was not mad any more, because I felt like they understood my situation and how it's not right to suddenly spring this task on me 1 day before the deadline. See, that's really all I wanted- for them to acknowledge that this is an inconvenience for me and try to help make it easier if they're able.

Anyway, the next day I went to the tax office and submitted the form, and it all went well. And when I got to work, Han asked me how it went. Very nice of him to ask and show he cared.

So, in the end it worked out.

And I'm left thinking about what if I didn't stand up for myself. What if I didn't go talk to Jessica and communicate (politely!) about how stressful it is for me to suddenly be told I have to do these things. I think about things that have happened over all the years I've worked in China- things that HR screwed up and left me to deal with, and I just did what they said and didn't stand up for myself and didn't escalate to their manager. And so I felt like nobody cared, and life just moved on without anyone acknowledging it, and so I'm still mad.

That's what happens when you "submit" and "turn the other cheek" and "trust God to meet your needs."

But instead I communicated about how I felt, and people listened and helped me, and I feel better now. The problem is resolved- and I don't mean the tax form thing, because I would have resolved that anyway. I mean the problem of HR suddenly dumping a new inconvenient task on me just because I'm an immigrant, and acting like it's fine to treat me that way.

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Related:

This Is the Stuff That Happens to Us Immigrants 

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

Blogaround

Scene between Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner from the first Avengers movie, except the image has been edited so they are both wearing Santa hats. Rogers says, "Doctor Banner ... Now might be a really good time for you to get merry." Banner says, "That's my secret Cap. I'm always merry." Image source.

1. “Father, Husband, Brother, or Son” Is for White Men (posted December 13) "Conservatives talk about a “war on men,” and then they turn around and accuse migrant caravans as being mostly made up of men as though men are less deserving of peace, and safety, and employment, and they, in fact, are the ones waging a war on men."

2. 7-year-old migrant girl taken into Border Patrol custody dies of dehydration, exhaustion (posted December 13)

3. ‘No matter what the laws might be, you would honor yourself for doing it’ (posted November 24) "The ICE agents operate with support from exactly the same kind of white Christian who supported the slave-catchers in 1858."

4. A Christianity That Makes Room for Rage (posted September 28) "I slowly came to understand that if I was going to remain a Christian, I needed to find a path that had room for the rage and grief I carried with me as a rape survivor."

5. Anne Graham Lotz: My Breast Cancer’s a Sign That an Attack on Israel is Imminent (posted December 15) "If that’s her logic, she’s going to be shocked when she learns how many other people are also born in 1948." Yep, I know all about how the "personal relationship with God" strand of Christianity can lead a person to think the whole world revolves around themself.

6. You Can’t Be Autistic Because. . . You Speak (posted September 12) Debunking this myth~

7. Lament for the Slave Girl in Pharaoh’s House (posted November 19) "It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She didn’t have a lamb, or doorframes. She couldn’t even call her body her own."

8. Advent Calendar Day 5: The quest for the canonical Santa Claus (posted December 5) "Why should “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” be more authoritatively canonical than, say, “Here Comes Santa Claus”? I’m not sure, but I think it is — just as I think the Tim Allen Santa Clause movies are, while amusing, heterodox and non-canonical."

9. Today I learned the Newsboys did a cover of "All I Want For Christmas Is You." Nice.



Note: This is the Newsboys as in "Michael Tait is the lead singer of the Newsboys." Those of us 90's kids who grew up evangelical may remember when Peter Furler was the lead singer of the Newsboys, and Tait was part of dc Talk. Good times. Here is a Newsboys Christmas song from that era:



10. A Christmas Miracle: Speaking in Tongues at the Company Party (posted December 11) "To this day, I don’t think that hypnotist realized that he had assigned me the role I had been born to play."

Don't ever tell me it was a good thing. Don't ever tell me it was God's plan.

Image text: "If this is God's plan, God is a terrible planner." Image source.

Note from Perfect Number: So I wrote this post a long time ago, but I didn't publish it back then because the whole situation sucked and I didn't want to talk about it. And it felt too personal to publish something with such strong negative emotions. Luckily, my life is much better now and I don't have those particular emotions about it, so it feels less "personal" to publish it now.

And on Monday I published my review of VeggieTales "The Ballad of Little Joe", which was a story about being disgustingly optimistic when bad, unjust things happen to us, believing those things are "God's plan" and we just need to accept the situation and trust God.

My story here is sort of the "other side" of the story we saw in "The Ballad of Little Joe."

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[content note: this is an angry post about losing my job, and Christian platitudes]

A while ago, I lost my job. And I didn't really tell many people about it, because I was afraid there would be people who wouldn't believe me- and if someone doesn't believe me, they don't deserve to hear any details about my life. And if I have to do the work of offering evidence and then waiting for whoever's listening decide if it's my fault or not, decide if they're going to be on my side or not, that's more emotional trauma that I'm not willing to put myself through.

So what happened is, the company illegally broke the contract, it came out of nowhere, and they said a bunch of lies about me. But now I'm at a different job, a much better job, and I have a higher salary now.

And I stay out of Christian culture as much as I can nowadays, so fortunately I haven't had anyone say any ****ed up stuff about how this is God's plan and everything worked out so it's all good.

See, there are Christians who would look at my old job and my current job, look at the amount of money, and say that I'm in a better situation now, so actually this was a good thing that happened to me. And God did it.

And just ignore everything in between. As if that doesn't matter. As if, because I have a better salary now, everything is fine.

I am not fine.

You think I'm ****ing fine? You think there are no long-term consequences when people that I trusted suddenly turn evil? You believe in a God who thinks that emotional damage isn't a real thing- or at least, its effects can be totally negated by a big number on a paycheck?

F*** that God.

I am not fine. Now I can't trust anyone who works in HR- are all HR people secretly evil? They act nice, but are they suddenly going to screw me over? And I feel scared I'll lose my job again- everything seems fine, but I thought everything seemed fine last time too.

Any time I'm at work and somebody says, "come here, we're having a meeting," I feel nervous.

If you think this is something that God wanted to happen to me, and it's all good because I have more money, then **** you.

I'm an immigrant. I have a residence permit which allows me to be in China legally. But that's dependent on having a job. When I lost my job, I had a few months before my residence permit would expire, and that meant I only had that much time to find a new job and navigate the sea of bureaucracy that is China- and if I'm not able to get a new residence permit in time, I have to leave the country.

A loving God does not do that to people.

It "all worked out", okay, sure, it "all worked out." I did find a better job and get a new residence permit. And Christians would tell me I should have trusted God instead of being so worried- see, it "all worked out", and that means I was wrong to be worried. Well f*** that. As if it's totally fine for God to just throw someone into an overwhelmingly stressful situation, because God knows it's going to "all work out" and there's not *actually* any danger of getting kicked out of China. Like God is allowed to just do anything they want to people, and then we're the ones who are wrong for having a completely reasonable emotional reaction to what is objectively a very stressful situation.

God knows it will "all work out" so any worry and stress we suffer is our fault, we're the ones in the wrong for not "trusting God"- yeah, f*** that. It's like threatening someone and then laughing at them because haha, what are they so scared about, they should have known you didn't really mean it. That's what all this "trust God" crap is about.

It's like hiding your friend's phone and then watching them panic about it for a few hours. You let them think it got stolen, and then after a while you give it back. See, everything is fine. You knew all along it wasn't stolen and there was nothing to worry about. Therefore you did nothing wrong and your friend was wrong to be worried.

Well, Christians would say, this is God's way of helping you leave a job that wasn't good for you and end up in a better situation. Okay, if that's true, then God really sucks at this. Why can't God just COMMUNICATE? Why can't God tell me "hey you could totally look for a better job"? Does God seriously think the best way to move me from job A to job B is to have a bunch of people that I thought cared about me suddenly turn evil and say a lot of nasty lies about me?

F*** that God. Seriously. F*** that God.

Does God seriously think that having me all worried about GETTING F***ING DEPORTED is a perfectly reasonable way to "help" me change to a better job? **** that.

It's like if you're just standing around and somebody comes up and starts hitting you, hitting you, over and over and you try to get away from them and they keep hitting you over and over, and then you see a huge truck drive past, right where you had been standing... See, this random hitting person saved your life. If they had just let you stand there, you would have been hit by a truck. You would have died. And so, even though they hit you and it hurt, they did nothing wrong because your current situation is better than what it would have been if they had not intervened at all. That is, apparently, the standard we hold God to- no matter how much pain God puts you through, as long as you end up better off than you were before, God did nothing wrong. **** that.

And I keep reasurring myself, it's okay to be angry at the people at my old job who did this. It's okay to hate them. It's okay to never forgive them. (I plan on never interacting with them ever again- if I were going to actually do something to them, then I would need to spend a lot of time seriously thinking about the difference between justice and revenge- because I believe in justice but not revenge. But I'm not going to do anything to them. Just hate them by myself, that's all.)

And you know who else can **** off? Christians who want to tell me I need to forgive, or some crap like that. **** you, and stop policing people's emotions. With an extra special "**** you" to the Christians who are like "there's a lot of misunderstanding about what 'forgiveness' means, it doesn't mean deciding what happened was okay, it doesn't mean reconciling, it means [word salad about doing it to benefit yourself]." No. "Forgiveness", as I was taught, was about policing emotions, rules about what I'm allowed or not allowed to feel when someone hurts me, and I'm not interested in reclaiming that word. And it's useless to claim a word doesn't *really* mean what most people understand it to mean. They only do that because they believe forgiveness is required by God, so then they try to change the meaning of "forgiveness" so it's not such an emotionally unhealthy thing to require from people. Yeah, how about instead you just leave me alone.

And then there are Christians who are like, "well maybe God was trying to teach you something." Well maybe **** you. If God was "trying to teach me something", God failed, and that's not my f***ing fault. In that ideology, God causes bad things to happen to people, intending that they will learn some kind of deep life lesson- and then if I end up all angry instead of learning said life lesson, it's my fault, God did nothing wrong. COME ON!

How are people getting away with this "maybe God was trying to teach you something" crap? Spinning it like "God did this thing to you, and it was for good reasons, you're the one who is in the wrong for not seeing that," when, if it really was true that "God was trying to teach me something," that would mean God really really ****ed up, because I didn't learn some nice lesson, instead I have anxiety about my job, and have a hard time trusting people. YEAH GOOD JOB GOD.

**** all that. **** those nice platitudes about God causing bad things to happen to me because of some mysterious good reason. **** all the Christians who are so attached to their "God has a plan" ideology that they don't care about my emotional health- claiming that the trauma I went through doesn't matter because I have more money now, or that I'm the one who did something wrong by not "trusting God."

I'm an optimist, okay? I can compare my current situation to my old job and see things that are better now, and choose to focus on those things. That's good, that's a strategy that people use to cope with bad things that happen to them. But that doesn't mean, in a literal sense, that what happened to me actually was a good thing. If you start claiming that, that's when you get into ideas that are really really damaging.

If "my life is better now because of events that were directly or indirectly caused by this thing happening" means that the thing was A Good Thing, then the only way that I can claim that losing my job was A Bad Thing is if my life completely and totally sucks forever after. And I do not want my life to completely and totally suck, so I'm making the best of the situation I'm in, always working toward a better future. And I will not let anyone use my success as evidence that what happened wasn't actually bad, that God did it to me on purpose in order to help me get the good things I have now. F*** all of that.

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Related:
How Suffering Did NOT Bring Me Closer To God
God of Bad Snaps

In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic) [part 5]

Bruce Banner arrives at the Battle of New York on his scooter. Image source.

[part 1]
[part 2]
[part 3]
[part 4]

Bruce was angry. So angry. This wasn't Hulk, it was Bruce. As his regular self, not hulked out. But he was angry.

As soon as he said the words, "The other guy loves me more than God," he knew. He knew his personal relationship with Jesus was over. And he knew that Jesus had never loved him; he only wanted to use him for his own purposes. (Puny god...) He knew it was wrong, all those things God had said about him being a worthless, dirty sinner. He knew Hulk was right- "God hate Banner."

He clenched his fists. He growled. Angry Bruce was kind of pathetic compared to angry Hulk. Angry Bruce didn't break anything. And right then, he almost wanted to turn into the Hulk, that's how angry he was.

What God did to me, he thought. Part of him wanted to cry, and part of him wanted to smash.

So that was the beginning of his healing. It would take a long time for him to realize the extent of "what God did to me."

-----------

So Bruce left Jesus behind and started the process of learning to love his "flesh." He slowly came to terms with the idea that his body is good and his emotions are good. And the other guy is good. Hard to even wrap his mind around it. He had spent his whole life fighting himself, and now he was doing the opposite. It was so weird. Good, but weird.

Sometimes Bruce was angry, and sometimes Hulk was angry. And there was that one time he heard part of the Lifehouse song "Everything" and flashed back to those dark days when he prayed on his knees and beat himself up and called it "worship" and surrendered his whole life to a God who thought he was trash. Within seconds, his skin was turning green, and the Hulk roared to life. When he calmed down, he saw the damage, the places where he had smashed the walls. God did worse to me, he thought. God damaged me more than the other guy ever damaged anything.

There were times when he felt so free, and times when he felt terrible. He felt alone and lost because his personal relationship with God was over. But, he reminded himself, he wasn't really alone. He had the other guy. He remembered that night when he tried to end it all and the Hulk saved him, when the Hulk ran through the woods screaming and smashing and preaching the gospel to him.

That's real love.

Love implies hate, right? When you love someone, you hate anything that tries to hurt them. That's why Hulk hated God. And now Bruce loved himself, so he hated God too.

Love doesn't mean just being nice all the time. Sometimes love is fiercely protective. Sometimes love is angry.

Sometimes love is an enormous green rage monster.

-----------

Bruce rolled into the city on a scooter and found where the other Avengers- Captain America, Ironman, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye- were fighting aliens. He had come because he knew the earth needed him. Well, the earth needed the other guy, at least.

Destruction everywhere. The streets were filled with debris from the battle. As a huge flying monster came towards them, Captain America said, "Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Angry. Angry like a man who had spent years devoted to a God who never loved him. Angry like someone who just realized how effed-up it is that he was taught to hate his own body. Angry like when you see a good person- an amazing, beautiful person- who's been convinced that they're dirty and worthless. Angry like a man who attempted suicide because he just couldn't fight his sin anymore.

"That's my secret, Cap, I'm always angry," Bruce answered, as he morphed into the Hulk.

In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic) [part 4]

The Hulk, screaming. Image source.

[part 1]
[part 2]
[part 3]

[content note: suicide attempt, abusive Christian theology]

He spit out the bullet and crushed the gun easily. Then he raised his head and screamed louder than he had ever screamed before.

HULK ANGRY.

He yelled, he roared, and the sound echoed through the night air. He pounded the ground with his giant green fists, flinging dirt everywhere. "Banner! Banner!" Hulk punched and smashed again and again. Hitting hard, shaking the ground. It hurt his hands but he didn't care.

He was desperate. He was angry.

He took off running as fast as he could, through the dark forest, roaring. "Banner, save Banner!" They wanted to kill Banner. And it made Hulk angry. Running, jumping, bounding among the trees, punching everything he came into contact with. And screaming, yelling, unintelligible, groans which words cannot express.

He stopped at the top of a hill and roared again. "My Banner!" Angry. More angry. "Banner!" The sound carried over the hills and trees.

Then Hulk was jumping and running again. "God hate Banner!" He screamed it. He grabbed a tree, pulled it out of the ground, and threw it. "Banner! Listen! God kill Banner!" He pulled up another tree. "Hulk hate God!" And another. And another.

Hulk threw himself on the ground and kicked and pounded. "No!" He screamed and thrashed around more. "Hulk hate God."

He pushed himself up to a kneeling position. Hot, angry tears ran down his face. "Hulk hate God."

The Hulk screamed one last time and collapsed from exhaustion.

-----------

A few hours later, Bruce woke up. With his clothing ripped to pieces.

I'm alive, he thought. His whole body felt sore. What happened? he thought. God... He stopped. He didn't want to pray. It didn't feel right. Suddenly he felt like maybe he didn't want God to know all his thoughts. Maybe he didn't trust him.

So he was alive, and that meant he was going to have to go back into the city, back to his normal life. He groaned, overwhelmed. He had thought he was done, that he had a way out, but of course the other guy ruined it. Slowly, he stood up and began walking.

But maybe it wasn't so bad. He breathed in, felt the fresh air. He thought about his body getting oxygen. His body's needs, and the amazing biological processes that kept him alive and provided oxygen to his brain. That's a good thing, he thought. It was so simple, but he had never really thought about it.

He looked at his hands, and they looked perfectly fine. Not a scratch on them, even though he knew that the other guy had been smashing and pounding everything last night. Hulk heals himself, thought Bruce. Hulk takes care of me.

He thought about Hulk, and for the first time, he wasn't disgusted at himself. Maybe he liked Hulk a little bit. Was it because he had saved his life? Maybe. Or maybe there was more to it than that. WAIT. Bruce stopped himself. This is temptation. He was almost at the point of thinking sin wasn't that bad, and wow that was a dangerous place to be.

But he was so tired of fighting it. Last night he thought he was done, that he wouldn't have to fight his flesh ever again. He didn't care if he went to heaven or hell- he just couldn't live like this anymore, so ashamed and so dirty. Hulk saved him. He wasn't going to fight Hulk anymore.

And what about God? A bible verse came to Bruce's mind- "whoever is not with me is against me."

Oh no, Bruce thought, it's terrible to think these things. I need to repent. After all that Jesus has done for me- dying for me, loving me even though I'm so sinful- how can I treat him like this? "You are not your own, you were bought at a price."

Hulk hated God. Bruce had suspected it- of course his sinful nature is in rebellion against God- but last night Hulk had actually said those words out loud. And that was who Bruce was, deep inside. His sin nature literally hated the God who had done so much, shown him so much love and mercy he didn't deserve. No, Bruce couldn't stop fighting Hulk. But he was so exhausted. Really, last night he had decided he was done, and he wasn't willing to go back and take up the fight again.

He thought of praying "Jesus, give me strength," but he didn't. Not now. Not yet. And he knew that it meant he was in rebellion against God. But he was just too exhausted.

He arrived back at his home. He had thought he would never be back here. He took out his key- from under the mat because he thought he'd never use it again- and opened the door. It felt so weird to come back here. It was normal, it was home, but he had said goodbye last night and thought that was the end.

Bruce collapsed on his bed. But he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't pray.

-----------

He stared at his sandwich, which was untouched. He didn't feel like eating. And next to it, his bible. Also untouched.

The other guy is too simple, too emotional, Bruce thought. He doesn't understand nuance. That's why he thinks God hates me.

He doesn't understand... Bruce paused, trying to put it into words. ... He doesn't understand that God can love me and also think I'm a rotten sinner. Yes, of course God thinks I'm a rotten sinner, because it's true. And still, God loves me.

Nuance, he said to himself.

Nuance.

Nuance?

He thought about reaching for his bible, but he couldn't do it. Wow, this looks bad, he thought. First I entertain thoughts about not fighting my sinful nature, and now I'm not even going to read the bible today. Oh I really am a terrible person.

He looked back at the sandwich, then tore off a corner and ate it. Trying to decide if he should repent and try to submit to God again.

Then Bruce had a realization. A very bad, sinful realization.

The other guy...

He stopped. Could he even dare to think these words? This was sinful, this was probably even blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

The other guy...

Ohh if he finished that thought, he was so going to hell.

The other guy...

I can't fight anymore, Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm done.

Bruce hunched forward, with his hands close to his chest, and said it in a barely-audible whisper: "The other guy loves me more than God."

Yes, he was going to hell.

To be continued...

In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic) [part 3]

Bruce Banner, looking unhappy. Image source.

[part 1]
[part 2]

[content note: suicide attempt, gun, abusive Christian theology]

"You haven't fixed this yet?" his boss said in Portuguese, gesturing toward one of the factory machines.

Okay, thought Bruce, be calm, don't get angry. "I worked ..." he answered, in broken Portuguese, trying to stay calm. "... You said ... fix the power supply ... is more important."

"No!" the boss answered. "I told you to fix this one!" Okay, that wasn't true though, thought Bruce. His boss had said yesterday the power supply was a higher priority.

Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment, thought Bruce. Love your enemies. Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. He couldn't let himself get angry. He couldn't give in to the temptation, no matter what the boss did, it wasn't an excuse to sin.

Think of God, think of God's love. Jesus, help me. Love, love your enemies, like Jesus did. Just think good things. Don't feel. Jesus doesn't want me to get mad.

He looked down. He didn't answer, because he didn't trust himself to answer without getting angry. Just submit, he told himself.

He nodded. He'd just try harder and do what his boss said.

Okay, it's going okay, now he just needed to remove himself from the situation before the temptation got worse. He looked down and nodded again. After a few seconds, the boss left without another word.

All right. Success. He didn't sin. He didn't give in to temptation. He controlled it.

Praise God.

-----------

But a few hours later, he maybe didn't want to praise God.

That was a success? He had stomped down all the anger, he was very very nice and polite, he didn't hulk out, but ... why did he feel so terrible?

This is gonna be my whole life, he thought. Best-case scenario, I control it, we never see the other guy... and I feel like crap. Because what I did this afternoon... I can't keep doing that. I can't live that way. Focusing so hard on fighting the temptation, I could barely even think. I can't force myself to not feel my feelings. Even though that's the only way to not sin.

It was too much. Too hard. He had dedicated and rededicated his life to Jesus too many times, and still he could barely control his ... the other guy.

I can't live like this anymore, he thought. I just can't.

Bruce opened his closet door and pulled out a pile of blankets. And there it was, underneath, where he had hidden it. A gun he had stolen. Because... he thought it might come to this. He stole this gun in case he ever needed to kill himself.

Yeah, he was a thief. Yeah, it's one of the Ten Commandments. Add that to the list of all his other sins.

God, you have to understand, he prayed, I keep hurting you with my sin, I can't stop it, can't control it, I'm crucifying Jesus over and over again, wouldn't it be better if I just died? Bruce prayed, but didn't listen for an answer. He didn't really want to hear from God right now. Because God would definitely disapprove of his plan. God would want him to repent instead. Well, whatever. He already knew he was going to die here, in his sin, and probably go to hell. But at least then he couldn't hurt God anymore. He wouldn't be wasting God's time with his pathetic prayers, wouldn't be breaking God's heart over and over.

I'm really going to do it, he thought. Finally this is going to end, and I won't have to fight the other guy anymore. He was actually feeling relieved. Bruce was no match for the Hulk- even with the Holy Spirit supposedly living in him... well, probably he wasn't getting help from the Holy Spirit anyway because he didn't pray enough and he wasn't devoted to God enough. And he had never even tried to look for a church after moving here. Whatever, it doesn't matter anymore. He wouldn't be stuck in this losing battle anymore.

He decided to go outside, to go into the forest where no one would find him. "Where can I go from your spirit, where can I flee from your presence?" Ugh, why did a bible verse have to pop into his head right now? Okay fine, God knew where he was, God knew what he was doing. Whatever. He was in rebellion against God anyway. He wasn't going to pray anyway. God was too pure to look at sin, so it would be better for Bruce to not even try bothering him.

He was alone, outside, in the middle of nowhere.

There was no hope. Every thought he had was a sin. Just piling up higher and higher, burying him. There was no way out. He could never be good enough. He could never get his flesh to surrender to God. He had tried and tried and just couldn't stop himself from sinning. He could never please God.

Just this one last sin, and that would be the end of his fight. He was so tired.

Bruce closed his mouth around the end of the gun.

And then...

God didn't save him.

The Hulk saved him.

To be continued...

In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic) [part 2]

An image of Bruce Banner, but with eyes green to represent the Hulk too. Image source.

[part 1]

[content note: abusive Christian theology]

I really need to pray, Bruce thought. He sat on the floor of his new home, which was even cheaper and dirtier than the previous one, leaned against his bed, and closed his eyes. God, help, he began. God, I need you so much.

Maybe I could worship with music, he thought, and he turned on his mp3 player. He closed his eyes again and listened.

I keep trying to find a life
On my own, apart from you

The words seemed to sink into him, convicting him. He was so bad at following God, so rebellious all the time. Selfish, stubborn, proud.

I am the king of excuses
I've got one for every selfish thing I do

This was Bruce's prayer. He knew those words were all true. He was always straying so far from God.

What's going on inside of me
I despise my own behavior
This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I'm still a man in need of a savior

The words washed over him, and there he was, guilty and ashamed before God. He was so low, so sinful, so in need of God.

I wanna be in the light
As you are in the light
I wanna shine like the stars in the heavens
Oh Lord be my light and be my salvation
Cause all I want is to be in the light

He wanted it so bad. He wanted to get rid of his sinful nature, this green monster that lived inside him, and just be with God. Why was it so hard to just be with God? Why did the other guy have to get in the way? He loved God so much, so why was it such a struggle? Like Paul said in Romans 7, "what I hate I do." Who will rescue me from this body of death? thought Bruce.

The disease of self runs through my blood
It's a cancer, fatal to my soul
Every attempt on my behalf has failed
To bring this sickness under control

It was true, it was all true... He'd failed so much. He'd run away to South America, left behind everything he cared about. Running from his responsibilities, maybe even running from God. And what did it get him? The other guy was inside him- running away was useless.

The other guy... Bruce could feel the other guy getting a little angry. No, he wouldn't let him out. This was his quiet time; he was listening to God and praying. Keep it under control, he told himself. Why did the other guy have to act up when Bruce was having such a deep worshipful moment? Just shows how the devil tries to get us distracted and away from God.

No, he thought, have to push the other guy down. Keep it inside. This is just me and God. Oh God help!

He turned up the volume, so the sound would surround him and overpower the temptation he was feeling. And then he was singing, because this was his prayer, the only thing he could do:
"Tell me what's going on inside of me!
I despise my own behavior
This only serves to confirm my suspicion
That I'm still a man in need of a savior!

"I wanna be in the light," he sobbed, "as you are in the light..."

I wanna shine like the stars in the heavens

But he was hiding in Brazil, not "in the light at all" ...

Oh Lord be my light, and be my salvation

"... cause all I want is to be in the light..." he managed to say, hiding his face in his hands. How could he even pray that? Did he even want God or not? Why was he running from his problems? Why was he not fighting his sin? Why did he have this thorn in the flesh? (A messenger of Satan, to torment me... yeah if that wasn't a description of the Hulk...) Why was it so hard to keep the Hulk down? Why couldn't he just "take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ"?

So sinful. And he knew he had always been like this. Gamma rays don't have morals- his failed experiment didn't make him a rage monster, it just revealed the sin that had always lived inside him.

God, he started to pray, God ... I need you.

But why would God want him? Why would God show him unconditional love when he was such a failure?

God, I don't know why you love me... I'm unworthy... but I need you so much. Just help me get through another day. Help me not sin.

It was all he could do. It was all he had. He was a pathetic sinner, but he would cling to God.

To be continued...

In Your Anger Do Not Sin (a Hulk fanfic)

A pair of glasses with one lens broken. Image source.

A fanfic where Bruce Banner is an evangelical Christian

[content note: abusive Christian theology, suicidal ideation]

-----------

God, why did this happen?

Bruce tried to sit up. His shirt was gone and his pants were ripped. Why? What had come over his body? All he could remember was running away, out of control, smashing. And something green.

He prayed, God help me. God what's wrong with me?

He was in the parking garage outside his lab. There were huge cracks in the walls and pavement, and the car beside him had its entire back end smashed and flattened. This is bad, this is really bad, he thought.

Slowly, he walked back to his lab, trying to ignore all the craters in the walls. The door of the lab was smashed to pieces, all over the floor. Ohhh this is bad.

Bruce grabbed his things- phone, laptop, backpack- and got out of there.

-----------

It's because I was too proud, wasn't it? Bruce thought. That's why God let this happen. I've just been so busy, and I haven't been spending time in the Word... I've been acting like I can do it all myself. I started this big experiment, this big important milestone in my career, and I didn't even pray about it.

He sighed. God, I'm sorry. You have to forgive me. You have to help me. I don't know what I'm going to do.

He normally didn't kneel when he prayed, but that night he did. He wanted to humble himself before God. He had seen his sinful nature in a way he never had before- big, green, monstrous. It's always been inside me, he thought, but I didn't take it seriously. A bible verse popped into his head- "If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall."

Yes, Bruce had always known he was a sinner. That his heart was deceitful and desperately wicked. He knew all that- he had prayed the prayer at age 5 like a good church kid. But before today, it had been a cliche, an abstract theological point that people threw around carelessly. Yes, he knew he was a sinner- but now he REALLY knew it.

Yes, he knew- in an abstract way- that his sin had killed Jesus, that every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God, that his sinful nature was a dangerous thing that shouldn't be taken lightly, that it meant he deserved nothing good, he deserved to die and go to hell... but today his sin had literally turned him into a huge green monster. He had smashed the door, smashed the walls, smashed that car. Thousands of dollars in property damage. Because that's who he was. That's who Bruce Banner has always been. Always. A sinner. Totally depraved.

He had always hidden it. People who knew him would say he was a good person. Ha, Bruce thought, there's no such thing as a "good person." But maybe lately he had fooled himself. Maybe he was acting like his sin wasn't so bad. Maybe it's because last week he was traveling and missed church. Whatever the reason, his real self had come out. God have given him over to it. He was a monster.

-----------

He went into hiding. He moved to Brazil. He found a job in a soda bottling plant. And he committed to reading the bible and praying for an hour every day.

Bruce flipped to Matthew 5, to the part about anger. "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."

Well, that was pretty clear. Being angry is just as bad as murder. Hulking out is a sin. Obviously.

God, how can I avoid it? he prayed. How can I fight the temptation and stop myself before I hulk out? God I need you so much. I can't do it. I'm weak. I'm sinful. I'm too weak against this temptation.

It was a slippery slope, he thought. If he ever started to get a little bit angry, he needed to stop those thoughts before they had a chance to grow. Because now, the other guy would be there to reveal his sin to the whole world. Wow, wasn't it just terrible that he had only started to care about his sin because other people were going to see it? Really, all that matters is that his sin hurts God. "Against you, you only, have I sinned." Even before the lab accident, his anger was an infinite offense against a holy God, and he didn't take it seriously back then. Wow, how pathetic that he needed this as a motivator. It meant he didn't really love God; he just didn't want other people to judge him. Yeah, his heart was deceitful and wicked.

He deserved it, though. He deserved to have other people see it, see how evil he was.

God, I'm sorry, he prayed. Help, please help, I need you.

-----------

He had hulked out, and he felt terrible.

What happened? He had gotten into an argument with the neighbor from the apartment below his. The guy thought water was leaking from Bruce's apartment, but it wasn't, but he wouldn't listen, and... Bruce didn't want to think about it. He knew he had done a bad thing, he had somehow lost control and hulked out, he had totally forgotten to pray.

God, what do I do? he thought. He knew the right thing to do would be to go apologize to his neighbor. But I won't, he thought, instead I'm going to move. Because now that guy knows about the monster, and he's going to tell people, and I need to be gone before that happens.

He was just making excuses. He knew what the right thing was, but he wasn't willing to do it. He was just going to make this whole thing even more sinful by running away.

He was such a bad Christian. He said he was devoting his life to God, but really he wasn't.

I promise, God, after I find a new place to live, then I'll really get my life back on track. Then I'll pray more. I won't hulk out. I won't get angry. I'll submit my life to you. I'll read the bible every day.

It wouldn't be good enough, he knew. He could never be good enough; the sanctification process would last his whole life, until he was perfect in heaven. On earth, he would always have a sin nature and he would always have to fight it. But someday he would have a closer relationship with God, and it would be easier.

Or maybe he wished he could just die instead. Just take a bunch of pills and ...

No. Don't think things like that. He was going to rededicate his life to Jesus. Surrender all. Let go. Lay it all down at the foot of the cross. It would be hard, but God would take care of him. God loved him so much, and he didn't deserve it- he deserved to die. Surely anybody who saw the monster would agree Bruce deserved to die.

That night, he gathered up his things- only 2 backpacks' worth- and moved out.

To be continued...

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts.

The Hulk. Image source.

[content note: Christian anti-self ideology, conflating consensual and nonconsensual sex by calling it all "sexual sin"]

So for anyone who maybe didn't believe me when I said purity culture taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own desires- to be constantly paranoid about how "one thing leads to another" and I might commit the horrible crime of having sex before I could even realize what I'm doing- I got all your f***ing receipts right here: Be Afraid of Yourself: A Plea to Christian Leaders on Sexual Sin.

Behold, the blog post at that link. It's about how more and more Christian leaders have been exposed as having committed "sexual sin", and so no Christian man should EVER think he is anything but a sex-obsessed monster who can't be alone for one minute because WHO KNOWS what could happen.

You might think I'm exaggerating. I'm not:

Here’s my modest proposal: Men, it’s time to stop trusting ourselves. Stop trusting in your integrity and strength. Stop telling yourself that you would never surrender to temptation. Stop telling yourself you are better than the scores of Christian luminaries whose lives and families have disappeared in scandal. There is no moral chasm between them and you. You are not made of finer clay. Each of us is just one bad decision away from becoming the next stroke in the nauseating drumbeat of the church’s public failures.

Let me say this dramatically to get my message across: You should get to the point where you are afraid to be in a room alone with yourself. I’m not kidding. As Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry put it, we have met the enemy and he is us.
...
We are weak. We are usually no match for sexual temptation.
...
Christian men, it’s time we stopped trying to be heroes. It’s time we stopped going it alone. It’s time we recognized how muscular the monster of sexual sin really is. It’s time we had the courage to run.
...
Even your victories can turn to defeat. The battle may be going well. You may have defeated sexual temptation on your own, a few times. You may be reaping the blessings of obedience. You have the trust and admiration of those you love. They place you on a pedestal. They strive to imitate your integrity. You are a model Christian. Then you start pacing the parapets at night. A woman on her rooftop catches your eye. The next morning, it’s all over.
...
It means being able to see the beginnings of temptation, to catch its shadow coming around the corner, and run. It means recognizing that you cannot beat it. You cannot stand against it on your own. Look how many better men than you have fallen! It means fleeing to where you know there are reinforcements, where the hosts of Heaven are strongest. It means dialing up a trusted confidant in Christ the moment desire is born, before it even matures to lingering thoughts, much less into full temptation!
...
What I am proposing is something a little more radical than accountability partners. It is a fundamentally different attitude toward ourselves, one of everlasting mistrust and suspicion. Do not trust yourself. Do not believe in yourself. Do not even turn your back on yourself. Do not dare keep a secret.

This goes against everything our culture tells us, I know. And it goes against something still stronger than our culture: our pride, as men. We want to be seen as self-sufficient and strong. We want to be immovable rocks for God. But I am convinced that any man who thinks this way will become lunch-meat for the first sexual temptation that strikes him. You cannot stand on your own. You will not. None of us can, consistently, and reliably. That’s why God gave us the Church. That’s why He gave us each other.

Run, men. You are no match for yourselves.

Holy shit.

All right, I see a few problems with this ideology:

1. It treats all kinds of "sexual sin" as the same- from the things that are fine and don't hurt anyone (porn, lust, masturbation, consensual unmarried sex) to the things that are actually bad (having an affair, sexual harassment, rape, abuse, molesting children). Over here in reality land, it's perfectly fine and normal to have sexual desires ("lust"). But it is NOT fine and normal to sexually harass one's coworkers. That's not okay, and that's not something that "just happens"- it's a deliberate choice. But this writer seems to think that if a man watches porn once, he's basically the same as a man who lost his job over allegations of sexual abuse. Or at least, the only thing standing between them is one verrrrrrry slippery slope.
2. It teaches women that men just can't control themselves, so we shouldn't expect them to like, be able to respect us and not be terrible. If you're alone with a boy, well OBVIOUSLY he's going to sexually assault you, like what did you expect? If this is really what men are like, then women are required to police them. Eff all of that.
3. And it tells men they shouldn't try to be anything better. This could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Boys don't try to learn self-control because they're taught that it's not possible anyway.
4. It tells asexual men they don't exist, or something is wrong with them and they're not "real" men.

But mostly the reason I'm posting this is that I've written a lot about how terrified I was of my own body and my own desires, back when I believed in all that "sexual purity" stuff. (See my posts For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear and Asexual and "Impure".) I was scared to sit on my boyfriend's bed, back in college when I was dating my first boyfriend. It never crossed my mind that I would be interested in having sex with him- I thought about sex exclusively as a horrifying scary dangerous thing that I needed to put up barriers to protect myself from.

I was scared, I was so scared. Purity culture advocates told stories about how a good Christian couple was alone together and somehow "one thing led to another" and they had sex without meaning to. Don't kiss because it might lead to other things. Don't lay down. Don't be alone with your boyfriend at night.

And, by the way, none of these warnings were about protecting myself from rape. (Yeah there were other warnings about rape, but those were separate from the warnings about "temptation".) It was about a belief that sex could "just happen" without either partner actually choosing it. And both of them would be at fault, because they chose to put themselves into that situation in the first place.

All those years being scared of myself and my own desires, and then I finally tried to have sex with Hendrix (about 2 years before we got married) and we couldn't even ****ing figure out how to do it. (More details on that in this post, it's a bit explicit so I won't write it here.) Sex was never something I could have just done accidentally. And I'm f***ing angry.

And a while after that, I figured out I'm asexual. Yes all that "struggling with lust" I had back then, when I worked so hard to stomp down my thoughts related to attractive boys- none of it was actually sexual attraction. (It was romantic and sensual attraction, for those of you keeping score at home.) I'm asexual- I spent so much time afraid of my own desires, and now it turns out I don't even HAVE those desires, and having sex with my husband is confusing as hell. 

I'm asexual and I'm angry.

One more thing I want to say: Yeah, the "be afraid of yourself" article is very clearly directed toward men, not women. So you might be wondering why I'm saying this is also what I was taught, as a woman. Basically, I also was taught to be afraid of my sexual desire, but for sort of different reasons than men. Men were assumed to just want sex for the sake of sex, while women would want sex when they were in love with their male partner. (Oh, and did you notice in this ideology, queer people don't exist?)

It's awful to live afraid of yourself. I don't want anyone to live that way. Instead, we should teach that there's nothing wrong with having (or not having) sexual desire, and there's nothing wrong with exploring that desire in order to understand yourself better. We should teach people how to handle their desire in healthy ways.

Wrath and Justice?

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God's wrath came and went, and the writer of Psalm 85 is asking God to "restore us again" in the aftermath.

So... what's the point of "wrath"? And how does it relate to justice?

One view says that God was punishing his people for worshiping other gods. Which is bad because that's the wrong religion. It's a sin against God, and his wrath builds up, but he graciously waits and gives them chances to repent. But finally enough is enough and he punishes his people by sending an invading army or something. And then the survivors repent and get back to being the right religion and it's all good, kinda.

And all of that fits well with this psalm.

Except I don't believe that anymore. I don't think it's just to punish and kill people for believing the "wrong" religion. They're not hurting anyone, they just have some misconceptions about spiritual things. (We all do, so what does it matter?)

And now I think that God was angry about the "worshiping other gods" thing because those religions involved bad stuff like human sacrifice and forced prostitution. And also the rich weren't so nice to the poor. God's not angry about what they believe, but what they do to other people. So yes, absolutely, put that stuff to a stop!

But, umm... the whole "God, in his mercy, waits and keeps giving his people chances to repent"? In other words, God lets the human rights violations continue, he lets the powerful take advantage of the weak, in the hope that the bad people will change their ways and he won't have to punish them?

Well, that's not very feminist.

And in Psalm 85, okay, God's wrath has punished his people. (All the people? Weren't there some innocent victims in this?) The psalmist prays for restoration, but I can't help wondering if anything had changed. Would the powerful still take advantage of the weak? Would there still be human sacrifices and other horrible stuff?

What was the point of God's wrath? Was it just "God has 500 units of anger, so he's going to throw down 500 units of punishment on his people, and then all will be right with the world"? Does he care who exactly sinned against whom? Does he care about protecting those who are powerless, or is it just "this whole society has gone bad- BURN IT!!!!!!!!"

Where is the justice? Is God's wrath about justice or not?

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 85. To read other people's posts, click here: Sometimes The Bible is Enough.

An Angry God

Yeah, I was taught that God's angry. And why? Because of our sin. He is angry at EVERYONE because everyone sins. And why is sin bad? Because it breaks our relationship with God. And so we all deserve to be punished.

And so we should all feel really bad about how unworthy we are.

So let's take a look at Psalm 76:7-9, shall we? About God being angry.

"It is you alone who are to be feared.
    Who can stand before you when you are angry?
From heaven you pronounced judgment,
    and the land feared and was quiet--
when you, God, rose up to judge,
    to save all the afflicted of the land."

Wait wait wait a second there. "To save all the afflicted of the land"? God's punishment comes because people are doing bad things to other people? And God's anger is a good thing for those who are "afflicted"?

God's anger isn't toward everyone.

Well that makes a lot more sense. Celebrate!

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But wait wait wait.

Am I "the afflicted"? Is this actually a good thing for me?

Okay, so I'm a white American living in China. Everything's cheap- or is it that my salary is higher than everyone else's? At any rate, I'm not really "afflicted," but I probably pass "afflicted" people on the street every day.

And am I doing something to help others and make the world a better place, or am I just taking care of myself?

(I'm not even sure where to start. I'm in China, yo. I don't know how to "make the world a better place" in a foreign culture and stuff.)

But as Psalm 76 shows, God saves the afflicted and brings judgment on those who contribute to that affliction. God is angry- but my response is not to feel horribly guilty about my individual sin (perhaps the sin of "not reading the bible enough" or something to that effect). My response must be to work with God to help all of his sons and daughters who are afflicted.

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 76. To read other people's posts, click here: When the Bible falls flat.

Blogaround

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1. An Angry God Vs. A God Who Gets Angry (posted April 22) "We need a God who sees oppression and poverty and injustice and hunger and disease and homeless and heartache and loneliness and all the other unloving things we do to each other and gets angry because this is not the way he created the world to be."

2. Purity Culture and Staying in Abusive Relationships (posted April 21) "I knew at the time that if it didn’t work out, I would no longer be perfectly pure and completely unsullied. It was a gamble I was taking."

3. Can I Pray For Healing For You? (posted April 22) "We are going to differ greatly in our theological standpoints on this, and I don’t think we will ever agree. So I am going to wheel away from you now. But thankyou for your concern."

4. Lego Castle. Well, this is the coolest thing ever.

5. NO! Rub my belly first! SO CUTE!

6. John Paulk, Former Exodus & Love Won Out Leader Apologizes (posted April 24) "Until we can learn to be respectful and give equal dignity to people unlike us, we will endeavor to change them into images of ourselves rather than honor the God-image in each person."

7. So What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? (posted April 22) "So when I was a kid, I was taught that asking kids what they want to be when they grow up was a secular, feminist question. And I was taught that I should just answer 'be a mommy.'"

8. Do You Even Hear Muslims When We Condemn Violence? (posted April 22) "More than 70 percent of America's 64 previous mass shooters were white American men. But not one pundit, nor any politician, nor any Muslim has ever asked why White Americans or Christian Americans are not aggressively condemning these acts of terror."

9. The Breaking of a Child: A Story of Near Disaster (posted April 25) "The Pearls teach that even giving in once—just once—will set back everything that had been gained and even threaten to ruin the child forever. And yet, here was their eighteen-month-old daughter, still toddling and barely starting to lisp words, wasting away before their eyes."

10. The Internet Has Peaked: Cat, On Roomba, Dressed As Shark, Chases Duck. Well, this is amazing.

11. What does the blood of Jesus actually do? (posted April 25) 25 New Testament references here, none of which are about appeasing God's anger.

12. Hey John Piper, Is My Femininity Showing? (posted April 26) "Concern over women's bodies in public is what barred them from representing themselves in civic or political situations 200 years ago, right around when they started feeling the itch for the vote."

13. Reporter/Bride covers China quake wearing wedding gown (posted April 22)

14. A ring by spring or else you #FAIL godly womanhood! (posted April 15) "I didn’t have that one thing that showed I’d been blessed by God, the engagement ring reflecting God’s apparent desire for me to find The One."

15. Bible Files Restraining Order Against Fundamentalism (posted April 12) "He wrote a lot about how no one else understood me like he did."

16. God Doesn’t Know What You Think God Knows [Questions That Haunt] (posted April 28) "If God knew that the incarnation was ultimately going to be necessary, then all of the activity prior to that (expulsion from Eden, Tower of Babel, Flood, Exodus) was just a game."