God and the Overton Window

Diagram showing the Overton window. Image source.

One key thing that Christians believe about God is that God is not tied down to any time or place. God is not limited or restricted in that way. God is everywhere, outside of time, all-knowing. God is objective, God is the Truth.

But what does that mean? And is it even possible for humans to connect with Someone who is truly objective in this way?

---

We can imagine many situations where one person, let's call them Person A, and another person, let's call them Person B, might be trying to communicate, but they are unable to understand each other. Perhaps they don't speak the same language. Or, perhaps Person A has studied and now can speak Person B's language, but the concept that Person A is communicating is something that Person B has never encountered in their own language/culture. For example, me in the grocery store in China, trying to buy cheese, because I was pregnant and sometimes when you're pregnant you suddenly need a very specific food, reading the Chinese characters on the packaging of various cheese-looking products, trying to determine what kind of cheese each of them was. And I can't figure it out! It just says the Chinese word for cheese! WHAT AM I MISSING HERE? WHAT KIND OF CHEESE IS IT? And I asked my husband, who is Chinese, help me figure out what kind of cheese this is, and he didn't really seem to grasp the monumental importance of the question "what kind of cheese is it" and he was just like "I don't know." 

"God Is Always With Me (Psalm 139)" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "God is Always with Me"

I got this board book for my little daughter: God Is Always with Me: Psalm 139, by Dandi Daley Mackall. Here's my review of it.

---

Overview

This book is based on Psalm 139, where the psalmist talks about how God is with him wherever he goes, how God knows him completely, and God loves and protects him. This book is NOT just the text of the psalm- it's more like, the same theme as the psalm, but with examples that kids will be able to relate to. And it rhymes.

For example:

If I climb, climb, climb up the tallest tree,

Even way up high, God is watching me.

If I swim down, down in the ocean blue,

Deep as I can go, God is down there too.

The book mentions things kids might be worried bout, like a thunderstorm, or falling off their bike, or going to a new school, and says God is with them through all of it.

Also, it's a board book, which is great for my daughter because she is a clever little thing and she tears books. This one, she has not managed to tear it.

Also, this book uses he/him pronouns for God. 

---

I love this

So, my overall opinion on this book is, it's great. I love Psalm 139, and I want to share it with my kids. I'm really into the concept of incarnation- God is with us. Incarnation feels real and powerful to me, and it's one of the most important aspects of the Christianity I believe in.

---

But also, I have some concerns about how this is presented to kids

There's one thing I'm not quite comfortable about... People tell kids "don't worry, God is with you" in the context of normal childhood fears and anxieties that don't actually pose any danger. Your kid is afraid of monsters under the bed, your kid is nervous about going to a new school, that sort of thing. There's no actual danger, it's just a matter of managing your feelings. Normal emotional development phases.

Is this a problem, though? We're saying "God is with you" and we actually mean "get over it, you're fine." Or, if I wanted to be a little more cynical, an imaginary protector for an imaginary problem.

What if there's an actual danger, that a kid is facing? They've been told "God is with you" as if it means "don't worry, God won't let anything bad happen to you," but that's just not true.

And I'm autistic, and there were many times, as a child, when I was scared or nervous about something, and adults didn't see the problem and thought I needed to just get over it, maybe even told me "God is with you" as a way of telling me to get over it- but actually I *was* having an actual problem. Sensory pain that truly is unbearable. And later, as an adult, anxiety and depression which required therapy and possibly drugs. Mental health is a real thing- you don't fix those problems just by saying "God is with you."

Here's how I put it in my post Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "Where's God When I'm Scared?" (1993), "As I said, being a kid w undiagnosed autism, having my very reasonable reactions to overwhelming sensory stimuli being read as 'fear', & being told 'don't be afraid' like that would fix it"

As I said, I'm really into the concept of incarnation, and I'm really into the belief that God is with us. But I don't think God actually takes actions in this world. (Maybe occasionally, rarely. But the vast majority of the time, no, They don't. When I say "rarely" I mean not even once in a lifetime.) They don't protect us. They don't stop bad things from happening to us. The idea of incarnation is very meaningful to me because They feel what we feel, all of it- but at the same time, I can see how it might come across as really weak and useless- what's the point, if God doesn't actually *do* anything to help us?

So what do I want my kids to get from this book? Part of me is like "well the book is fine if they don't take it that seriously- taking it too seriously would give them the message 'God won't let bad things happen to you' and 'just trust God instead of stepping up and solving your problems yourself'," and then part of me is like "this is the Incarnation we're talking about here, this is one of the most profound and exciting aspects of Christianity, why on earth would I want them to 'not take it too seriously'???"

Do I want to tell them "God is always with you, yay, God understands you and feels what you feel, BUT ALSO They're not gonna do anything to help if you have a problem"? That seems, uh, not very reassuring?

But now I'm the one "taking it too seriously"- like, I just want to introduce my kids to the concept of incarnation, that's all, we don't have to get into all these details, right?

---

Anyway, yeah, overall I think this book is great for my kids. I have a lot of thoughts on it myself- and maybe I'll discuss this more in-depth with my kids, when my daughter is old enough to stop tearing books and speculate about the nature of God instead.

---

Related:

God Is With Us (a post about autism) 

I Don't Want My Baby To Be "Brave"

Reviews of Christian Children's Books 

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

Blogaround

1. 2024 Arrives With A Sudoku Miracle (January 1) 1-hour-54-minute sudoku solve video. Wow, this ruleset is very complicated. I'm super impressed by Simon solving it.

2. If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He? (January 5) "The unspoken assumption behind the idea that Trump should be allowed on the ballot and that the public should have the chance to choose for or against him yet again is that he will respect the voice of the electorate. But we know this isn’t true. It wasn’t true after the 2016 presidential election — when, after winning the Electoral College, he sought to delegitimize the popular vote victory of his opponent as fraud — and it was put into stark relief after the 2020 presidential election."

3. 'Jane Roe' is anonymous no more. The very public fight against abortion bans in 2023 (December 31) "Now, it's different. 'Women and pregnant people in this country are so angry and so shocked at the treatment that they are receiving at the hands of the state that they have been compelled to tell their stories,' she says."

4. UN experts alarmed by Alabama plan to kill prisoner using untried gas method (January 3) [content note: death penalty] "In a joint statement released on Wednesday in Geneva, the four independent UN monitors call on the US government and Alabama to halt the execution scheduled for 25 January. They accuse the state of rushing ahead with an experimental execution technique that could inflict grave suffering on Smith in violation of the international ban on torture."

5. Epiphany: One Of Us (January 7) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

6. WHO Guideline for complementary feeding of infants and young children 6-23 months of age (October 16) New guidelines released by the World Health Organization, about how to feed babies, and WOW there are big changes here! This link has the very long report documents, I will try to see if I can find a shorter summary. But just to give you an idea of how big the changes are: They are now saying that babies can start having cow milk rather than formula at 6 months old (used to be 12 months!). Still saying breastfeeding is best, and recommending that you continue to breastfeed until the baby is 2 years old, and beyond, but wow big changes in the guidelines around formula.

7. Changing Course: Why More Chinese Students Are Eyeing Southeast Asia (January 9) "For instance, in Thailand, Chinese students comprised the majority of international students in 2022, with 21,419 enrollments, a 130% increase from 9,329 in 2012."

8. Who Gets to Be a Person? (January 4) [content note: miscarriage] "In pursuing the case, prosecutors deny Watts the full expression of her grief. They deny her the right to feel pain and shock at her miscarriage, to act like a traumatized human being. Even if the grand jury does not indict her, she has experienced hell."

And an update on that: Ohio woman who miscarried at home won’t be charged with corpse abuse, grand jury decides (January 12)

The main thing here is... a miscarriage at 22 weeks, that's horrible. That's devastating, to lose the baby when you're already 22 weeks into the pregnancy. Watts needs compassion and support; she needs to be allowed to grieve, because that's a terrible thing to go through. But instead she was treated like she had done something bad to her baby.

9. More delays for NASA’s astronaut moonshots, with crew landing off until 2026 (January 10)

10. Do pregnant women have a right to urgent medical care? No, according to a US court (January 10) This is just BONKERS. Doesn't the Texas abortion ban supposedly have an exception for "life of the mother"? So why is Texas now arguing that ERs shouldn't be required to do abortions which are necessary to save pregnant people's lives? So that whole "exception for life of the mother" thing was totally fake, then?

11. In Hottest Year On Record, US Cut Carbon Emissions. Good Start! (January 11)

12. China rolls out new measures to facilitate foreigners’ visit to country (January 11) I saw this in the news, but I don't understand what it actually means in practical terms (like, I'm an immigrant in China, is this gonna benefit me?). We'll see.

Chinese Jokes Make Me Think About God

xkcd comic showing 3 people (some of whom have beards and turbans) laughing about "Nine silvers for a ham? That's too much!" and "Too much? There's a monk out back with a ladder!" Image caption says, "There's no reason to think that people throughout history didn't have just as many inside jokes and catchphrases as any modern group of high-schoolers." Image source.

So the other day my husband showed me a video on bilibili. (Bilibili is a Chinese video site that's similar to YouTube.) It was a promotional video from BYD (a Chinese electric car company) showing their new car which is able to "dance" by lifting up and down on its wheels somehow. (Here's the link, but I don't know if bilibili will load outside of China. Here's a YouTube link for the same video; alas, the YouTube version does not have a bunch of hilarious comments in Chinese scrolling across it.)

Anyway, at the part where the car bounced up and down, people left comments on the video saying, "爸爸的爸爸叫爷爷" and my husband explained to me why this is hilarious. I didn't notice the comments at first, and I didn't get the joke until he explained it, but okay, let me tell you guys, this is just objectively hilarious.

So let me explain the joke:

There's a Chinese song for children about family-related vocabulary. See, in Chinese, the number of words for specific different types of relatives is just ridiculous. I've met Chinese people who can't even keep track of them all. Maternal grandmother (外婆) is a different word than paternal grandmother (奶奶). Your uncle who is your mom's older brother is a different word than your uncle who is your mom's younger brother, which is a different word than your uncle who is your dad's older brother, which is a different word than your uncle who is your dad's younger brother, which is a different word than an uncle who is a spouse of your parent's sibling (bunch of different words for that). And so on. 

Anyway, there's a children's song about all this. (Here's a YouTube link to the song.) The lyrics are like, "What is dad's dad called? Dad's dad is called yeye. What is dad's mom called? Dad's mom is called nainai." And so on. Yeah, a song for Chinese kids to learn the family relationships.

Also, outside of convenience stores, it's common to see little rides for kids. You put a coin in, the kid sits in the little car, and the car goes up and down for few minutes. 3-year-olds love it. And apparently it's very common that these little kid rides play children's music, for example, the Chinese family relationships song.

So, putting it all together, when Chinese internet users saw this video of this cutting-edge-technology electric car which can lift itself up and down, they thought of the little kiddie rides that you see outside little stores, the cars that go up and down while playing children's music. And these internet commenters referenced those little kid rides by quoting a line from one of the songs that's commonly played- "爸爸的爸爸叫爷爷。" ("Dad's dad is called yeye.")

Spiderman kiddie ride. Image source.

I am like, so entertained by this. Seriously, this is so funny. (Though I do realize that the more I explain a joke and claim that it's funny, the less likely you are to think it's funny... that's just how jokes are...)

Anyway, the reason I am blogging about this is, God understands this joke. Yes, there are several layers to it, and you have to know some background about Chinese language and culture- but that's no problem for God. They know everything, right?

What I want to say is, the world is full of things I don't know. The world is full of people being creative and hilarious, and the majority of that I'll never get to experience because it's in a different language and requires some cultural background knowledge I just don't have. But God is everywhere and knows everything. God knows all the intricacies of every culture, every language, every inside joke. And all of that, all of that complexity and diversity and creativity, the joy and the humor, that is the image of God. 

I believe people are made in the image of God. But, what do I mean by "people"? I mean all the diversity, all the people in the whole world, every language, every culture, every demographic, every minority group. That's the image of God. And no person can understand all that- and so no person can really know God. You can know parts of God; that's all.

(This applies to religions too. I'm a Christian, but I don't believe that everyone is "supposed" to be Christian. I think it's good that many religions exist, and that some people are not religious at all. People having the freedom to explore those topics on their own terms and find something meaningful to them is an inherently good thing. I do NOT think it would be good if everyone was forced to believe the "correct" beliefs.)

And yeah, this is the reason I moved to China. When I was in the US, everyone spoke English. The church where I grew up was all white people. It gave me the illusion that I understood everything- that I understood God. My first trip to China gave me an overwhelming drive to free myself from that illusion. I felt that the only thing that made logical sense was to dedicate my life to learning a new language and new culture.

I think there's value in putting yourself in situations where there's a language barrier and you don't know what's going on. The awkwardness and discomfort of not understanding what someone said- that's what it's like to try to know God.

But also, I'm not sure how to talk about this, because I don't want to come across like "everyone should do the same thing I did." There are plenty of reasons not to leave your own country. That's valid. And me being able to move to China- well, that's privilege. Having a US passport means I can go to lots of countries. Being a native English speaker means I can get teaching jobs which I am not really qualified for- which is what I did. (The good news is, I am no longer a teacher; now I'm a software engineer in China.) I really had no idea that not everyone can do that. Depending on what country you're from, it may be impossible to get a visa. As an American I always had this idea that I can just go to whatever country I choose to go to, and I had no idea that many people in this world can't do that. 

(Having the time and the resources to learn a new language is also privilege. And I didn't have any student loan debt...)

And when I'm talking about putting yourself in situations where you don't understand the language, and you feel uncomfortable because people are different from you and sometimes you don't know how to act, I mean it in a "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" way. If you're already a minority, then you're already in those kinds of situations, and I'm not saying you have to do it even more, or anything like that. I'm talking to white American Christians who go to churches where everyone is white and everything's in English. Doesn't something seem wrong about that, if you worship a God who knows every language and is incarnated in every culture?

No one can really know God, because look at how vast and diverse and complicated the image of God is. There's so much out there. The human capacity for creativity, for happiness, for sharing your life with others, for thinking of a goofy joke and posting it on the internet- it plays out in so many diverse and beautiful ways all over the world. All throughout history. That's the image of God.

Every tribe, every tongue, every nation.

So when I hear Chinese jokes, and I understand them enough to form an opinion like "this is objectively hilarious" or "this is a lame pun", I think of how vast and how deep and how intricate God's knowledge is. God understands all the jokes in every language. 

I first learned about God from a bible written in English, and Sunday school teachers who were all white, and that was a misrepresentation because it only shows one small part of who God is. The image of God is all the people in the whole world. The Holy Spirit is tongues of fire that came down and enabled the apostles to proclaim Christ's resurrection in every language.

No one can truly know God, but when you learn to appreciate something outside of your own culture and your own comfort zone, you get one step closer.

---

Related:

Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China

"Where's Jesus' Car?" 

My Racist Personal Relationship with God

---

Blogaround

1. I find myself listening to "Into Jesus," a DC Talk song from 1998. DC Talk was my favorite band back then, and turns out I'm still into Jesus.

2. This post from Coyote (January 21) about how much ace discussion has developed since 2010. This is great.

Another one from Coyote: Dogmatic Positivity and the Terrible Neutrality of Hope (February 1) "Alternatively: dogmatic positivity is creepy as all get out, and here's why." I especially appreciate the mentions of Plugged In- a conservative Christian movie review site, which I used to read and really take seriously. (In the years since I've become ex-evangelical, I've occasionally visited Plugged In again, and I just find it so unintentionally hilarious, how extremely concerned the whole thing sounds as it describes small mundane things that happen in movies.)

3. This tweet:

It’s so weird to me when people say a couple sleeping in different rooms means their marriage is close to over. When I hear that a couple does this I think “that’s amazing! One partner was able to bring up a sensitive need they have and have it accommodated! So healthy!”

— sheologian (@sheologian) January 31, 2023

4. Holes, Through a Folkloric & Spiritual Lens (2019) "Every bit of fortune Stanley gets, he tells his family it is only fair that Zero gets half because Zero was there through it all and did half the labor, even if records and destroyed and no one remembers his name."

5. How our view of creation and incarnation shape our view of intersex people (January 18) "To frame the incarnation as God’s becoming human in overflowing love is to affirm the goodness of human bodies and sexuality and the fulness of God experienced in them. And thus, when we see intersex people in light of an incarnation of overflowing love, we no longer experience brokenness, but infinite wholeness."

6. Hippolytus: Asexuality and Ancient Greece (2018) "Regardless of whether we can use modern terms like 'asexual' to map ancient identities, here is a clear-as-day self-identification of ‘someone who has no urge for sexual activity’, which, whether we call it 'asexual' or not, is completely relatable, at least from my modern asexual perspective."

7. St. ELIZA, pray for us (February 1) "I don’t care much whether or not someone programs a thousand AI bots to offer up perpetual vain repetitions as do the heathens, but the idea of replacing the human presence at the bedside of the sick or by the side of the lonely seems far more troublesome."

And another one also from the Slacktivist: The other way around (More on slavery and ‘how to interpret the Bible’) (February 3) "These white Christians were people who claimed to be guided by the Bible above all. It was, they said, the central authority shaping their belief, their behavior, and their choices. And so these white Christians sought out the best and clearest explanations of what the Bible — the Word of God — taught and required of them with regard to the practice of slavery. They listened closely to 'debates' over the meaning of biblical teaching on slavery and found the arguments offered by the pro-slavery side to be simpler, clearer, easier to follow, and therefore more compelling and persuasive. And thus, persuaded by such powerful biblical arguments, they subsequently came to believe that slavery as practiced in America was something acceptable, respectable, and blessed by God." The Slacktivist calls bullshit on this.

Blogaround

1. Chicago’s “Race-Neutral” Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino Drivers the Most (January) This is really interesting, because a very superficial view of the situation might say "it's actually true that Black and Latino drivers in these areas are running red lights/ breaking the speed limit at higher rates than white drivers, so yes they should get ticketed more; there is no problem here." But actually, the real issue is that the layout of the roads in Black and Latino areas of the city encourages drivers to break traffic laws (which can cause fatal accidents) while the layout of the roads in mostly-white areas naturally causes drivers to slow down/ drive carefully. So it's not just about "you, an individual, shouldn't be speeding"- though yes that's true- but there's more to it than that.

2. Feminism with YIMBY Characteristics (July 7) "But there is another picture here, one visible in the negative space of the above statistics: the people who don’t leave, or who can’t. The ones for whom the threat of homelessness functions as a chain, tying them to their abusers. This is queer kids, but it’s not just queer kids. It’s everyone stuck with a partner they can’t leave because they need to make the mortgage, or because they can’t afford rent alone. It’s everyone stuck in the closet because their partner would show them the door the minute they came out. It’s everyone who settles for patriarchy because we have made freedom unaffordable."

3. The Incarnation or the Resurrection? (December 13) I love this!

4. No, The Bible Does Not Say “Fear Not” 365 Times (December 13) Fact checking. Very important.

Also: The Great Laminin Hoax (2017) "Uhm…Err…uh…yeah. Well, that’s not very cross-like is it?"

5. Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon’s death row (December 13) [content note: the descriptions of the murders that these people on death row committed are pretty horrifying]

6. 12/14 Flashback: Thrice-told tales (December 14) "Now Moses is again being confronted, but not by clan leaders and respected well-known men. He’s being challenged by five sisters. The law, these sisters tell Moses, is not fair. God’s law is not fair."

7. The Repugnant Conclusion (April 18) This is a short story about a character who has vaginismus. (Also I read her as asexual.) Linking it here because I was so surprised to happen upon a story about vaginismus. Those parts of the story feel really spot-on.

8. Why Infinite Coin-Flipping is Bad (December 2) "But that’s very far from true if you’re donating millions or billions. When donating at large scale, you’re structurally changing the organizations you donate to. There aren’t plausibly organizations that will literally sop up a billion dollars just doing more of the exact same thing they were doing earlier."

9. Leopards, faces, etc. (December 17) "I only wanted to stop the indefensible forms of abortion that exist in my head. I didn’t intend for that to have anything to do with ectopic pregnancies, or with forcing responsible married women to carry dead fetuses to term, or with requiring an 11-year-old rape victim to bear a child her body is incapable of bearing safely!"

Francis Chan and Objectivity

Globe. Image source.

Last week I posted Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China, a blog post where I finally put into words my thoughts about the mistaken notion that anyone can or should be an objective outside observer of the world. We are not objective; we have our own culture, and that is the lens through which we experience everything. Your experiences and your idea of "normal" are not universal- they are just one tiny little subculture in this giant diverse world.

So now that I've laid all that out in a blog post, I've decided to continue to point out this attitude of "we look at the world from an objective outside perspective" wherever I see it, because it's EVERYWHERE. Most people don't even notice, because it's everywhere and it feels so normal. And that's why I have to point it out. (You're welcome.)

So, I would like to present this article: Francis Chan Is Moving to Asia to Be a Missionary. For those of you who don't know, Chan is a pastor and is a big deal among young cool evangelicals who care about missions and saving the world. (In other words, me 10 years ago.) Here's an excerpt from the article:

Chan used an extended fishing metaphor in his address to the Asuza students explaining his decision to move. “I feel like I’ve been fishing in the same pond my whole life,” he said. “And now there’s like thousands of other fishermen at the same pond, and our lines are getting tangled and everyone’s fighting over stupid things, and one guy tries some new lure and we go, ‘Oh, he caught a fish, let’s all try his method!’ And it just feels like, what are we all doing here?”

I happened upon this article just days after publishing my whole big post about objectivity and the world, and I was just FASCINATED. What an informative example of exactly this fallacy! Let's take a closer look.

I hear this metaphor, and I interpret it to mean something like this: "Here in the US, we have all these Christian leaders trying to share the gospel and get people saved, such a high concentration of us that it's not effective and we end up fighting with each other. Meanwhile the whole rest of the world is out there. It doesn't make sense that we all stay here. Results would be much better if we went somewhere else to spread Christianity."

So many incorrect assumptions in there! Here, let's see how many we can find:

• Everyone in the world needs to hear about Christianity.
• The United States is where the Christians are, so we're in charge of sending people out to the rest of the world.
• Other countries don't have many Christians. They don't send missionaries.
• Our brand of (white American evangelical) Christianity is something the entire world needs, not something specific to our tiny subculture.
• American Christians are the objective outside observers of the world. We are the authority figures who know what everyone else in the world needs.

Even though Chan didn't say any of these things, his statement doesn't make sense without them. When you realize that in reality, every group of people in this world is doing their own thing in their own culture, just like we do our own thing in our own culture, and we know nothing about how they live or what they need if we haven't done extensive research... When you realize all that, Chan's whole point sounds like complete nonsense.

But this brings up an interesting question: In last week's post, I said God is objective and relates to every person and every culture in the world equally. But here's a question: Is Christianity also objective and applicable to everyone, or is it culture-specific?

Ooooh. Well that's a question. I'm not even sure what my answer is to that.

Here are a few thoughts though:

I'm a Christian, and I'm very happy about being a Christian. I believe Jesus really did live and die and resurrect- so you could categorize that as "objective" in the sense that [according to my ideology] those things really did happen. But the part that's not "objective" is our interpretation of those events- how much importance we place on them, how they affect us today. A lot of things happened in the world in 33 AD [or whenever it was]; the reason I am specifically interested in Jesus' resurrection and not any of those other things has EVERYTHING to do with my cultural background.

Also, even though I believe those things literally did happen, that's not really the main point of my Christian belief. I'm more interested in the big concepts of incarnation and resurrection. Yes, I believe in the Incarnation- but more importantly, I believe in incarnation. God is with us right now. God lives in every person in the world. Yes, I believe in the Resurrection- but more importantly, I believe in resurrection. God will resurrect the whole world and bring justice.

And big abstract ideas like incarnation and resurrection can certainly be meaningful to people from any culture. (Or not meaningful. That's also fine.) But the religious system built up around those ideas is extremely culture-specific. And all of my background as a white American evangelical is extremely culture-specific.

Furthermore, I recognize that the reason I'm still a Christian now has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH the fact that I was raised evangelical. If I had been raised in a different religion, then no, I don't think it would benefit me to convert to Christianity. But I am happy being a Christian because I've always been a Christian- and even though I feel that my entire religious ideology has changed, I'm still glad that I can keep or reclaim a lot of the language and symbols. Which, again, is all about culture.

And one more point I would like to make: I do not believe everyone needs to be a Christian. I do not believe everyone would benefit from becoming a Christian. I do not believe non-Christians go to hell. I believe going to heaven or hell has nothing to do with what religion you belong to; instead, it's based on "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink," and so on, "whatever you did for the least of these."

And I have a huge problem with the Christianity that says "everyone needs to believe what we believe, in order to not go to hell." Seeing yourself and your beliefs as something objective and universal that applies to everyone. You believe you have a personal relationship with God- who is objective and outside of culture- you believe you know Them so well, so closely, spending time with God every day, making your relationship with God the highest priority in your life. You're so closely tied to a truly objective being, so then you believe you are objective as well. Or at least, the parts of your life that are most influenced by your relationship with God are necessarily the most objective and correct and applicable to everyone in the whole world. "God agrees with me."

The whole concept of a "personal relationship with God" leads us to believe very wrong things about our own objectivity. (For me personally, one of the biggest factors in ending my relationship with God was when I found out about systemic racism. People of color in the United States are constantly dealing with this- it affects job opportunities, education, voting rights, where they can live, interactions with police, and so on and so on, while I benefit from white privilege, and God never thought to mention it to me? God, who supposedly loves all people of all races equally. God, who I prayed to every day. I would sit and listen for what God wanted to say to me, every day, for years- and NOT A PEEP about systemic racism.)

And also, I would like to say this: Me, a person who is a member of a very specific tiny subculture at a very specific time in the history of the world, in a "personal relationship" with a God who knows every person and every culture and every time period completely intimately. That alone is a huge power imbalance, before you even get to the whole omnipotence thing. Which is why I am no longer willing to be in a relationship like that ever again. I thought I knew Them so well, but now I see that's impossible. And maybe it would be okay to have an all-knowing being like that as just an acquaintance, but to build every aspect of my life on that relationship, to commit myself to Them 100%, "he must become greater, I must become less", bringing every single aspect of my entire life under Their control, "I surrender all", no, there's no way that can be healthy.

So. Well I started out talking about Francis Chan and now we're here, at the intersection of objectivity, culture, and a "personal relationship with God." I plan to continue to write blog posts pointing out when Americans are talking as if we are the objective observers of the world. Chan is basically saying, "There are so many Christian leaders right here in this little geographic area, compared to the rest of the world, which doesn't make sense because what we have here is equally applicable to everyone in the entire world. So I'm moving to Asia." On the one hand, I wish him good luck, because I also moved to Asia and it's great but it's hard to be an immigrant. But on the other hand, he has some very misguided ideas because he's talking as if culture doesn't exist.

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

Related:
Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China
God Is With Us (a post about autism)
They Prayed About It (a post about the #NashvilleStatement)

Blogaround

A photo of a shiny metal playground slide in the sun, labelled with types "Fire" and "Steel" as if it's a pokemon. This twitter post has a bunch of slides with pokemon types and it's FANTASTIC.

1. Months-Long Dutch Church Service To Protect Migrants Ends After Policy Shift (posted January 31) YES. The kingdom of heaven is like ^

2. My #ExposeChristianSchools Story (posted February 1) "Taking advantage of these natural and normal vulnerabilities of children and minors with an agenda is exploitative. And yet it is normalized in Christian schools in the name of love."

3. Fake News About Abortion in Virginia (posted February 1) [note: the language in this article assumes pregnant people are all women, but that's not true~ trans people exist!] "But there’s contempt for women embedded in the idea that, absent legal prohibition, someone on the verge of giving birth might instead terminate her pregnancy to avoid the brutalities of labor. 'No matter what the law were, in real life, these things don’t happen[.]'"

4. Queering Eve (posted January 31) "Eve becomes the heroine of the story when she resolves to call God’s bluff. She decides that obtaining the knowledge of good and evil is worth the risk of death; that she doesn’t want to live under God’s thumb, unable to fully understand the world in which she resides." I love this! You know, my favorite type of bible fan fiction to write is re-imagining the stories of biblical characters who are portrayed as "bad guys." (Like Achan and Ham.)

5. It’s OK to Question White Evangelicals Adopting Black Kids (posted January 28) "She calls a Black woman “racist” for asking whether she’s introducing her Black children to Black culture—and ignores the existence of real racism."

6. Meet the Chicago woman who rented hotel rooms for the homeless during deep freeze (posted February 1) The kingdom of heaven is like ^

7. A Birth Plan for Dying (posted September 2018) [content note: child death] "The worst of it this: If you show this map to anyone, to try to give shape to the contours of the greatest, most difficult act of love you have ever committed, you will be called a murderer." An account of a "late-term" abortion of a wanted pregnancy.

8. Epiphany: Jesus wept (posted January 6) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

9. Inside the Scam of the "Purity" Movement (posted February 5) "Using the hashtag, women shared stories of waiting indefinitely for a husband to materialize, spending years lonely and riddled with guilt if they masturbated, or blaming themselves for their sexual abuse."

10. Before judging 'late-term abortion,' understand what it means, doctors say (posted February 6) [note: the language in this article assumes pregnant people are all women, but that's not true~ trans people exist!] "Abortion later in pregnancy is not used as an alternative to delivering healthy women's full-term, viable pregnancies. Additionally, it's callous to suggest that healthy women with viable pregnancies at term abruptly change their minds and seek abortion care as the solution." PREACH.

11. US sees limitations on reuniting migrant families (posted February 2) "'The Trump administration’s response is a shocking concession that it can’t easily find thousands of children it ripped from parents, and doesn’t even think it’s worth the time to locate each of them,' said Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU attorney." Oh god this is bad.

12. The Ugly Nihilism of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Comments About Why It Doesn’t Matter if Trump Is Immoral (posted January 2) "And it’s a 'distortion,' he said, to imagine that the country as a whole should love its neighbors and help the poor just because Jesus told individuals to do so."

13. On Raising Strong Daughters (posted February 5) "Having a daughter who is willing and able to talk back, and push back—and does mine ever —may sometimes make parenting more difficult in the moment, but it also makes her safer."

But if that doesn't help you, that's fine too

Image text: "Beliefs" with a silhouette of a head and a bunch of thought bubbles in the brain. Image source.

Yesterday I published God Is With Us (a post about autism), which was about my understanding of the Incarnation- I believe God lives in us (all of us, no matter our religion) and feels our emotions at the same time we feel them. In particular, God experiences the pain of sensory overload, and the stigma from being misunderstood or judged for being autistic.

For me, this idea is really meaningful and helpful, but I want to say this: If it's not helpful for you, that's totally fine.

Like maybe someone would object, and say "So what if God feels our pain- they don't actually intervene and do anything to help, so what's the point?" And indeed, I don't believe God intervenes in our lives. If I believed that, it would raise a lot of awkward questions about why a world where God is constantly micromanaging the tiny details of my life is also a world with so much systemic injustice. How could I credit God with helping me find a new job, for example, when God hasn't fixed the widespread societal problem of resumes with "black-sounding" names being less likely to get called for interviews? (Yes, quite awkward to give God credit for something that I actually got through white privilege...)

Because of the problem of evil, I don't believe in a God who actually does tangible things in our lives. But I do believe in a God who is with us and feels what we feel. It's comforting for me, but if it's not comforting for you, I get that. That's totally fine. You don't have to believe any of this.

If you don't believe in God at all, that's also fine. I'm ex-evangelical and still a Christian, but if you're ex-evangelical and not Christian anymore, that's fine too.

And I don't try to convince people my beliefs are right. I'm not interested in convincing anyone to become a Christian. It really does not matter to me what people's religious beliefs are- what matters is how they treat people.

Back when I was evangelical, I would have answered the question "why are you a Christian?" by trying to make an argument about why everyone should be a Christian. I would have seen it as an opportunity to "do evangelism" to the person who asked. I would have crafted my answer with the goal of getting them to think they should be a Christian too.

But now, my answer is that I love the concepts of resurrection and incarnation so much. I love "your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven." (As Belinda Carlisle said, "Heaven is a place on earth." That's my religion.) These ideas are so beautiful and meaningful to me, and so I believe them. Maybe that's not a very good reason to believe something- okay, sure, that's why I'm not trying to convince anybody. If you think it's not a good basis for belief, I get that. That's totally fine.

A few months ago I was talking with a friend who's queer and non-religious, about my experiences coming from a queermisic Christian background and then coming to a new understanding of Christianity that's queer-affirming. He asked me, why continue to believe at all? Why not just get rid of the whole thing? And I said, yeah, some people do that, and that's also completely valid, I get it.

So if I ever say "God is like this or that" I don't mean it in the sense of "this is the right answer and if you don't agree then you are wrong and you need to change." Of course that's how I meant it back when I was an evangelical, but please don't take it that way now. When I call people out for having terrible beliefs, it's because I know those beliefs lead to abuse, mental health problems, mistreating people in the name of God, etc. It's not because we disagree about some abstract idea related to the nature of God. I don't care what religion you are; I care how your beliefs affect people. The Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath.

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

And since we're talking about incarnation, let me share one of my favorite songs about it~ "The Final Word" by Michael Card~
"Their final word was Jesus, they needed no other one"


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

You asked and I answered~ In my 2018 Reader Survey, one of the top 5 topics you voted for was "the Christianity that Perfect Number believes now." Hence this post. :)

God Is With Us (a post about autism)

Image text: "Immanuel, God with us" on a starry background. Image source.

When we feel scared, God feels scared too.

When we feel lonely, God feels lonely too.

When we get excited and obsess over one topic for days and days, God is excited too.

When we feel overwhelmed because everything is too loud and crowded, God feels overwhelmed too.

When we feel like no one understands us, God feels like no one understands them too.

When we feel confused about how to communicate with people, God is confused too.

When lights are too bright, they're too bright for God too.

When sounds are too loud, God feels pain too.

When smells or tastes are repulsive, God feels the same disgust we do.

When textures are uncomfortable on our skin, God can't stand the feeling either.

When we're distressed because plans are changing suddenly and everything feels disorganized, God is freaking out too.

When we're embarrassed because we can't handle something that everyone else seems completely fine with, God feels that shame too.

When we think maybe we're just weak and pathetic because we have such a hard time with things that other people think are no big deal, God feels bad about themself too.

When we have so many emotions and can't even understand them, God is overwhelmed too.

When we are stuck in a situation that's too intense, forced to stay there because other people don't listen when we say we're not okay, God gets more and more stressed and panicked at the same time we do.

Sensory pain. God feels it too. The same pain.

Fear. God feels it too. Just as intense.

Loneliness. God feels it at the same time we do.

God is with us. God is autistic too.

-----------

Related: The Sound [trigger warnings for globophobia/phonophobia]

Follow-up post: But if that doesn't help you, that's fine too

Blogaround

Two cats hugging. Image source.

1. Why stay in college? Why go to night school? (posted May 1) "Rapture-Christianity taught us, from a young age, that we had no future. That’s a horrible thing to teach a child."

2. for Thanos so loved the world (posted May 22) [content note: spoilers for "Avengers: Infinity War"] "He’s even more merciful than the American evangelical god if you think about it—he’s going to save half of everyone in the universe."

3. Found myself singing "Because Of You" to the Jesus I used to worship. I have so many feelings about this. I don't think I can ever have a "personal relationship" with a god ever again. Because of what He did.


4. Related: I still can't get over how much I see the Incarnation in this scene from "Spiderman: Homecoming," and how that's the Jesus I love. Peter thinks Tony is controlling the Ironman suit remotely- somewhere far away, just sending rules and condemnation, no skin in the game. "If you even cared you'd actually be here" and then the Ironman suit opens and there he is.


5. And if you haven't taken my 2018 Reader Survey yet, go over and do it~ Survey closes on June 9.

Blogaround

So I just watched "Thor: Ragnarok", and Loki is, ahem, causing me to stumble. Image source.

1. To stop the institutionalization of children, stop volunteering in orphanages (posted October 31) "To meet the demand of tourists who want to support poor children, according to Save the Children,  there are many cases of orphanage managers taking children from their parents after convincing them they would be better off in the institution."

2. So you know the scene in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" where Peter is like, "If you even cared you'd actually be here" and the Tony pops out of the Ironman suit unexpectedly- was anybody else like "SEE THIS IS WHY THE INCARNATION IS SUCH A BIG DEAL"?

3. Perfect Number watches VeggieTales "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?" [updated link] So I decided to livetweet episodes of VeggieTales. (Come for the questionable theology, stay for the hilarious jokes and songs.) This is a storify on the first episode.

Here's episode 2: Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "God Wants Me To Forgive Them!?!" [updated link]

4. On the Evangelical Response to Harvey Weinstein (posted October 30)

5. Thor: Ragnarok is a direct commentary on Trump's America (posted November 5) [content note: spoilers for "Thor: Ragnarok"]

6. 'Thor: Ragnarok' Is A Bold Commentary On The Insidiousness of Imperialism (posted November 4) [content note: spoilers for "Thor: Ragnarok"] "In the climax, Hela gestures towards the golden grandeur on display and muses: 'Proud to have it, but not proud of how you got it.'"

7. Sheep pick Barack Obama, Emma Watson out of a line-up "Human appreciation that sheep have superior face-recognition skills isn’t new. There’s a reason the Gospel of John has Jesus observing: 'I know my sheep and my sheep know me.'"

Loki with his horns, cape, and daggers. Image source.

The Sound

A little girl sitting alone in a classroom. Image source.

[trigger warnings for globophobia/phonophobia]

The students all shuffled into the classroom together. Jesus sat in the second row.

"Today," their teacher said, "we have a special guest who will show us some chemistry demonstrations." There was a tank of gas at the front of the classroom. Oh no, thought Jesus, I hope it's not explosions. His mind filled with worry. There was nothing he could do except hope and hope and hope that there would be no explosions. He was powerless, trapped in that classroom.

After a bit of talk about gas and molecules, the speaker pulled out a balloon. The King of kings felt trapped in his seat in the second row. A mess of emotions swirled around his mind, but the biggest one was fear. Fear of what would happen if that balloon popped. The sound, the unbearable sound. No one would protect him. He knew that. A lifetime of people telling him it's not that bad, just makes you a little bit startled, that's all.

No one would protect him. No one would care about his pain. Jesus stared as the speaker blew into the balloon to inflate it.

He lit a match.

And God put his human fingers into his ears. He tensed all his muscles, held his breath, put his head down, and then the pop came. The sound filled the whole room and seemed to fill his brain, like the whole world was blocked out for that one instant, as Jesus pushed into his ears but couldn't stop the intense pain.

It was over. But he was shaking. And nobody seemed to notice the trauma he had just endured.

Now the guest speaker was saying something about hydrogen. And Jesus began the cycle of fear all over again. He knew that guy had more balloons. He knew there was a tank of hydrogen. It was going to happen again. He was trapped in his seat, with his classmates all around, but so totally alone.

All he could do was wait for the pain to come and then it would be over, and then it would be okay.

At the front of the classroom, the speaker stretched a balloon over the nozzle of the tank, and the Messiah heard the hiss of the gas. The balloon inflated, and he squirmed in his chair, not even aware of the fact that he was pushing his fingers into his ears. It was a response he did automatically.

He was stuck, so stuck, trapped in that chair. When will this end? he wondered. Anxious, desperate, fully aware that he could not stop the pain. If- when- that ballon popped, the sound would overwhelm him again. For an instant, it would destroy the entire world, and then everything would snap back to normal, and everyone would just continue on as if they hadn't just experienced a cataclysmic event.

All he could do was stare, and worry, and wonder when the sound would come. When the pain would come.

This time, the speaker taped a match to the end of a meter stick. He lit the match and lowered the meter stick, closer and closer to the balloon, as the Creater of the entire universe- of hydrogen atoms and vibrations and sound and the human auditory system- cowered in his chair, twisting his body in an attempt to become smaller... Anything to guard against that awful, indescribable sound. It wouldn't be enough. He knew it wouldn't be enough.

And it popped. It was loud. It was overwhelmingly loud. He pushed into his ears as hard as he could, as the sound overtook him and blocked out everything else. For a moment, nothing else existed besides that monstrous sound, beating him down, and it ended as suddenly as it had come.

It was over. Oh thank goodness it was over. Surely that guy wouldn't do another one. It must be over.

The Son of God listened with dread as the speaker started talking about ratios of gases. A carefully-proportioned mix between hydrogen and oxygen would make an even more spectacular result. And he got out a third balloon.

No. This was too much. This was torture. But there was nothing he could do. He had to stay in his seat, in the second row. Terrified.

The balloon, the meter stick, the match. And Jesus shrank into his chair, powerless. No one would save him. No one would protect him. It was just him and his fingers in his ears, but of course that wasn't enough.

And the balloon exploded.

It felt like the entire world exploded.

The sound overwhelmed him and drowned out everything else. It filled the whole room, his whole mind, his whole body. In that moment, he couldn't think- the explosion had completely overtaken and destroyed the place where his thoughts were supposed to be. His body reacted the way it always did, the way he had been trained, through years and years of enduring this trauma alone, while other people seemed completely unaware. Head down, fingers pushing so hard into his ears, all his muscles attempting to curl his body as small as possible.

At the same time, a giant fireball swept from the front to the back of the classroom. He felt the heat and the air whooshing by. But the sound was what caused him incredible pain.

And just as suddenly as it had come, it was over. The other students were chattering excitedly, seemingly delighted by what had just happened. Jesus finally let out a huge breath, as he decided it was okay to relax now. It wouldn't happen again. It was over.

The other students started to file out of the classroom. Emmanuel, God With Us, followed them, his long hair hiding his tears. He would go to his next class now, and just move on with life, internalizing the message that had been forced on him every time this happened: that he was the weird one for having such a strong reaction to sound, that it was totally fine for other people not to notice or care about his pain, and everything would be better if he would just learn not to care about it either. If he could force himself not to "overreact." And "be normal."

With his hair still covering his face, Jesus wiped away his tears, and felt so alone.

Honest Advent: Incarnation

Image text: "Immanuel. God with us. The Incarnation." Image source.

Matthew 1:18-25

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

"Immanuel" which means "God with us."

That's why I love Christmas. It's about incarnation, which, along with resurrection, is the entire foundation of my religious beliefs. Incarnation and resurrection.

Yes, I believe in The Incarnation; I believe Jesus was a real person who was God in human flesh. But far more important than The Incarnation is incarnation. "God is with us, right here, right now, always," is far more important than "2000 years ago in the Middle East, God became a person."

I believe God is with us, God is in us, God is watching all the time, and God feels every emotion we feel. God is empathy.

Back when I was an evangelical, we focused so much on apologetics, on arguing that yes, the Christmas story is TOTALLY a HISTORICAL FACT. We had to shoot down any doubt as fast as possible. People quoted probabilities about prophecies, historical records about Herod, estimates for when the gospel of Matthew was written.

It was all about proving how The Incarnation was totally definitely literally true. The actual meaning of incarnation, as a concept, was an afterthought.

Same thing for resurrection. I believe The Resurrection literally happened, but resurrection is far more important to me now than The Resurrection. We will all rise again, and there will be no more death or pain.

Immanuel. God is with us. Incarnation.

Merry Christmas everyone~

Star Trek: Incarnation

Counselor Troi and Captain Picard. Image source.

"The distress calls from the planet are almost continuous. It's time we did something," Deanna Troi said with concern in her voice.

"I understand, Counselor," Captain Jean-Luc Picard answered. "But this is not a simple problem. As you've said, we're receiving distress calls from all over the planet, for so many different reasons. Wars, famine, seismic activity- if we did interfere, the question is, where to even begin?"

"The problem is deeper than that, actually," added Data. "On this planet, every one of the cultures I have studied is characterized by inequality. For example, inhabitants of the planet generally regard women to be inferior to men. It will not be easy to overcome this belief."

"I know that it would be difficult, but we can't just sit here and do nothing!" Troi said. "They need--"

Picard interrupted, "But the Prime Directive--"

"Captain! Don't you care? Captain, I hear them constantly. I feel their pain. They know we're up here. They know we could help if we wanted. How can you just do nothing? How can you just leave them?" She was indignant.

Captain Picard sighed. He looked down at the table. "I do hear them. I wish there were an easy answer." He looked at Troi. "But there's no way for us to help them. It would require a society-wide transformation, and that's something we can't force. The people of this planet have the ability to better their society. They have the resources. In time, they will develop technologically and evolve past their prejudices."

"That's convenient for you to say," answered Troi. "We have a responsibility to them..."

"Counselor, don't say I don't care. I do care about them." He glared at her.

"But how, Captain? How can you really care? We've sent away teams, yes, but they've always known they'd be able to beam out at a moment's notice. There was never any danger for us. We're here, in the Enterprise, above it all, safe from all their problems and suffering. From this position, can we ever truly understand them? Can we ever truly care?"

The captain sighed, unsure about what to say. Data looked at both of them, then said, "If I may, Captain. I believe I understand Counselor Troi's concern. I myself have studied human emotions extensively, but they remain a mystery to me, because I am unable to experience them. Perhaps we are in the same situation with regards to this planet."

"That's exactly it," said Troi. "We can study the planet, we can learn about the people, we can hear the distress calls, but we can't truly understand their suffering. And when we sit in the comfort of our ship, orbiting above the planet, and say we care about them, our words ring hollow. How can we care, if we ourselves remain above all of it?"

"I understand," said Picard. "But the Prime Directive exists for a reason. As outsiders, any action we take would cause a major disruption in their society. They need to fix these problems themselves. I fear that our attempts to help them would introduce new problems."

"That is quite likely," answered Data. "If we provided them with the technology they needed, based on this history of this planet, it is probable that those with the technology would use it to gain more power for themselves and control others."

Troi gave them both a worried look. "So we should just do nothing? We should wait for them to solve this themselves?"

"If only we could teach them, in a way that would not be intimidating or forceful," said Picard. "But any action we took would be frightening to them."

"Teach them?" said Data. "Captain, I may have an idea. Perhaps if we built some kind of probe, which looked like them and could live among them. I could control the probe from here. Then I could understand their society and teach them to cooperate with each other."

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

Data, with a cable connected to his brain. Image source.

Data stood next to a mess of wires, holding a tricorder. A section of his hair has been opened, revealing the positronic components and blinking lights that made up his brain. "I will be able to interface with the probe directly," he explained. "After the probe is initialized, for all practical purposes I will no longer be aboard the Enterprise. I will only have access to the sensory information and cognitive abilities of the host body."

"Cognitive abilities?" said Troi. "Data, you'll be in an infant's body. You mean you won't even be able to reason beyond the abilities of an infant?"

"That is correct, Counselor," said Data. "It will take some time for the brain of the host to develop to a point where I can begin the mission."

"I must warn you, this is risky," said Picard, in a serious tone. "You'll be as vulnerable as they are. We won't be able to help you from here."

"And how will you communicate with us?" asked Troi.

"I will only be able to communicate as the inhabitants of the planet do," said Data. "They direct their thoughts up here to us, unsure if we are even listening."

"Commander, I can't order you to do this," said Picard. "It's too dangerous."

"With all due respect, Captain, this is what I have always wanted. Finally I will experience human emotions. I will be able to truly understand what it means to be happy, or sad, or angry, or worried," Data said as he sat down in a chair. He attached a cable to his brain and turned toward a panel of buttons. "Initializing ... now." The top button lit up as he pressed it. His eyes closed and his body fell lifeless in the chair. Small lights in his brain continued to blink.

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

Down on the surface of the planet, as night fell on a tiny settlement, Data opened human eyes for the first time. They wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Merry Christmas.

At Christmas, I Finally Feel Like a Christian

Image source.

Readers of this blog will know that I worry a lot about the fact that I'm apparently not a "real Christian" anymore. I don't believe all the correct things (you know, opposing gay marriage and abortion, believing that all non-Christians go to hell, etc etc). I say I'm a Christian, but, come on.

So here we are, in the month of December, surrounded by Christmas decorations. (Here in China, there are artificial Christmas trees, tinsel, and pictures of Santa in every mall, but no acknowledgement that Christmas has a religious component. I miss that.)

You guys, I love Christmas. I love Jesus coming to the earth. It's just so good, the message of "peace on earth."

All this crap going on in the world, the violence and injustice... o come o come Emmanuel. We need God. We need hope. We need someone to right the wrongs.

I love everything about Jesus' birth. And in my classes (I teach English to Chinese adults) I talk about American culture, and Christmas, and the religious part and what it all means to me, and I'm so so so happy to teach about it. I still want to be a missionary, you guys.

Jesus. The word became flesh. God became human. And it means he will bring peace on earth. He has brought down rulers from their thrones and lifted up the humble. You guys. You guys.

No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found. That's the meaning of Christmas. The world is messed up, but all of that is going to change. It all started to change on that day 2000 years ago when (did I mention?) God became a human.

God is with us!

If that's not good news, I don't know what is.

Image source.

All year long, people tell me I'm not a real Christian. They don't say it so explicitly or directly, but the message is clear: You must hold to this specific set of beliefs and rules, otherwise, come on, you're not fooling anyone.

But here is Christmas, and here is Jesus, coming to this broken world. Here is joy and hope and a vision for peace on earth.

That's the message of Christianity, and that's the best news I've ever heard. That's a message I can get on board with. I want to tell everyone the good news.

At Christmas, I finally feel like a Christian.

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

PS please enjoy this song: