Blogaround

Lt. Uhura, from "Star Trek." Image source.

1. Nichelle Nichols, trailblazing 'Star Trek' actress, dies at 89 (July 31)

2. The profit surcharge (July 5) "The reason, of course, is ideological: they only add in the tax later so that you feel that the tax is an extra imposition." 

Hmm, my first reaction to this is "yeah when I came to China it BLEW MY MIND how the price that it says is the price that IT ACTUALLY IS. You don't have to budget a few extra dollars in your head for tax and tip. It's WILD." And then my second reaction is, I am not sure this writer has an accurate view of what it means that "profit" is built into the prices of things. As I understand it, it's not just a like a silly extra thing added on because rich people are greedy; it's about compensating investors for taking the risk, and it's an important part of our economy.

I like his post though; it's an interesting thing to think about. It's worth reading. :)

So I think he is oversimplifying it, but probably I am also oversimplifying it because I am not an expert in economics. But it seems to me like there are 2 different mindsets about how to handle one's money- there are people who have less money, who are just trying to meet their basic needs for survival (food, housing, health care), and then there are people with plenty of money, who are thinking "okay, how can I grow my money to be bigger? what are my investment options, and what are the risks for each one?" (Perhaps there is also some in-between category- people who would be struggling, except that they followed some really good advice about investing, so now they are doing fine- is that a thing?) And then if you make some change in policy to make life easier for those who are struggling, then the rich people are like "okay I made this whole long-term plan about how to grow my money, and now you're changing the rules and it screws up my plan, now I'll end up losing money instead" and those in power who are making the policies treat that like it's just as important as lower-income people's need to have enough money to stay alive. (Because those in power are members of the "how do I grow my money bigger?" group.)

I see this sort of dynamic in online discussions about landlords- you have the forums where landlords talk to each other, where they advise each other about the realistic costs and how to set the price of rent to make sure you make a profit- it's not just "rent > mortgage", and you have to consider a lot of risks like what if you don't have renters for a period of time, what if someone doesn't pay their rent, etc. And then you have online threads where renters complain about how evil their landlords are. (And yes, some of them really are evil.) To me, it looks like the landlords became landlords to make money off of a basic human need, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that in and of itself (though many people on twitter certainly do, and say that all landlords are evil or whatever)- but if you do that, then you have to consider carefully what your policies are if you end up with a renter who is dependent on you for this basic human need, but doesn't have enough money to pay rent. Like you need to set your profit margin high enough so that if a situation comes up where you need to show some compassion and not charge them/ evict them (even though it's within your rights legally), you still make money overall. Right? Am I right? Otherwise, that means that those of us who care about justice are expecting landlords to just be fine with losing money if they end up with a renter with a very sad story who can't pay rent. And then, if that's the way it is, then before becoming a landlord, one should take that risk into account and then probably decide it's not a good idea at all, and they'd be better off "growing their money" in a different way. And then all the landlords end up being people who don't care about humanity and just want to make money off people. Maybe to some extent that's true anyway- the nice ones aren't as competitive as the ones who cut corners and treat their renters like crap, so the nice ones don't end up doing as well in the market.

Full disclosure, I am in the "I have enough money, how do I make it into more money?" group. And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that- though it does mean that I have a responsibility to give away money to people in need. The bible is clear about that. (I read the parable of the rich fool and sweat.) And I don't think there's one "right answer" to the question of how much should I give away vs how much should I save for myself- though there are certainly some answers to that question that are going to get you in big trouble with the God of the bible someday. "The wages you have failed to pay your workers are crying out against you." 

Anyway... I don't have a wonderful conclusion here or anything, but here's an idea: I think investment advice for people in the "how do I grow my money bigger" group should talk A LOT more about the risks, so much so that the idea of losing money feels as normal to them as "oh the rent suddenly increased and there's just no way to make ends meet" feels to the "barely enough money to live" group. Or, maybe I'm not saying this in the right way... what I mean is... if rich people oppose some new policy (that helps poor people get healthcare, for example) because it messes up their calculations about what percentage growth they would be able to get on their wealth every year or whatever, society should respond to that with the same disdainful "well you should have set aside money for an emergency fund instead of buying avocado toast" attitude that society has towards poor people. Well you should have known all investments are risky, it's not our fault you're so irresponsible. That kind of thing.

Gif from "The Emperor's New Groove," where Yzma says, "Ha! You really should have thought of that before you became peasants!" Image source.

3. The Puzzle They Said We Should Never Do... (March 9) A 1-hour-13-minute sudoku solve video, with a complicated ruleset. I love it.

4. I’m a trans woman exhausted by the broken conversation around sports (July 25) "If the people having this debate took care to avoid it impacting normal trans people’s lives, to distinguish between elite sports and school sports, and to prevent this debate from becoming culture war ammunition, that would be fine. But they don’t, because it is a culture war issue." Very much agree with this article. The question of how to categorize trans people in sports seems like it should be a fascinating discussion about biological differences between men and women (averages and standard deviations), the purpose of having separate categories for men and women in sports (and the history behind it), statistics about the athletic abilities of trans people as a demographic, and then breaking those stats down further based on when and how they transitioned, ethical considerations about trans people's need to be affirmed as their gender, and so on. Seems like that's what it should be- but in reality, this discussion is very much NOT that. Instead, it's a culture war, and some of the loudest voices are actually saying that trans people shouldn't even exist- like not even trying to hide it, that's what they're saying. Not cool.

5. A Satanist got a Kansas school to rethink its anti-‘Satanism’ dress code (July 22)

6. Speaking of suicide: How institutions help people and save lives (July 26) [content note: discussion of suicide] "I disagree strenuously with Herrold’s statement that suicide treatment is 'by no means safe and caring.'"

With God, Everything is a Battle and You Can't Just Leave

Person dressed in armor with a shield and sword. Image text: "Put on the full armor of God." Image source.

Here's a post that's worth reading: The Dark Side of Grace. It's about how the whole "Jesus saved us when we were so unworthy" thing looks a lot like an abusive relationship. The abuser wants to make the victim believe they are bad and unlovable, that they are "lucky" to have the abuser, that "no one else will love you like I do," that any small bit of kindness from the abuser is an amazing gift that the victim does not deserve.

And, yes, that is TOTALLY how good evangelicals talk about our relationship with God. (Do go and read the whole thing.)

The part I want to talk about is this, from the end of the post:

I suggest you try getting out from under that narrative for a time to see if the way you see yourself changes for the better. Take a break from this possessive “Lover of your soul” and find out for yourself if maybe there’s another way, a kinder way, to see yourself. One that doesn’t require constantly lowering your own opinion of yourself in order to magnify his glory.

I think you’ll find the world outside of that relationship a more natural fit, if you’ll give it a chance. But I don’t expect you to take my word for it. You’ll have to decide for yourself what you’re ready to do.

The writer, Neil Carter, suggests that Christians take a temporary break from their relationship with God, just to see if maybe they'd be better off without it. And while I understand where this suggestion is coming from, there was no way it would have been helpful to me, back when I was "on fire for Jesus."

First of all, I believed that I couldn't live without Jesus- and this plays out as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pastors and Christian leaders explicitly preach that humans are all incompetent at even the most basic things when we try to do them without God's help. There are many worship songs about how "I am nothing without you." And if a Christian of this type tries to "live without God" for a short period of time, any difficulties they encounter will be seen as EVIDENCE that it was a terrible idea, that it's true they can't live without God. I have heard a lot of testimonies along these lines, actually. "I was trying to do XYZ and it wasn't working, then I realized I hadn't prayed about it/ wasn't relying on God/ was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was trying to do it without God, and that's why it failed."

So if you "try to live without God" but don't change any of the surrounding ideology, then it's only going to confirm "it's true, I can't do anything without God."

But more importantly, the reason it would have been unthinkable for me to step away from my relatinoship with God is that I believed life was a constant spiritual battle. Everything was a big deal, everything was urgent, and I had to submit myself to Jesus every moment. To stop for a second and do anything other than "put God first" would be sin- and remember, any sin, no matter how tiny, is a huge, infinite crime against God. It's a slap in the face of the one who loves me more than anyone else. It's a disease that leaves long-lasting damage in my life.

If you're a soldier in the middle of a battle, can you say, "I'm going to try not fighting for a little while and see how I feel about that"? There's no TIME for that!!! We're trying to save people from hell!!! If you get off track for a second, do you know how much that could set us back, how it could reverse the progress we've worked so hard for?

That's exactly what satan would want you to do. To be deceived into thinking "obeying God isn't that urgent, it's okay to take a break from some of these things and reconsider if it's really good for me or not."

Back then, I was under so much stress because of my devotion to Jesus. Everything was a battle, everything was a big deal. Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. I didn't realize it was stress; I was very happy because I believed what I was doing was extremely important and that God cared about it.

And the problem is, there's not really anything logically inconsistent in that ideology. Back then, I believed that mundane, everyday actions and feelings were all part of a huge spiritual battle- and if it seemed like that wasn't true, well, that's just what satan would want me to think, obviously he has a better chance of winning if he can convince Christians that it's actually not a spiritual battle, and it's fine for them to relax a bit instead of being constantly focused on devotion to God. There's no way to disprove this- it's all logically consistent.

All I can say is this: Do you really think a loving God intends for their followers to be in a constant state of stress like that? Do you believe in a God who doesn't care at all about mental health? That's all I got, the only way I know to argue against this ideology. Because it is logically consistent; perhaps God thinks mental health doesn't matter, and intends for us to live like we are in a contant battle, with every thought and emotion conquered and submitted to them. It's logically consistent, but heartless.

You can advise Christians of this type to "take a break." Actually, I've heard from many atheists that leaving their relationship with God was such a good decision and things are so much better without God. That's good. But for a Christian in the middle of that, who buys into all the "we can't live without God" ideology, who sees every day as a huge battle against sin, this advice isn't meaningful at all.

Honest Lent: Introduction

Artwork showing someone getting ashes on their forehead. Image source.

Last December I did a series called Honest Advent, and I liked it so much that I'm going to do the same thing for Lent. The basic idea is that a few times per week, I'll read a bible passage and then blog about my opinions on it. No pressure to agree with it, no pressure to understand every part or answer all the questions that come up, no pressure to do it every single day.

For real, no pressure. Ash Wednesday was 3 days ago and I totally did not see it coming, not til I got home from work that evening and saw people talking about it on twitter. So the first 3 days of Lent I didn't do ANYTHING Lent-y, and guess what, I do not feel one bit bad about that. And for "Honest Lent," I'm [most likely] not going to read the bible every day. I'm going to do it only when I want to. I don't even see that as an ideal, as if it's obviously better to read the bible every day during Lent than to read the bible on some days. No, the ideal amount to read the bible is the amount I want to, however much I feel like doing it over the next month.

I'm making such a big deal about this "I'm not doing it every day and I don't feel bad about that" because in the evangelical culture I come from, everyone knew that the most godly Christians need to take time every day and read the bible. In college, I used to wake up early and spend 40 minutes to an hour every day reading the bible, praying, and journaling. And in that culture, people are required to act guilty if they don't live up to that standard; they "confess" that they "struggle" and aren't "making God a priority." They are socially required to talk about how they're such bad Christians for not reading the bible enough.

But I don't believe that anymore. Nowadays, I very rarely read the bible, and I don't feel one bit bad about that. (And maybe if you want me to feel bad, you need to ask yourself some hard questions about why you follow a religion which doesn't value mental health and would rather people have depression than not read the bible.) The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.

ANYWAY. So. Here's the bible reading plan I chose (link is a pdf). So the first one is Luke 4:1-13. Go read it and we'll talk about it.

Here are the things I noticed:

1. Jesus ate nothing for 40 days? Really? Is that possible? All right, I googled and found some information about hunger strikes, and it seems like generally people can survive 30-40 days with no food, but not too much beyond that. And only if they're still drinking water. You really need water.

All right so it's possible, but is this a good idea? It's supposed to be super-spiritual, but ... why? This could have very bad long-term effects on a person's health.

And hey, can we talk about fasting a little bit? Growing up evangelical, I never heard about anyone I knew who was fasting. I guess there are some types of Christianity that are more into it? My church was not. Then when I was in a Christian group in college, I heard people talking about fasting- as in, an actual real-life thing that they did- and I did it a few times. (There were even times that a group of us decided to all fast on the same day.) But nobody ever taught me how exactly to do it. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to drink water or not. (After the first time fasting, I found out that people said you should still drink water- but how could I have known that? My body told me I needed to eat, and I was ignoring that need, so how could I have known that my body's need to drink water was a VERY IMPORTANT thing that could be medically dangerous to ignore?)

There was even one time when I was praying at night, and suddenly I knew that God was telling me to fast the next day. So I did. As I recall, nothing out of the ordinary happened that day- nothing to explain why "God" had "told me" to fast that particular day. But that's the relationship I had with God back then- I didn't have the right to make my own decisions, he could order me to do anything, and I would have to do it even if it made no sense. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not in that relationship anymore.

It's a really bizarre concept- denying a very real, urgent physical need because apparently that's what God wants you to do. A really dangerous concept, in my opinion.

(Readers: I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with fasting/ whether you were taught anything about fasting in church.)

[content note for the next paragraph: gun violence]

2. Satan says, "If you are the Son of God..." Now that's interesting because evangelicals like to tell a lot of stories where someone "stood up for God" by doing just what a bad person told them they should do if they are true followers of God. Probably the most common example of this trope is the shooter who asks his victims "Do you believe in God?" and presumably would choose not to kill them if they answered "no." The thing that has always bothered me about these stories that the bad guy defines what devotion to God looks like in that situation, and then the hero acts according to the bad guy's definition. Like, let's be real, if somebody's trying to kill you, you don't have to stand around and answer their questions honestly- you do whatever the hell you can to get out of there. (Even lying is okay.)

So when satan says, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread," shouldn't Jesus "stand up for God" by, you know, telling the stones to become bread? Otherwise, isn't he denying that he's the Son of God? NO. Because satan doesn't get to make the rules. Just because satan claims that the Son of God would do this or that doesn't mean it's true. He's just making it up. Don't play by his rules.

3. Every time Jesus answers, he quotes a bible verse. Now, when I learned about this story in Sunday school as a little kid, the teachers made a big deal about "this is why it's really really important to study the bible, so you'll know what to say when you face temptation." But I don't see it that way anymore. Because that's almost like "you have to have a bible verse backing you up when you refuse to do something- 'I don't want to' isn't a good enough reason." Which totally flies in the face of the entire concept of consent.

I believed that I didn't have the right to make my own choices based on my own desires. Instead, I had to figure out what was the "right" thing to do and what was the "wrong" thing to do. That's why we were supposed to study the bible so much- so that we would be really sure about the "right" things and the "wrong" things.

In this way of thinking, when satan tells Jesus "tell these stones to become bread," Jesus would have to then figure out if telling the stones to become bread was a sin or not, in some absolute sense. If it is a sin, he should refuse to do it. If he feels like it's a bad idea, he doesn't want to, he's not comfortable with it, but he can't pinpoint the exact reason why and back it up with a "logical"* argument, then it's much more difficult for him to refuse. He can try to give some polite excuses, but if satan keeps pushing, well, Jesus feels he doesn't actually have a "good reason" and he'll give in.

(*I put "logical" in scare quotes because I very much believe that "I am uncomfortable with this" IS a perfectly logical and valid reason, even though it is purely based in emotion. People often talk as if a thing can only be "logical" if it's completely unrelated to emotion, but I disagree with that.)

No. When you make personal decisions that don't harm anyone else, you're not required to present your reasons to a jury of your peers and wait for their approval. No. "I want to do this" and "I don't want to do this" are good enough reasons. Period.

Purity-culture girls and ex-purity-culture girls seem to have an especially hard time with this. They often feel that they need to say yes if a good Christian guy asks them on a date- they need to "give him a chance" even if they're not interested. They can only say no if they can frame their refusal as "God told me" rather than "I don't want to." And when we're no longer in purity culture, we don't know how to make decisions based on our own desires- we have no experience in that, nobody ever taught us how. For example, maybe your partner wants to come to your home, but you're not comfortable with that, but you can't really explain why. All you can think is "well I don't believe it's a sin anymore, so... I guess I have to say yes?" It's very difficult to make that transition from asking "Is this right or wrong?" to asking "What do I want?"

4. "The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world." Wait, really? "In an instant"? How have I never noticed that phrase? (I guess I generally read Matthew's version, which doesn't say "in an instant.") Wtf? Where are you going to go where you can see all the kingdoms of the world? Even if the writer thought the earth was flat (...did they?), how high would you even have to be to see them all? Did they believe there actually was a mountain that high? How long would it take Jesus and satan to hike up there? (Are they old buddies who go on mountain-climbing trips together?) And if your field of view was wide enough to include "all the kingdoms", wouldn't they be so far away that you couldn't really see any details? Like, they wouldn't look very tempting from that distance, right?

Or perhaps satan did a miracle and somehow showed Jesus "all the kingdoms" without any mountain-climbing involved? (Or maybe he showed a powerpoint? Or a flipchart? Flannelgraph? Or maybe this entire thing happened in a dream? A vision? Or Jesus was hallucinating because he was starving?)

I'm suddenly realizing this story isn't that realistic and maybe, maybe maybe maybe... should not be taken literally.

Hmm.

Well this gets into the question of what I believe about what the bible actually is, and honestly I don't have a good answer for that. I guess my position is that I think the stories about Jesus literally happened- but wow, the devil "showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world"? Really? I don't think so.

5. I just realized that throughout this entire blog post, I've been using the name "satan", but the passage itself only says "the devil." In the Christian culture I come from, there's an assumption that those are 100% interchangeable, but now I'm wondering if maybe the writers of the bible didn't understand them that way. Hmm. I should probably do more research on that.

6. The devil quotes Scripture too. People say that in church- "The devil quotes Scripture too." They meant it's not enough to read the bible- you have to know the "correct" interpretation too. There were frequent warnings about people who "twist Scripture." But now that all my beliefs have changed, I find that the things I believe now are the things that those supposed "false teachers" who "twist Scripture" believe. So the whole "twisting Scripture" thing is really a way to say "my interpretation is OBVIOUSLY the correct interpretation, and anyone who disagrees is automatically wrong."

Let me give you an example. I no longer believe it's a sin to have unmarried sex. So, good evangelicals are all like "the bible is clear, premarital sex is a sin"- but it's actually not "clear" at all. Over and over and over, the bible says that "sexual immorality" is a sin. But there's nothing immoral about consenting adults choosing to have sex and not hurting anybody. Yes, I believe "sexual immorality" is a sin (well, I believe any kind of immorality is a sin...) but it's totally possible to have unmarried sex without being immoral about it.

Clearly, I am "twisting Scripture."

At it's core, the "twisting Scripture" accusation is "well, you're wrong, because OBVIOUSLY that's not what they meant." That's literally all it is. Supposedly there's one "obvious", "clear" interpretation of the bible, and everyone knows it, but then some people try to "twist Scripture" to make it say things it OBVIOUSLY doesn't say.

So when Christians read this passage in Luke 4 with the mindset of "satan is twisting Scripture," ehhh no I don't like that. The reason Jesus shouldn't jump off the highest point of the temple is because THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA. Not because "that's not what the author of Psalm 91 really meant."

All right that's all I have to say about this passage. Readers, what are your thoughts? And are you doing anything special for Lent?

The Christianity of GCN Conference

Serving communion at GCN Conference. Image source.

I went to the Gay Christian Network conference because I really want to be in a Christian environment that's not awful for me. I miss going to church, but I don't go because I can't find any kind of church or Christian group that's not awful for my mental health.

I was hoping the Christianity of GCN conference would be the Christianity that I follow. It wasn't. But that's all right- it never tried to force me into believing anything, and there were parts that were really really good, parts that were so exactly what I needed.

First of all, the message of the entire conference, proclaimed over and over again by every speaker, was this: You are loved. God loves you. You are a beloved child of God. Maybe in the past somebody told you you can't have a relationship with God, or you can't be a worship leader or pastor, or you need to change in order for God to accept you- well they're wrong. You are loved and accepted and able to serve in the name of God exactly as you are.

LGBTQ Christians very commonly experience rejection from the church; they are excluded either directly or indirectly. So over and over, GCN conference preached a message of inclusion. At the church-like service on Sunday morning, the choir sang "Draw the Circle Wide" as we all had communion, and wow, that was powerful.

Draw the circle wide
Draw it wider still
Let this be our song
No one stands alone
Standing side by side
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide

Wow. So bizarre to me to hear a worship song with that kind of theme. (Maybe "worship song" isn't even the right term for it.) Over and over, all the speakers at the conference preached inclusion. Everyone is loved. Everyone is worthy. They didn't tell us we had to believe or do certain things in response to God's love. There was no altar call. There was no "God loves you unconditionally, therefore you need to make a decision to commit your life to him." The only thing we were commanded to do was continue to include others and spread the love.

So I'm kind of confused about this. I'm ex-evangelical; the Christianity I learned was always about trying to get people to believe certain things or obey God in specific ways. The pastors I knew would say that GCN's general message about God's love was good and true, but that it was only half of the story- and that when you leave off the other half, you're just preaching some deceptive feel-good nonsense which doesn't actually do any good. "The other half" being the things people are required to believe or do, otherwise their life will suck and/or they go to hell. If you don't warn people and let them know what the requirements are, maybe you're actually doing more harm than good- you're giving them a false sense of security. That's what I was taught; I'm not sure what to make of this "God loves you unconditionally" stuff when it's not followed by "and therefore it's totally reasonable for God to ask you to do the following things."

There are two possibilities:

1. This message of love and inclusion really is the message that GCN wants us to hear
2. GCN believes the "God loves you" stuff is only half of it, that the "here are God's requirements" part is also essential, but that many LGBTQ Christians already know it or are not in a place right now where they'll be receptive to it. Now is not the time- if we try to preach that now, it might push them away. Right now we just give them the first half, hopefully that will convince them to stick around with the church and then somebody else will tell them the second half.

I find possibility #2 to be incredibly dishonest, sort of a bait-and-switch thing. I should know, I did so much evangelism back when I was "on fire for Jesus," I know all about how to sugarcoat the idea of hell and condemnation and dress it up like it's good news.

So... could it be #1? Could it really be? I'm having trouble even comprehending that- a form of Christianity whose main message is that God loves you, a form of Christianity which isn't at all interested in forcing people to believe certain things. Wow, could that really exist? That's ... wow. I want a Christianity like that. [Note: It's possible that some of GCN's leaders and the speakers at the conference believe possibility #1 and others believe #2.]

On that note, I'd like to tell you about something that Bishop Gene Robinson said. He was one of the speakers at the conference, and was the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal church. I remember when he was in the news back in 2003, back when I was a good anti-LGBT evangelical. At the conference 2 weeks ago, there was so much applause for him; he is an important role model for queer Christians who want to become pastors. To me, he had been just a symbol in the culture war, a sign of how the church is "abandoning the bible"... I had never thought about what it would be like to be told you can never be a leader in the church because you're gay, and then to see someone who proved that wrong, how powerful that would be. Anti-LGBTQ Christians don't understand how deeply their "culture war" affects the actual lives of actual people.

Anyway I want to tell you one thing Bishop Robinson said. He was talking about how he had been asked to do a prayer at Obama's inauguration, and he agonized over the words to use to make the prayer inclusive to people of different religions. He finally decided to use the phrase "God of our many understandings." Later, he heard from Jewish and Muslim people who thanked him for saying it that way.

And I just about fell out of my chair.

Did I mention I grew up evangelical? I heard all about how isn't it terrible that people water down their language to make it "inclusive," how they don't proclaim the name of Jesus because someone's going to be "offended," making some weak, meaningless prayer that's so vague it hardly says anything. Isn't it so pathetic and wrong when so-called Christians care about being respectful to other religions? Come on! They need Jesus. Don't act like those false religions are just fine- no, what those people need is to get out of those lies and follow Jesus instead.

I'm stunned, just totally stunned. I've never heard a Christian leader say it's good to be respectful to people of other religions, that it's important that they not feel excluded during a prayer at a public event. I just ... wow. This is just totally unimaginable to me. I like it, sure, but I'm still shocked. Are there churches that regularly preach such things? What would that type of Christianity even look like? Like, I want to be part of it, but it's just so unimaginable that something like that could even exist.

(Bishop Robinson also did not use pronouns for God- he never said God was a "he." I don't remember any of the speakers on the main stage calling God "he." I like that too.)

The message of GCN conference was love and inclusion. And let me tell you, it's one thing to believe that in a theoretical sense, but it's a whole different experience to see hundreds to LGBTQ Christians and allies believing it and preaching it wholeheartedly. It was an amazing thing.

But at the same time, there was a lot of Christian-culture-type language I was really not comfortable with. People talked about "God's calling" or "God's plan" or "a relationship with God." The speakers on stage would talk about something that happened to them and say "that was God"; listening to the other conference attendees, I heard many anecdotes from the "isn't it funny how God works" genre. (For example, I met a gay man whose mother has never accepted him, but now she is old and depends on him to take care of her every day. On hearing this, someone made a comment about how such an ironic situation clearly must have been brought about by God.)

Yeah, that gets all the eye rolls from me. I don't believe God actively does things in our lives. You really think that this world, a world full of systemic injustice, is the result of God intervening over and over in every Christian's life? I don't want anything to do with a God like that.

Again and again, people talked about having a relationship with God, communicating with God, how God is doing this or that in their life. There was one conversation I was part of, where this woman was talking about her job and about the kind of company she wants to work for in the future, which is sort of in a different area than her job now, but she wants to work in that area because she'll be able to make a difference in the world. She used language about how it's totally "God's plan" that she does this in the future. And then she told us about how excited she is about how some high-up person in that industry just followed her on twitter. Wow! How exciting! She only had 9 followers before that! Clearly this is GOD WORKING! God is OPENING A DOOR!

Come on. It's just a twitter follower. It doesn't mean anything.

I'm not trying to mock. I'm sad because I used to live that way. I believed I was constantly in communication with God, and I looked for meaning in every little tiny thing that happened to me. Everything is a super-huge big deal, everything is a sign that "God is working." It's so stressful to live that way.

What happens when we make a big deal out of some little thing, when we go on and on about how it's God's plan, we thank and worship God because of it, and then nothing ever comes of it? Back in college I sent out an email to a big mailing list about a bible study I was starting, and somebody called me and said she wanted to come. And I worshiped. I took it as a sign that God was totally working, God was going to do great things in this new bible study, that I was a devoted follower of Jesus right there on the front lines, that God saw all my hard work and valued it. I emailed my evangelism friends to tell them the good news. And then that girl never actually came.

What do you do with that?

(Well, the only thing you really can do is decide- with absolutely no evidence- that even though she never came to the bible study, her reading my email and calling me on the phone was a big, important step in her spiritual life, and God used it for great things even though I will never personally see those results. Yeah okay.)

It was so much stress, living that way, looking for "God working" in every little thing, constantly speculating about the meaning behind the mundane things in my day-to-day life. And sometimes it required a bit of memory loss. You know how Christians say you should keep a prayer journal so you can look back on all the prayers God has answered? I've never done that. (I kept a journal, but never organized it like a "prayer journal.") But it wouldn't have been good. What would it be like, to read back through all the things I was so excited about, where I was so sure I saw God working, so overflowing with awe and worship that I would literally bow down on the floor and pray... what would it be like to read those things, maybe a year later, with the knowledge that they never amounted to anything? (Maybe the whole "prayer journal" concept is more for "look at all the things you were so worried about, and then they never happened and you've actually forgotten about them now" rather than "look at all the things you were so excited about, how you were totally sure God was going to do certain things in the future, and then they never happened and you've actually forgotten about them now.")

All this excitement over one twitter follower in the industry "God called" her to work in... I feel sad about that. I really do.

I didn't say anything to her. I don't go around telling people that God's not actually intervening in their lives or that their "relationship with God" is bad for them. If those beliefs make them feel better, then okay fine whatever. And actually, for LGBTQ people who have been told that they're not able to have a relationship with God, it can be really good and healing for them to say they do have one. For me though, it's the opposite- I was totally devoted, followed all the rules, people admired my "relationship with God." It controlled and consumed my whole life, drove me to squash down my whole identity, my needs, and my emotions. I'm so glad I'm out of that relationship. The whole concept is really unhealthy for me now, and kind of triggering.

There was another part in the conference, where I was having a conversation about the concept of "God's calling," because one of the speakers in a breakout session had said "your calling might change" and I have no idea what they mean by that- if God wants you to do something, how on earth could that change? God changes God's mind?

Anyway, I happened to be asking this question to another random attendee, who said maybe at first God calls you to something, and then later on, God gives you a more specific direction to go in. Or maybe God calls you to do something and then later calls you to do something different in order to THROW THE DEVIL OFF.

And I was like "... I don't really believe in that."

And she said, "You don't believe in spiritual warfare?"

And, wow it would take a long time for me to answer that question. (I covered it a little bit in this post.) But wow, THANK GOD I never believed that God might "call" me to do something that God wasn't planning on me actually doing, just because God wanted to confuse the devil. Like, CAN YOU IMAGINE? That adds a whole new layer of second-guessing "God's calling." Like how's this supposed to work, I'm going to start doing all this stuff in obedience to what God said, and then satan's gonna make a bunch of plans to combat it, and then suddenly God will be like "NOPE LET'S DO THIS DIFFERENT THING INSTEAD" and satan will be all "NO ALL MY PLANS HAVE BEEN FOILED"? Like, really? That sounds like it would inconvenience me way more than it would inconvenience satan.

I'm ... wow. Still can't get over how absurd that whole idea is.

Anyway, yeah, my point is, at the conference there was a lot of talk about "God's plan" and how God did this or that specific thing in someone's life. I'm not a fan of that kind of language. But it's important to point out that, when I mentioned to people that I don't believe in "having a relationship with God", nobody tried to convince me I was wrong. Instead they asked questions and sympathized with the way I've been hurt by evangelical Christianity.

The worship time was also an interesting experience for me. When we walked in to the big "auditorium" on that first night, the song "My Savior My God" was playing. Uh. Yeah. Okay, the song itself is fine, the lyrics are fine, I don't have anything bad to say about the song itself, but ... for me, that song has the feeling of "back in 2010 when I was on fire for God" and, just, ugh.

Then the worship time started, and after a few songs, the worship leader (Darren Calhoun) said something to the effect of "I know for some of you, these songs aren't good for you. That's okay. If you need to leave for a little bit, it's okay. You can do your self-care." And that was really really good. First of all, I don't think I've ever heard a church say it's okay if you don't want to participate in this or that part of the service. I've never heard a church acknowledge that some of the songs they use might have bad associations for some people, and it's fine for those people to leave because they know their own needs. And he used the term "self-care"! That's a word I learned from the feminist blog-o-sphere, a word that goes against the whole entire ideology I learned in the evangelical church. Self-care. No, instead the church taught me to sacrifice my own needs and desires. If there was a sermon about the need to rest and take care of ourselves, it was "you need to take care of yourself or else you won't be able to serve others", not "you matter and you deserve to have your needs met."

So wow. That was really good.

And during the worship songs, I didn't really know what to do. I don't pray, and I don't sing to God, and I'm not interested in trying. I felt like the music was kind of nice though, and I wished I could be part of it somehow. So I came up with the brilliant idea of singing some kind of "harmony" part higher or lower than the melody of the song. Yeah I basically know nothing about music, but I was in a choir in college, and we had different groups (sopranos, altos, tenors, etc) and usually one group would "have the melody" and then the other groups would be singing the same words except higher or lower in such a way that they all sounded good together. (There are probably actual terms use to describe this concept. Idk. I don't know anything about music, but if you ever want to learn matlab or something, talk to me.) Yeah. So, for these worship songs at GCN, sometimes I sang the same words but either higher or lower than the melody.

I did that so I would be concentrating on how the music sounded, instead of on the words or how I feel about the song itself. Or, in evangelical-speak, I was singing but "didn't really mean it" and therefore my "worship" doesn't count. Whatever. If I was just singing the normal way, those songs would have been unbearable.

Communion was really good. I don't go to church (and I don't feel bad about it), so I hadn't been able to do communion for a long time. I know that within Christianity there are lots of different interpretations on the meaning of communion; the one I grew up with was "this is about you feeling really really guilty for your sins and sad about Jesus' death." Currently, though, my view is more like "you have a physical body that needs food, and God cares about that- your physical needs are real needs that matter." (And also a bit of "if anybody tries to tell me I can't have communion because I'm 'not a real Christian', or that my interpretation is wrong, well **** you, I'm a Christian, I have a right to be here.")

Anyway, that was the first time in a long time that I've gotten the little bread and grape juice without thinking the person serving them to me would probably not accept me if they knew what I really believe. They always say "this is the body of Christ, broken for you," but do they actually mean it's for me, or for the good-Christian-with-all-the-correct-evangelical-beliefs that they assume I am? But at GCN, I really believed they accepted me. And I may have cried a little bit. I also may have cried during the song "For Those Tears I Died."

A few other small things I want to mention: I had forgotten how American Christians have such huge misconceptions about "persecution in China." Had to set some of those myths straight. Also, I heard somebody asking people to pray for his husband to become a Christian. Ugh. (Background: My fiance is not a Christian, and I'm not okay with anyone treating that like a problem that needs to be solved.) And one of the speakers, Ling Lam, said we all have a God-shaped hole, and, well, you all know how I feel about that. (The rest of Ling Lam's talk was really really good though- it was about Jacob trying to get Isaac's blessing and how we pretend to be something we're not in order to gain approval.)

It was an environment where I could be honest about what I believed and what I didn't believe, and people wouldn't try to force me to change that. Even if they didn't agree with me, they understood what it is to be hurt and rejected by the church. And throughout the entire conference, the message of unconditional love and acceptance was preached- seriously, LGBTQ people know how to preach a better gospel than anything I've ever heard in church. But still, the Christianity of GCN Conference wasn't the Christianity I follow. There was way WAY too much talk of how God caused this or that thing to happen in someone's life, about how God "called" someone to do something, and just generally the kind of language people use when they believe in "a personal relationship with God." That's a concept that has caused me a lot of emotional trauma- honestly, I see it as all tied up with the anti-LGBTQ ideology I was taught, so it was a little jarring to hear LGBTQ Christians using those exact same words and concepts. Their experiences are different than mine (even though I'm also queer) so for them, it's possible to reject some of those teachings while keeping some others. And it can even be really healthy and good for them to say "no, I DO have a relationship with God" because of all the anti-LGBTQ Christians who told them they couldn't.

I wish I could go to church, I really do. If there was a church like GCN, I would totally go.

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Related: GCN Conference Was My First Time Not Being "Just An Ally"

Now This Is Some High-Caliber Victim-Blaming

Ke$ha. Image source.

[trigger warning: rape and victim-blaming]

So, here's what's going on with Ke$ha: she says that her producer, Dr. Luke, drugged and raped her when she was 18, and also continued to abuse her after that. But because of her contract, she has to keep working with him. She challenged this in court, but the judge ruled that she could not get out of her contract.

As a feminist, I believe her, because statistically, women don't just make up rape accusations- in fact, it's much more common for rape victims to not report it because so often, victims aren't believed, or they're questioned about what they may have done to cause it, etc. And this case is interesting because it shows how acting "neutral"- not intervening to change Ke$ha's contract- would actually be harming the victim. Similarly, I have heard of situations where a person is raped by a roommate, and their landlord won't force the rapist to move out, so the victim ends up being the one who moves out, so they don't have to live with their rapist. This is something we need to think about when we talk about how to fight rape culture and make the world safer.

But anyway, I came across this pretty terrible video, called Kesha Cries in Court - After Realizing Selling Her Soul to Satan was Wrong Choice. Sounds super-compassionate, right? [sarcasm]



I mean, you don't have to watch the video, because it's so terrible. Here's the main point: Look how sad Ke$ha is. Well, that's what happens when you sell your soul to the devil.

Umm, okay then. It seems this person believes that the music industry is controlled by satan, and that by entering into a contract with Sony, Ke$ha sold her soul to the devil, which was obviously a bad choice and so OF COURSE it would end badly for her.

That's EXACTLY what victim-blaming is. When something bad happens to someone, and instead of caring about them, you say "see I told you it was a bad idea to do ABC, now look what's happened to you."

The creator of this video doesn't care about Ke$ha. Yeah, sure, he says he cares about her. But he doesn't. Instead, he cares about how this situation can be spun as evidence to support his ideas about how satan totally controls the music industry. He's happy to have an opportunity to say "I told you so."

The video says that this whole situation is Ke$ha's fault- she shouldn't have signed a music contract in the first place. THIS IS VICTIM-BLAMING. Nowhere does the video say that hey, maybe it's the accused rapist's fault. Maybe it's Sony's fault. Maybe it's the system that is forcing her to stay in the contract.

And instead of saying, "hey let's make the world safer for female musicians, so that they're able to sign contracts and be successful without the risk of being stuck with a rapist", the creator of the video wants to see bad things happen to Ke$ha, to show that his claims about satan were right.

It's a pretty good example of how someone's pet theory about "don't do ABC because bad things will happen to you" can be a motivation for victim-blaming.

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note: Okay let's just talk about the demon stuff a little bit. In my experience in Christian culture, nobody talked like the guy in the video. This is really really extreme and not normal for Christians, in my experience. [I'm saying this because I usually have examples on my blog where I say "a Christian said this, and it sounds really extreme and fringe, but actually it's totally consistent with everything about the Christian culture I used to be in- people just don't usually say it out loud." This is not one of those times.] Like, people in my church definitely believed in demons and shared anecdotes about how somebody tried to copy a spell in Harry Potter and then terrible things happened to them, but mostly the belief in demons was very vague and not often mentioned- I never heard anyone point to a specific event and say a demon caused it, or point to a specific person and say "this person is possessed by a demon", or warn against a specific action because that action could cause satan to come into your life. I know some people who talked about "spiritual warfare" a lot, and I was never sure if they literally believed that satan was personally affecting events in our lives, or what. It felt too ridiculous to actually say that out loud in order to ask them.

So. Demons.

Image source.

Libby Anne has a good post up about believing in demons. She talks about the recent news story where Arkansas state representative Justin Harris "rehomed" his two adopted daughters with a man who then sexually abused them. Apparently, Harris made this decision because he believed the two girls were possessed by demons.

Libby Anne then talks about her own experiences as an evangelical, believing in demons. She says that her parents taught that demons are actively involved in our lives, and her mother even believed her sister's migraine was caused by a demon in her. Throughout her entire childhood, Libby Anne was terrified of demons.

Wow, I'm really glad I missed out on that whole teaching. I can totally see how, as Libby Anne says, it's traumatizing to a child to teach them the world is full of demons. And that it's their responsibility to really really really believe in Jesus, or else the demons might get them. Just, wow, that's awful.

This is an example where evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity teach the same thing, in theory, but the fundamentalists are the ones who actually live like they believe it. (My background is evangelical Christianity, and Libby Anne's background was definitely more conservative than mine, though as far as I know, she refers to it as evangelical rather than fundamentalist.)

In the evangelical Christian culture I come from, we believe in demons, you know, theoretically, but I never heard anyone actually claim a specific event in their own life was caused by a demon. Occasionally someone would tell a secondhand or thirdhand anecdote about encountering a demon, but it was always in a different country not full of white people, or perhaps in the US but in a camp in the middle of nowhere. Apparently some missionaries can sense the "spiritual darkness" when they're in certain cities in Africa or whatever. Lots of wild stories like that. We all believed them- or at least, it seemed to me like everyone believed them. I never heard anyone at church question them. It was common knowledge that in other countries, missionaries sometimes encounter demons.

It was always some bizarre, impossible-to-verify story from a foreign place. I never heard anyone say "I think my illness was caused by a demon." Never that close to home.

(Except one time. At a Christian conference, I met a student from a different college, who told us about how one night, her roommate had been possessed by a demon, and they stayed up all night ordering the demon to leave, in Jesus' name. I listened with rapt attention- wow, finally this was evidence that demons do exist. An actual firsthand account, not some urban legend repeated at church. At that time, I was really really interested because I was looking for evidence that the spiritual world existed. My faith/doubt were always being pulled between two options: conservative "the bible is inerrant" Christianity, or atheism. Yeah. I thought those were the only 2 religions.)

But. People did talk about "spiritual warfare", especially when I was in college and was super-involved with evangelism. Apparently, in anything evangelism-related, the unseen spiritual world plays a huge role. I invited my friend to bible study- God gave me the courage to do it! I felt embarrassed about talking about Jesus- must the the devil trying to make me feel bad so I'll stop! Everything good or bad was interpreted this way.

We used the word "spiritual warfare" a lot, but I don't think anyone ever defined what it was. It seemed to mean God and satan are directly causing these specific events in our lives, but... I mean, that's a little absurd, right? To think satan is actually interacting with us. We were comfortable crediting God with the good stuff, but people rarely claimed that some specific thing was literally caused by satan because that just sounded way too weird.

I remember how uncertain I felt, when my friends kept using the term "spiritual warfare" and I wanted to ask, "Wait, so... do we actually literally believe that the devil- you know, satan, the fallen angel himself- kept people from coming to our evangelistic event?" I don't remember whether or not I ever asked that question, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have received a straight answer. There would probably be some vague language about the spiritual world or whatever, but not "Yes, I literally believe satan does this stuff" or "No, I don't believe that, that just sounds ridiculous."

Fundamentalists don't have this problem. If they say they believe in demons, they really do believe in demons. Evangelicals teach the same stuff but won't admit it, or won't take it to its logical conclusion. This is true for a ton of other topics too.

I remember how I really admired my friend James, when he said the reason nobody decided to get saved at this one outreach event we did could be because of some unconfessed sin among those of us who organized the event. I thought, wow, now that sounds really really out there, but he wasn't embarrassed to say it. It sounds so ridiculous, but it's within the realm of possibility, according to the bible. I admired him for having the courage to actually say it out loud. (Who knows, he may have come from a more fundamentalist background than mine, where people said stuff like that all the time and no one thought it was weird.)

Image source.

So. In summary, the evangelical culture I come from totally believed in demons, but was shy about saying/teaching it explicitly. I always interpreted this as embarrassment over how obviously ridiculous it would sound if you actually said it directly.

Right now, personally, I don't really see any reason to believe one way or the other about the existence of demons. Maybe they do exist. Sure. Whatever. But I would never explain something that happened in my own life as being caused by a demon. So while theoretically I suppose they could exist, in a practical sense I don't believe in them.

For people like Libby Anne, who have been affected in such harmful ways by the belief in demons, oh geez, yeah, quit believing that. Be free. Don't be afraid. (And if that means becoming an atheist, I support that. I believe God wants us to have freedom and not be controlled by fear. For some people, atheism is what gives them freedom. Go for it.)

Katy Perry's God-Given Freedom

Image source.

"Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!'?" - Colossians 2:20-21

"I kissed a girl and I liked it." - Katy Perry

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I recently came upon this article, When God speaks to Katy Perry. It talked about how Katy Perry posted a bible verse on twitter before her superbowl performance, and also claimed that God spoke to her. The writer says a lot of Christians responded by saying there's no way God would speak to Katy Perry like that, I mean seriously, she's all immoral and satanic and all that. But the writer says, not so fast, aren't we all sinners, and God still loves us and speaks to us.

That's nice, but it's not good enough.

"Because maybe (just maybe) He still speaks to those who are broken and afraid. Maybe God is still a father, and maybe He still likes to encourage. People will say that it is impossible for God to be nice to Katy Perry right before she was about to sing 'I kissed a girl and I liked it' in front of millions of people. But if God refrained from speaking to humans based on the proximity of their next sin, trust me friend, no one would ever get to hear His voice."

In other words, God loves Katy Perry and spoke to her even though she sins. Even though her whole music career and the things she loves are OBVIOUSLY totally full of disgusting sin. Ah, isn't God so nice?

Image source.

First of all, isn't it adorable how Christians always pull out "but we ALL sin!" as an excuse to judge other people. "Yeah so look, you're doing all these things that are CLEARLY not what God wants, but hey, I'm not judging, I sin too! Like, for example, I'm selfish sometimes. Yeah so anyway you pretty much need to change everything about your whole life because seriously everything that you value is a pile of garbage in God's opinion. I mean, we all sin, but come on, at least I'm trying not to."

Yeah, I don't think so.

God loves Katy Perry even though her entire public image is driven by sin? No. I think God is bigger than that.

Because I experience God's love through Katy Perry's music. To me, so many of her songs proclaim freedom, and the bible is clear that God wants us to have freedom.

Image source.

Perry grew up in a pentecostal/charismatic Christian family. Her parents were pastors, and they seem to be more on the extreme end; this article from 2010 says the use of the word "lucky" was banned in their home because it sounds like "Lucifer," and they couldn't use the term "deviled eggs" either.

It seems that Perry's upbringing was full of restrictions and rules, but she has broken free, and her music celebrates that freedom, even going out of her way to break the rules just because she can.

That's what I see going on in "Dark Horse." After seeing her performance at the 2014 Grammy's, Christians were running around in a frenzy, "oh my it's SATANIC!!!!"

Image source.

Well, yeah. Of course it was satanic. That was the point. But not because Katy Perry actually worships satan; no, it's because she's lived her whole life in fear of satan, forbidden from even using words that might be vaguely related to the concept of satan, and now she is free from that. She is living in the freedom that Christ gives us. (Though she no longer identifies as Christian, I believe "Dark Horse" gives an amazing picture of what it means to have freedom in Christ.) We don't have to be afraid of that stuff. Everything in that "Dark Horse" video is just pretend, just for fun. And it is so over-the-top, so extremely satanic just to prove that no matter how many fog machines, lines about "so you wanna play with magic", and pole-dancing witches you have, there's nothing to be afraid of.

Make a video that's as satanic as possible, and it's okay! Nothing can separate us from the love of God. And not because "God loves her in spite of that", no, God knows that this is something she has to do as she takes hold of the abundant freedom that God offers.

(To be clear, when I talk about "breaking the rules" and having freedom, I mean the rules that prohibit something because it is "bad" in a vague and unclear, fear-based way. I do not mean it's okay to "break the rules" in ways that are harmful to others.)

Similarly, the song "I Kissed a Girl," one of Perry's first hits, is totally about breaking the rules. Christians seemed to think it was evil because it supported "the homosexual agenda", but... actually it's not really about support for LGB people at all. The message of "I Kissed a Girl" seems to be "oh my goodness, I did this naughty and taboo thing, and it's okay, I liked it." If one truly supports LGB rights, one would not consider two women kissing to be "naughty and taboo", yeah actually it's pretty normal, for lesbian or bisexual women. (If any LGB people would like to weigh in on this, I would appreciate that.)

"I Kissed a Girl" isn't about LGB people; it's about sexual experimentation. It sounds like it's coming from someone who's just starting to question and break the rules. Just starting to realize that the divide between things that are "good" and things that are "bad" isn't as clear as we've been taught.

It's a first step, but such an important step. Definitely keep questioning and breaking rules until you no longer think it's a big deal for two women to kiss. But yes, this is an important step. To say the words "I kissed a girl and I liked it" can be incredibly empowering. That's the freedom Jesus wants us to have- no longer living by the fear-based rules "DO NOT HANDLE! DO NOT TASTE! DO NOT TOUCH!" but by living in a way that values people above rules, which puts loving one's neighbor above any other concern.

One more example: toward the end of Perry's "California Gurls" music video, which appears to have been filmed in Candyland, she attaches cans of whipped cream to her breasts... yeah, so, whipped cream shooting out everywhere.

Image source.

Again, this says to me, "FREEDOM." Maybe I'm projecting too much of my own experiences onto Katy Perry, but I can imagine that, since she was brought up in conservative Christian culture, she was taught that women need to cover up any part of their body that might maybe "cause" men to think about something sexual. Basically, try to hide the fact that boobs even exist.

And now here she is, as if to say, my body is great, and I have whipped cream coming out of my boobs, deal with it.

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Back when I was a Good Christian^TM, I knew that most "secular music" was bad and we weren't allowed to listen to it. They were always singing about sex, apparently, so it was bad. And the music videos, oh definitely not allowed to watch those. All the women were "immodest" and dancing in "suggestive" ways, whatever that meant.

It's a really hard situation that evangelical teenagers find themselves in: we really like "secular music", but we believe it's evil and we must resist listening to it. This issue is so pervasive that it's common for Christian magazines to present look-up tables of Christian bands that are similar to mainstream bands. Oh, you like Rihanna? Well, of course we're not allowed to listen to Rihanna, so here are some Christian singers that sound kind of like her, but probably not as good.

My musical interests were restricted by these rules. I wanted to listen to the popular songs on the radio, because the music sounded fun and exciting, and I couldn't find anything as good in the land of approved Christian music.

But now I'm free from that. Now I believe we don't have to be afraid of that. Now I can listen to the songs, I can watch the videos, I can enjoy it all. (Experience it and enjoy it, but also call out harmful messages that show up in the media we consume. Research and discuss and gain more knowledge, not hide from the world in fear.)

I'm so happy for this God-given freedom, and I think Katy Perry is too. Her music is a celebration of freedom, of loving herself, of being a firework.

And God loves it.

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Disclaimer: I obviously don't know Katy Perry's reasons behind her songs. From my point of view, it seems they come from a feeling of incredible freedom, but of course there are also less positive possibilities, like pressure from society for female singers to be sex objects. This is why some actions or choices can be empowering for one person but restrictive for another. I'd like to imagine Katy Perry may have similar experiences and motivations to mine, but, who knows?

I Would Only Follow a God Who Was Tempted

I always imagined the devil as a really pale white guy with a black robe and black hair and a pointy black goatee. Now I realize that's because of this illustration in a little-kid bible I used to read:

Source: Early Reader's Bible, 1991.

Some very exciting news today: This bible story (Matthew 4:1-11) is available in the form of a rage comic! Many thanks to An Average Jane for making this. I laughed so much. Go check it out. Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Matthew 4:2 "After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry."

Captain Obvious's favorite bible verse. Image source

But seriously, is that even possible? Fasting for 40 days? Okay, it's October 3- that would be like if I hadn't eaten since August 24. Raise your hand if you even remember what you were doing on August 24. Yeah, me neither.

Yes, it is possible. Apparently the average person can go maybe 8 weeks without food. Hunger strikes (many of them lasting over 50 days) have been used as a form of protest- Gandhi did this.

In this story, satan is talking to Jesus- is that even real?

Whenever I've read this story, I always imagined satan (to whom I give the middle finger of grammar) as a person, talking to Jesus, who's a person. I never even thought to question it.

The devil can't be a person. God became man, and that was a super huge big deal- one of the most powerful and amazing events in the history of the world. I don't think the devil can become a human too. He's not God.

So, there are 2 possibilities for what's going on here:

1. The devil appears to Jesus in the same sort of way angels sometimes appeared in the bible.
2. It's all in Jesus' head.

For option #1, okay, that makes sense- the devil is technically an angel. (Not sure if the bible explicitly says this or not, but it's what I've always heard.) In the bible, whenever an angel showed up, it was very obvious that it was an angel and not a human- and everyone was terrified of them. (For obvious reasons. I'd be super-freaked-out if an angel turned up in my apartment.)

Dude, I was about to put in an image of a weeping angel from Doctor Who, but I got too freaked out just looking at the thumbnails. Instead, have a care bear. Image source.

But I actually lean toward option #2- it was all in Jesus' head. This makes sense because, in my experience, temptation does not come from some glowing scary guy standing next to me, offering bad advice- no, temptation comes from my own mind.

And for the parts where satan takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple, and then takes him to the top of a mountain- I really think it makes more sense to interpret this as a vision that Jesus had, rather than actually physically going to those places. Because how would they get there? Walk? If it takes an hour to walk there, do you think they made small talk along the way? Did satan pick Jesus up and carry him there? I don't think Jesus would submit to that.

Why would Jesus put up with this? Aren't we supposed to flee from temptation? But if it's in his head, he can't escape. And isn't that the way temptation is? It's in my head- it's not some external influence I can just remove from my life.

Hold on perfectnumber, I don't think you're allowed to say this. Are you saying this wasn't real? No. The temptation that Jesus experienced was definitely real. Are you saying the bible isn't true? No. I definitely believe the bible- I'm just trying to figure out what Matthew meant here, based on what else I know about God and temptation and what makes sense.

All right so let's look at the 3 things satan asked Jesus to do:

"If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."

satan challenged Jesus to prove his Son-of-God status. Wow, that's pretty insulting- but Jesus didn't take the bait. He knew it would be wrong to turn the stones into bread, even though he could totally do it.

"I'll turn this one into a coffee cake." Image source.

Why is it wrong? Look at Jesus' response. He quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Listening to God was more important than Jesus' physical needs. He had already made a commitment to fasting in order to focus on God the Father.

What would this temptation look like for the average American Christian nowadays? It would be breaking a commitment you've made to God. It would be me realizing I need to pray more, and then spending all my free time reading blogs on teh intarwebz instead.

Some things are more important than blogs and Facebook and whatever other silly things I spend time on. Some things are right up there with physical needs. Christians NEED prayer. Christians NEED the word of God. Jesus needed it too.

The devil quotes Scripture too.

Next, satan takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple (I would argue that this is in a vision) and tells him to jump off, because God will keep you safe. satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12 "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

In other words, "You can fly!" Image source.

All 3 times satan makes a dumb suggestion, Jesus replies by quoting the bible. But satan can quote the bible too, as we see here. That's why it's so freakin' important to understand CONTEXT and what the author was trying to say, instead of just taking one verse and declaring "the bible is clear on this." satan's interpretation of this verse is WRONG!

satan is basically telling Jesus to do something stupid and then trust God to save him.

"Being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble." Mufasa's words of wisdom. Image source.

This doesn't really seem like a "temptation" to me- it seems more like an incorrect understanding of what faith is. See, Jesus, if you just had more FAITH, you'd jump off. Don't you believe the promise God made in Psalm 91?

And Jesus' answer? He quotes Deuteronomy 6:16 "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." In other words, yeah, maybe God would rescue him if he jumped off. But why even do that? Force God to step in and rescue you because you did something stupid. That's not right.

This reminds me of weird, extreme groups within Christianity who pick up snakes because of that one verse that says you can pick up snakes, or who don't believe in medicine because you should just pray for God to heal you. Again, it's not exactly a "temptation"- it's an incorrect understanding of faith and how God works.

And what about in my own life? What would be an example of doing something stupid and expecting God to support me? If I rushed into another culture, thinking I'm going to bring them the gospel and save them from their stupid, backwards ways- and that of course God would help me. No, that's not how it works. Whether I'm talking to other Americans who don't belong to the internet-geek subculture that I do, or people on the other side of the world, I need to listen and understand them first, instead of just thinking I have all the answers.

As I already said, this one seems weird to me because it's not really a "temptation." I understand "temptation" to be something that you really want to do, but you know you shouldn't, and you try to convince yourself it's really not so bad. But for the "jump off a building and God will save you" case, it's something you DON'T want to do, but your common-sense refusal is taken as a sign that you lack faith. Or maybe you didn't have a "common-sense refusal"- you rushed into something that's way over your head because you genuinely thought God was into that kind of thing. It's a mistake that comes from an incorrect belief about how God works. It's not something "you know you shouldn't do".

Next, the devil asks Jesus to worship him.

Then they go to a mountain and look at "all the kingdoms of the world." This is why I think it was a vision, not real life- where are you going to find a mountain with a view of "all the kingdoms of the world" (or even the kingdoms known to them at that time)? And Jesus had been fasting for 40 days- I'd imagine he's not up for climbing a mountain right now.

satan says, "All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me." FYI if this ever comes up in your life, the correct answer is DO NOT worship satan.

What exactly is the temptation here? Jesus was about to start his ministry- which would be characterized by suffering and serving, and eventually getting killed. Wouldn't it be much easier to not do that? He could just get power over the world by worshiping satan (although I have some doubt as to whether satan would keep his end of the deal).

Wait, why doesn't Jesus just fake it? He can bow down- it doesn't really mean anything, whatever. No- honor and shame were a big deal in that culture- it DID mean something.

How does this temptation come up in my life? Sometimes there's an "easy way out". Doing the right thing is hard. But if cutting corners involves doing something I know is wrong, then that's not okay.

The devil finally leaves.

Jesus says "Away from me, satan!" Why didn't he say this earlier? I thought Christians are supposed to avoid situations where there could be temptation. Why doesn't Jesus get serious about kicking him out until the 3rd temptation?

It's almost like Jesus knew his own limits and weaknesses and was confident that he had the situation under control- no need for some huge reaction. Until the idea of worshiping satan comes up- he didn't tolerate that at all.

But I thought Christians are supposed to flee from temptation. As in, at the slightest hint, you GTFO (err... you get out of there). Because you never know what you're capable of. Am I wrong about this, or is Jesus special and doesn't need to be so jumpy and fearful about it?

Or, if it was all in his head, maybe there was no way for him to escape, until the devil gave up.

It's inaccurate to refer to this as "the temptation of Jesus".

Whenever I hear someone make a reference to the fact that Jesus experienced temptation like we do, I think of this story. But that's not right- Jesus lived on earth for 33 years- surely he faced A LOT more temptation than just these 3 explicit suggestions from satan.

Was Jesus *actually* tempted?

There are 2 parts involved in temptation:

1. You get some idea of a bad thing to do.
2. You start to think about it and reason with yourself, thinking maybe you might actually do it.

In this passage, was Jesus at step 1 or step 2? Was he thinking that anything satan says is automatically a bad idea, so just reject it right away, or was he thinking, "ya know, I could make those stones into bread. Wow, that would be really tasty. I could really go for some cinnamon-raisin bread right now. That would actually be pretty cool- it would be like a practice miracle. Yeah... wow, that sounds really delicious..."

There is a HUGE difference. It's so much harder to reject something after you've already imagined what it would be like and made a plan for how to do it.

This really matters to me. What kind of God do I follow? Does my Lord know what that's like- to want something, to really want something, to reason with yourself about whether it's okay, and come to the conclusion that no, no, you absolutely can't do it, no matter how awesome it seems?

Does he know? Does he know? Does Jesus understand?

I need a God who understands. Who knows that there's more to it than "well, that's wrong, don't do it. Duh."

Hebrews 2:18 says, "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

And I believe that's the God I have. My Savior did want to eat those stones. He was slightly offended at the whole "if you are the Son of God" bit. And maybe for a second, he wondered if he could get away with not doing the whole "suffering servant" thing.

Later, Matthew writes about Jesus' power to heal diseases and control the weather. But first we see his power over his own mind, his own desires- and it is this power more than anything else which qualifies him to be the Savior.

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This post is part of a series on the gospel of Matthew.

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