Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. That "Pending PayPal Charge" Email Is a Scam — Even Though It Really Came From PayPal (April 28, via) "Don't call the number. Don't reply."

2. The hard problem of AI therapy (February 26, via) "Suppose you’re a high-functioning person with anxiety who discovers that the chatbot can always soothe you on the spot. You ask one question—Do you think I handled that email wrong?—and feel relief. Ten minutes later: But what if she’s actually mad? Then: Can you rewrite my follow-up? Then: List ten reasons I’m not a bad person for sending it."

3. How China’s Deaf Delivery Riders Find a New Life in Gig Work (April 20) "By contrast, most deaf interviewees described becoming delivery riders as turning a new page, one of less discrimination and greater autonomy. Delivery platforms offer features that make interacting with restaurants and customers easier, such as voice-to-text conversion, pre-written messages, and digital badges that will alert users that the rider is deaf."

Also from Sixth Tone: Nine Months After Cloning Its First Yak, China Has 10 More (April 30) "To date, the team has generated over 200 cloned Tibetan yak embryos. By the end of 2028, they aim to build a core herd of over 100 cloned yaks, develop a new high-altitude yak breed, and establish standard breeding protocols."

4. 1 Corinthians 13 in the news (April 27) "Read the Beatitudes from Luke’s Gospel you cowards!"

Also from the Slacktivist: The literary puzzle of Isaiah 1 (April 29) "The current form of our Bibles tricks us into reading Isaiah 1 and Amos 5 as critiques of the religious observance prescribed in the Books of Moses, but actually what we have is the Books of Moses configuring their religious commandments, in part, as a response to and a defense against those critiques in Isaiah and Amos."

5. Soniferous Aether (April 27) From xkcd.

6. Women Have Agency: You Don’t Have to Obey Churches or Husbands Who Want to Control You (April 29) Posting this here because it's important to get the word out about this: If you are a woman who has decided to divorce your abusive husband, and now your church leaders are requiring you to come to a meeting so they can decide if you're allowed to do that, you can just not go. !!! Yes, really! You can just not go! Say no! They can't do anything to you! Even if you signed a "church covenant"- those things are not legally binding. It will not hold up in court. You can say no!

A lot of us spend our whole lives with the mindset "I need to be a good girl" which means when some authority figure says "you have to" do something, then you have to do it. We might not even realize there's another option: NOT doing it.

I'm so glad I learned about boundaries- I really had no idea about any of this before I learned about boundaries.

7. This week in "what Chinese songs is my toddler listening to": 蹦蹦跳跳 沒煩惱 李昕融 舞蹈完整版 簡單舞蹈 律動 廣場舞 洗腦歌 幼兒律動 幼兒舞蹈 兒童舞蹈 兒童律動 抖音舞蹈 動態歌詞 TIKTOK KidsDance【#波波星球泡泡哥哥bobopopo】

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump’s cruel plan for Afghan refugees, briefly explained (April 23, via) "Many of the 1,100 Afghans now stuck in limbo in Qatar aided the US over nearly two decades of war as interpreters working with US troops or served as members of the Afghan special forces. Some, the Times reports, are family members of American soldiers, and more than 400 are children."

2. Texas Tech Issues Ban On Students Writing On LGBTQ+ Topics (April 24) "The implications are profound—and at times border on absurd. In core and lower-level courses, there are no exceptions at all. A history professor course could not allocate instructional time to the Stonewall riots or the gay rights movement. If a U.S. history textbook includes a chapter on the AIDS crisis, the professor must skip it."

3. White House posted photo of Trump, King Charles III with 'TWO KINGS' caption (April 29)

4. James Comey posted a picture of seashells by the seashore. Trump's DOJ indicted him for it. (April 29) "The most embarrassing 24 hours (yet) of the Justice Department in President Donald Trump’s second administration continued apace on Tuesday, when Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced another indictment of James Comey, the former FBI director. This time, Comey — targeted by President Donald Trump as a political enemy — was indicted in North Carolina in connection with his since-deleted Instagram post showing a photo of seashells laid out in the shape of the numbers '8647.'"

Also from Law Dork: SCOTUS guts what remained of the Voting Rights Act before taking on TPS termination case (April 30) "The decision in Louisiana v. Callais upended the pivotal civil rights era voting law that Congress initially passed in 1965 and reauthorized several times since, leaving the section at issue “all but a dead letter,” as Justice Elena Kagan said with a somber voice, nearly stone faced, as she announced the dissent from the bench."

I don't really understand this Voting Rights Act case- all the articles I've read say it's so terrible that the Supreme Court has ruled this way, because it allows states to draw districts in a way that racial minority voters are always grouped together with a population of white voters which outnumbers them, and therefore the racial minority voters don't have any meaningful representation. This is confusing to me- it seems to rely on the assumptions that all people of color vote the same way, all white people vote the same way, and white people wouldn't vote for a candidate who would take minorities' needs seriously. Probably this is me being naive about how racism works, and missing some key facts about the history of racist voter suppression. If anyone has an article that explains this, post it in the comment section~

5. U.S. to issue commemorative passports with Trump's picture for America's 250th birthday (April 29) Fortunately it's only the Washington DC office that's doing this, and if you apply for a passport at any other location, you will just get a regular one without the mark of the beast.

6. The Trump team is quietly eliminating U.S. support for birth control abroad (April 29) This makes me so mad. Having penis-in-vagina sex is really common, and for women who are doing that, they *need* to have some kind of birth control, otherwise their lives will be completely dominated by the huge burdens of pregnancy and caring for babies. Those MAGAs claim they are "helping women" by being mean to trans people, while ending the programs that *actually* help women.

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

1. Trip.com Offers Employees 50,000 Yuan Subsidy for Each Child Born (June 30) "China is grappling with a significant decline in its birth rate and the subsequent challenges posed by an aging population."

2. Don't use AI detectors for anything important (June 30) "All these AI versions are rated as more likely human-written than my original unaltered text."

3. Amos and Acts (June 30) "The fascinating thing about the passage Brueggemann highlights here is that the book of Amos was written a very long time before the book of Exodus was. Amos 9:7 presents one side in an argument about the meaning of the Exodus, showing us that both sides of this argument existed centuries before the book of Exodus itself was written. Amos is one of the oldest books in the Bible — possibly the oldest — so the tension between the two sides of this argument date back to the very beginning."

4. The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. (June 29) "Obviously, my parents were horrified. Obviously, they pulled me out of that school the next year and put me into a predominately Black public school. Obviously, I learned that not everything white people say is true. But Thomas is the guy who never learned: He never figured out how to disregard what white people say about us. Learning how to ignore white folks and their stupid racial theories while living your full life is pretty much the final test towards emancipation, and it’s one that Thomas seems to have flunked for his entire professional life."

5. Death of Coco Lee Triggers Public Discussion on Depression in China (July 7) [content note: suicide]

6. Rating Articles About Twitter Alternatives (July 8) "Rating: written for the kind of person who'd be shocked to learn about the concept of a fursona"

7. The universe is humming with gravitational waves. Here's why scientists are so excited about the discovery (July 3, via) Cool!

8. Let's Talk Emotional Labour of Birth Control (July 10) Wow, is this really a thing, a man claiming that he doesn't want to wear a condom, so he expects his partner to take birth control pills which cause a lot of problems for her? I guess this makes me glad I'm asexual- I do have sex, but if I had to take birth control pills in order to do it, I would NOT, it is NOT worth that trouble. (Though I'm guessing a lot of this is women being coerced by societal expectations- it's not about women feeling like "I really really want to have vaginal sex, I want it so much that it's worth taking birth control pills that change my body.")

Blogaround

1. The TRUTH About Polyjuice Potion | Harry Potter Theory (posted April 14) "Let's say you're an adult, and you have the hair of another adult from when they were a child. In that case, would you transform into the adult version of them, or the child version of them?"

2. Birth Control vs J&J Vaccine (posted April 15) A video from an actual gynecologist, here to tell us that all the people on twitter going on about "they stopped the J&J vaccine because of a 1 in a million chance of blood clots, but birth control has a higher risk and nobody cares about that" don't know what they're talking about.

It is so important to do the actual work of checking sources and understanding what specific things are being measured in each statistic. But usually people just retweet things that line up with stuff they already agree with, without doing any of that work, and it spreads misinformation. And I have definitely done this too, retweeting things without actually thinking "is that true?" :/

3. Sapphira is a model of "complementarian biblical womanhood" (posted April 15) "Peter gives her a chance to come clean - to do the right thing by not going along with her husband's plan, by refusing to uncritically obey his spiritual guidance - but instead she opts to be a good 'complementarian,' demonstrating her unwavering commitment to submissive 'biblical womanhood,' and the same young men who buried her husband carry her to her grave as well."

(The follow-up post, 'Biblical families,' an index, is very good too.)

4. The Universal Never-Nude Art Museum Tour Map. (posted 2016) Lololol!

5. The coronavirus is ravaging India. Here's how you can help (posted April 29)

Blogaround

A puppy in a basket. Image source.

1. The Strange Political Silence On Elder Care (July/August issue) "But the fact is that, one way or another, society is already bearing these costs—mostly in the form of care provided by stressed-out, uncompensated women who have the misfortune of having a family member who needs care and can’t afford to pay for it. What we need is a way to distribute that burden more equitably."

2. Women Speak About Natural Family Planning (posted 2011) "If, as John Paul II insists, mutual delight in intercourse is proper only when conception is not impeded and when the possibility of its occurence is met with relaxed, joyful expectation; and if, as he also insists, intercourse is the only proper expression of marital sexuality; then for the typical couple enmeshed in ordinary responsibilities, opportunities for generous, appropriate marital sexuality are few in a lifetime. This is not, in my experience, the path to a happy marriage."

3. Woman Wins 50K Ultra Outright, Trophy Snafu for Male Winner Follows (posted August 15) "I felt bad that the first place man didn’t have one, so I tried to convince them to blot out the ‘fe’ on ‘female,’ but they said to just keep both trophies."

4. Why are queer people so mean to each other? (posted August 16) "Everybody was gaslighting everybody. Everybody was problematic. Nobody felt safe with anybody else."

5. Which MCU Planets Could Really Exist? (posted August 9) "So, as it is shown, not even getting into the seemingly infinite supply of water on the planet, Asgard definitely could not exist without a strong foundation of magic."

Blogaround

A very useful diagram which shows us that if a chocolate wafer, white filling, and chocolate wafer is an "oreo", then a wafer, filling, wafer, filling, wafer is "oreoreo", 5 layers of filling is "rerererere", a stack of 5 wafers is "ooooo", and so on. Image source.

1. Explaining in the Guise of Listening: A Review of Josh Harris’ New Documentary (posted December 27) "Harris appears to have done less actual analysis of his teachings than I have here on this blog—or a dozen other bloggers." AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH.

2. ‘What if someone was shooting?’ (posted December 26) [content note: gun violence] An article about how school lockdowns are traumatizing for children.

3. Anonymous donor provides free lunches to Georgia district's families in need during holiday break (posted December 26)

4. Visionary Brain Genius Elon Musk Has Invented The World's Worst And Most Expensive Subway (posted December 19) "Literally the only innovation here is that it’s a worse version of both driving and riding the subway, and only available to people who’ve bought one brand of car."

5. Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees (posted December 12) Nooooo. Support all immigrants.

6. CCM Comes to a Presidential Funeral (posted December 8) Michael W. Smith performed "Friends" ("friends are friends forever") at Bush's funeral.

7. The Dangerous Rise of the IUD as Poverty Cure (posted January 2) "This sort of language should set off alarm bells because the idea that limiting women’s reproduction can cure society’s ills has a long, shameful history in the United States."

8. #MeToo law restricts use of nondisclosure agreements in sexual misconduct cases (posted December 31) "'Women don’t want to sell silence and lawyers shouldn’t be selling or buying silence,' Smith said."

Blogaround

A dog and cat dressed like Dobby and Harry Potter, respectively. Image source.

1. Tangled Theory: How Rapunzel Got Her Powers (posted October 27) "Him being kidnapped looks exactly like the sundrop falling to earth."

2. I just realized that finding makeup would be a pain in the ass in the star wars universe (posted October 29)

3. Why I Lied About My Rape (posted October 24) [trigger warning]

4. The Death Penalty, Nearing Its End (posted October 24) "In fact the crimes of the people sentenced to death are no worse than those of many others who escape that fate. Rather, nearly all of last year’s death sentences came from a tiny fraction of counties with three common features: overzealous prosecutors; inadequate public defenders; and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion."

5. An Evangelical Deal With The Devil (posted October 9) "And the devil said unto them, 'I’ll make America great again, all you need do is reach out your hand and join me.'"

6. Male Contraceptive Injection Halted For Same Side Effects Women Have Suffered For Years (posted October 28)

7. Haw haw haw (posted October 24) "I do not believe that anyone ever converted to Christianity as a consequence of reading any of Jack Chick’s gospel tracts. But I do believe that thousands of Christians were converted by them into something else — something more like the ugly dishonesty and nasty triumphalism that were those tracts’ main attributes. He helped persuade such Christians that bearing false witness against their neighbors should be the hallmark and cornerstone of their religion."

8. So You Don’t Like Hillary (posted November 3) "I have a friend who works with underprivileged children, many of them Hispanic. She tells me that many of these children are deeply worried about their families’ futures. In some cases, their parents are making plans to leave, getting things lined up so that they can flee the country if it comes to that. Take a moment to absorb that."

Blogaround

Lieutenant Uhura, from Star Trek: The Original Series. Image source.
I have recently realized my life is incomplete without one of these little red Starfleet uniforms like Uhura wears. Where can I buy one? I looked on Amazon but the ones there seem to be more along the lines of "cheap sexy costume" rather than "authentic Starfleet uniform."

1. This guy hilariously recreates celebrity fashion moments with household items (posted May 4) LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

2. Harry Potter Theory: Dumbledore's Horcrux (posted May 3) Wow. I love this fan theory.

3. I'm Intersex and My Body Works Just Fine, Thank You (posted 2014)

4. 15 United Methodist clergy, candidates come out as gay (posted May 2) "Lamb said he thinks about 'children in our churches that hear this harmful rhetoric that they are incompatible with Christian teaching and how this does violence to our souls.'" Indeed. Think of the children!

5. 6 Tips on How Married Christians Can Embrace Single Adults (posted April 25) "Many single people feel that they are often automatically stereotyped as spiritually immature, morally dangerous, and unsuitable for leadership simply because they’re single. I’ve even heard pastors unapologetically and explicitly discriminate against single people: 'I don’t want to hire a single woman to direct the worship arts ministry because she’ll probably end up sleeping with all of the guys in the band.'"

6. What Pundits Keep Getting Wrong About Donald Trump and the Working Class (posted May 5) "This year, non-Hispanic whites are 58 percent of the working class, a historic low."

7. Who Did God Save When the Zamzam Sank? (posted April 12) "And hadn’t that same God also saved the Muslim Egyptians who worked on the boat? Was I the only person who wanted to know the Egyptian experience?"

8. How Birth Control Could Save Lives (posted April 11) "In fact, providing contraception to 90 percent of those in need around the world would ultimately save the lives of 67,000 women and 440,000 infants over the next year, according to an analysis published last week in the journal Lancet."

9. feminism and American exceptionalism (posted May 6) "I was taught that women can’t be trusted to supervise, manage, or govern anything– we barely even run our own households, and we certainly shouldn’t be given control over our finances. We didn’t have to wear burkas or hijab (although the definition I was taught for “modesty” was based on a Hebrew word that means “long and flowing” and a lot of us wore head coverings), but we were prevented from basically ever leaving our houses or existing in the public sphere."

10. Yes, Virtual Reality Has a Sexual Harassment Problem. What Can We Do to Stop It? (posted May 6) "When women join virtual spaces, he said, they're often the only female bodies in the room — and male users respond by swarming around them."

11. Christian Homeschool Leader Announces Conference for Arranging Child Marriages (posted May 5) Oh my god this is disgusting- this is human trafficking dressed up with bible verses. It's about a conference where good Christian parents arrange marriages for their teenage kids, who then have to go along with it or else they're ungrateful and disobedient. Apparently the event has been cancelled, since the internet found out about it and was shocked by how unimaginably terrible it was.

But seriously, back when I was a good purity-culture girl, I occasionally read articles encouraging Chiristians to marry young, and I read books which talked about how the parents should really be the ones making the decision. This kind of thing isn't unheard-of. I'm shocked at the idea of "let's actually hold a conference and set them up right now", but yeah... not unheard-of.

12. I Used THINX Underwear With No Backup For 3 Periods & Here's What I Discovered (posted March 11) Wow cool!

13. John MacArthur: The People of the Hispanic World “Don’t Know Christ.” (posted May 9) "Thus, when MacArthur says Hispanics don’t know Christ, that they don’t know the Gospel, and that they don’t know Scripture, what he’s really saying is that they don’t know Calvin."

14. Christianity Today Just Gave a Mouthpiece to an Alleged Abuser [trigger warning: all the tactics an abuser uses to make themself look like a victim] "I’m flummoxed that Christianity Today didn’t include any refutation of any of Saeed’s statements whatsoever, that they didn’t bother bringing up the content of the 2007 incident report, that they never bothered to conform any of Saeed’s claims with Naghmeh, and that they instead ran what is in effect a PR piece for a man accused of years of emotional and physical abuse."

15. Off Brand (posted May 4) "I always thought that I would be one sort of person: but now I’m someone else."

Maybe Christians Actually Can't Support Each Other

"Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:27" Image source.

A while ago, a read a blog post by a Catholic mother about how hard it was for her to not use birth control. She had a bunch of young children and was overwhelmed by the stress of taking care of them, and was so afraid of becoming pregnant again. She fully believed that God said it was wrong to use birth control. She was trying so hard to trust God, but it was tough for her, and she wrote all about how she felt.

From my point of view, there's an obvious answer: No, God doesn't believe it's wrong to use birth control. In fact, it's harmful to teach people that birth control is a sin- as evidenced by how much unnecessary stress was put on this woman in the name of God.

Basically, she's all worried over nothing.

But oh dear goodness, DO NOT say that to her.

I kind of cringed when I read her blog post, because it was so vulnerable, and there it was, on the internet, open to comments from random strangers. Of course there are going to be people who come by and say "this is ridiculous, just use birth control." Which is SO TOTALLY the wrong thing to say.

This woman needs empathy. She needs support from people. She needs to hear someone say "I know how you feel, and it is really hard." She doesn't need someone to challenge her beliefs- to force her into a position where she has to defend the belief that is causing her so much pain.

I'm a Christian, and she's a Christian, but (supposing I actually knew her) is there any way I could support her through this problem? I guess just be there, be a friend, and don't say a word about whether using birth control is a sin.

But really she needs more than that, right? She needs someone who actually agrees.

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Or, to give another example, maybe someone at church asks for you to pray for her kid who decided to become an atheist. (Pray for them to become a Christian again, obviously.) Well, wait a minute. People have reasons for believing the things they believe, and I think we should respect that. What's the whole story here? Maybe this kid has already had a series of people- sent by their parents- come around to explain why the kid is clearly wrong, and not listen at all. I feel a lot of sympathy for someone who has to put up with that.

I am SO not on board with any attempts to force them to become a Christian.

But at the same time, you have to acknowledge the mother's feelings. She's really worried. Maybe she believes her kid is gonna go to hell. Aren't her brothers/sisters/siblings in Christ supposed to help and support her? But I can't.

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There was one time in college when I, with a very serious tone, sat down with my best friend and confessed my sin of lust. How I had seen a hot guy in the robotics lab... and oh, what a struggle. And she was like "... so... what's wrong with that? It sounds totally normal." I had to explain to her why it was a sin. She seemed unconvinced. (And yes, she is a Christian.)

I don't know, maybe it was good for me to be reassured that my feelings were normal and not sinful at all. Maybe it was good that she didn't agree with my premise. At the time, though, I felt super-unsatisfied with our conversation.

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I'm now living with my boyfriend, which is obviously one of the worst sins a person can commit. Last year, I was really depressed, overwhelmed with shame because of how dirty and bad I am- you know, according to purity culture, which I don't believe anymore.

I don't believe it anymore, but is there anyone who can tell me "No, God is not a God of shame. No, you are not dirty. No, God loves you." Is there anyone?

I'm certainly not going to go looking in a church. People would respond by explaining to me why God says it's wrong to have premarital sex- which, you may notice, has absolutely nothing to do with my situation or the kind of support and empathy I need from other Christians.

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I'm starting to think Christians actually can't support each other. We don't have enough in common. Being a Christian just means you believe Jesus is Lord (or maybe you have a slightly different definition of Christian, that's fine) and for everything else, different Christians may have completely different views.

I don't want to say people have to agree on everything in order to love and support each other. But at least if you have some kind of problem along the lines of "I believe XYZ, therefore I am doing ABC, but it's so tough," you probably need a friend who also believes XYZ, or at least won't tell you "well of course you're having problems, you're completely wrong about XYZ."

(Certainly there's a place and time for that- helping people get out of beliefs that are harmful to them- but you don't want to push someone into a situation where they have to argue and defend the ideas that are hurting them, when what they really need is compassion. And it's DEFINITELY not okay to use their problems against them, as evidence that XYZ isn't true. NOT OKAY.)

I used to believe in a set of doctrines that were "the Christian view" on various issues, and I could assume all Christians agreed, or else they weren't real Christians (or maybe they just needed someone to correct them about the proper Christian beliefs). It was so easy- we all agree that these things are right, and we help each other live them out and fight for them.

But that's not true, and what can we even do? Divide Christians up into various groups- conservative, progressive, etc- and assume you'll only be able to get support from those in your own group? What about the body of Christ? The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.

Right?

But what can we even do?

It wasn't like that for Mary. Maybe it's never like that.

Image source.

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
Luke 1:34

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She felt it every time she went out in public. In a small town, people knew who she was, and they knew she wasn't married yet. Sometimes they stared. Sometimes they avoided talking to her.

"No one else can understand," Mary thought, and she knew it was true. Who would believe her? The baby is God's. Yeah. Sure.

She'd tried to find a way to tell Joseph, but literally couldn't think of anything even slightly believable. He came around though- apparently an angel explained it to him in a dream. So, that was good.

But her parents? Nope. Geez, Mom had given her a whole lecture. She wouldn't listen. Although, maybe "she wouldn't listen" isn't really a fair accusation, because how could anyone listen to and accept what Mary claimed?

Everyone knows that virgins don't get pregnant.

But no, Mary thought, it's not like that.

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At Thanksgiving dinner, Clara's aunt made a comment about how women who get abortions are "selfish" and are just doing it for "convenience."

Convenience? Really?

It wasn't like that, thought Clara.

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Chelsea sat in church, uneasy and unsure if she'd fit in. The pastor was talking about Jesus and salvation, and Chelsea felt some hope, like maybe God could accept her. But then the pastor went off into the story of how his sister was saved "and she the first thing she did was call me and say, 'I need you to come marry me and my boyfriend, because we're living in sin' and I said 'yes you are' and I married them just a few weeks later."

"Living in sin"? Really? (Why Christians use this as a euphemism for "living with one's boyfriend/girlfriend" rather than, say, "getting rich off of corruption and stealing your employees' retirement plans" I'll never know.) Chelsea sank back in disappointment. "Well... I guess I can't be honest here in this church," she thought.

They think it's so obvious that living together is sin.

But it's not like that, she thought.

--------------------

There were death threats. There were nasty letters. As one of the few doctors in the state willing to perform late-term abortions, Kathy was familiar with all of it.

Apparently, a huge number of people were certain that she was the worst kind of murderer.

But they don't understand, Kathy thought. It's not like that.

--------------------

Helen's parents were discussing the news that gay marriage was now legal in their state. "We shouldn't encourage that kind of lifestyle," they said. "You know, a lot of people just think they're gay because of sexual abuse in their childhood."

I can never tell them, thought Helen, feeling like she was trapped in a closet. It's not like that.

--------------------

Sarah showed up at Walgreens early in the morning to buy Plan B. The pharmacist handed it to her, but not without an eyeroll and a comment about "being responsible."

Because everyone knows that people who buy Plan B are irresponsible sluts, right?

But it's not like that, thought Sarah. It's not like that at all.

--------------------

[content note: sexual abuse]

Alyssa was crying again, and her husband Dan was trying to comfort her again. The guilt and shame were too much for her. All she could think about was how she was damaged goods, she was worthless. She had heard it over and over in youth group meetings as a teenager, how virginity is the most important gift you can give your husband, and therefore she was unable to love, because of the man who had taken advantage of her when she was just 7 years old.

Dan held her, so angry at what those people had said to her. She's an amazing person in so many ways, he thought. How could anyone have told her she was ruined?

It's not like that, he thought.

--------------------

For some reason, a bunch of male politicians were discussing women's birth control. One of them said that women who want their health insurance to cover it are sluts who can't control themselves.

Oh, it is SO not like that, thought Deborah.

--------------------

Mindy had to walk past a line of protesters holding signs and screaming that she was a murderer, when she went to the abortion clinic.

But they don't understand. They can't understand, she thought. It's not like that.

--------------------

[content note: rape]

"Well, what were you wearing? Why did you go there?" As if it was her own fault.

Theresa stared at the floor. They don't understand. It's not like that.

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Renee loves God, and she sometimes has sex with her boyfriend. She wrote about it on her blog, and a bunch of commenters came along to tell her she's a terrible person who has no morals, etc etc.

Did they even read what I wrote? she thought. It's not like that.

Image source.

Mary had agreed to all this, telling the angel, "I am the Lord's servant." But how on earth could God do this to her? God was making her into the kind of woman she had always judged.

"Doesn't God know," she wondered, "that people would judge me, and they'd be right! It's right to judge a girl who gets pregnant. We put people into categories, pure or impure, and we do it because God commanded it.

"How can this be?" she had asked the angel. How could God make her into a symbol of something dirty? She had done nothing wrong. She was just trying her best to follow God.

People would never listen. They already know that it's automatically sinful to be unmarried and pregnant. But it wasn't like that.

--------------------

And if you think a virgin birth is totally believable but would never in a million years even consider the idea that unmarried sex might not be sinful, you might want to rethink your beliefs.

Blogaround

Image source.

1. What Incarnation Means to Me: A Follow Up Post (posted December 18) "Because the God of the universe saw the human body as mattering enough that They became one, your body matters."

2. Hobby Lobby is fine with forced abortions and mandatory contraception in China, but balks at voluntary contraception for American women (posted December 18) "Those concerns have never been an issue for Hobby Lobby when it came to doing business with and in China. They only became deeply held convictions recently, when it came to doing business with the insurer covering its workers."

3. If You Put This Sign on a Christian’s Lawn, You’re a Jerk (posted December 19)

4. How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk (posted December 21) Here's a fun quiz about one's particular variety of American English.

5. Disney Characters Without Their Beards. Oh wow.

6. The Manly Side of Christmas (posted December 26) "I've never heard anyone point to Joseph as an icon of biblical manhood."