Donating to Charity

Button that says "Donate." Image source.

Hi all, every year in January I write a post encouraging people to donate to charity. My approach is to make a decision in January about what percent of your income you will donate this year, and then keep track of whatever donations you make throughout the year, and then at the end of the year, check the amount and donate the last chunk to get to the goal amount.

It's a good idea to do automatic monthly donations because then it still happens even if you aren't thinking about it.

I want to encourage everyone, if you are in a good position financially yourself, to think about this and make a decision, rather than just donating haphazardly.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Film review: Cover-Up (2025) (December 29) [content note: descriptions of genocide] "It is must-see viewing for anyone who wishes to know more about the murder, war crimes, rape, torture, and other abuses committed by the US government and its military, many of which were revealed because of the dogged work of Hersh."

2. From xkcd: Anyone Else Here and High Altitude Cooking Instructions

3. The biggest downside of marrying someone from another country... (December 29, 28-minute video) This vlogger is a US citizen married to a Chinese man, and she is trying to help him get a US tourist visa so he can come visit her family. Spoilers, he doesn't get it. The interview process for a US tourist visa is about proving that you really do just want to take a short trip there, and you're not planning to overstay your visa and be an illegal immigrant- and the evidence they want to see is that you have a well-established life in your own country- being married to a US citizen is a strike against him, actually. Lots of couples are in this situation, where the foreign spouse comes from a poor background, such that it's almost impossible to convince the US visa interviewer that you genuinely like to live in your own country and you're not going to decide that being an illegal immigrant would be a step up.

This is the kind of thing that radicalized me. Seriously, there are Americans who are not allowed by the US government to bring their spouse home on a trip to meet their family- not because they've done anything wrong, but because the US judges the foreign spouse as not having sure enough ties to their home country. 

My husband and I are lucky that this didn't happen to him. He got a US tourist visa before we got married, and now has a good track record of going there for a vacation and then leaving, they like to see that.

4. Natasha Romanoff: My Unlikely Ace Icon (January 2) "Nat is perennially single and, unfortunately, incapable of having children of her own. But she has a good relationship with Clint and Laura, and the way their daughter greets her suggests that she has also provided at least some childcare. Though we don’t get a lot of details on the relationship, it seems that Nat is valued by the Bartons and perhaps even loved."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. In Parents' Own Words: Documenting the Stories of Separated Families in Honduras (December 18) "One mother, who had been deported without being given the opportunity to bring her two month-old child, a US citizen, back with her, could talk of little more than her frantic desperation to have her newborn baby back."

2. Trump calls Somali immigrants ‘garbage’ as US reportedly targets Minnesota community (December 2) I guess I didn't post anything about this when it happened a few weeks ago, because he always says all manner of horrible racist bigoted things, I can't possibly pay attention to all of them.

But, this one was pretty bad. Calling a whole group of people "garbage."

And part of me wants to be like "how does he get away with calling himself Christian- the bible says all people are made in the image of God- to call people 'garbage' goes against Christian teaching" but like, come on, that ship has sailed, the MAGAs are no longer even trying to pretend that being Christian has anything to do with, like, following the bible or the teachings of Jesus. Everybody knows that's not what it means.

3. Capitol riot 'does not happen' without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress (December 31) "Accounts from Republicans willing to stand up against the falsehood that the election had been stolen 'even though it could mean trouble for them' created what Smith described as the 'most powerful' evidence against Trump."

‘This is not a peaceful protest!’: A visual archive of Jan. 6, 2021, through the lenses of those who were there. (January 4)

4. The Artists Are Not Obeying In Advance (January 1) "The administration is threatening to sue these artists for millions, and no doubt they will try to find ways to intimidate and defund any organizations with whom they might be affiliated. But that won’t stop them. Artists, musicians, writers, film makers and performers of all kinds are rebelling, one of the most profound forms of resistance to a repressive regime."

5. 'We are going to run the country,' Trump says after strike on Venezuela (January 3)

Photos: Aftermath of strikes in Venezuela (January 3)

The Dems (January 3) "Too many people on social media are saying that the Democrats are all falling in line with Trump’s Venezuelan misadventure. That’s not true."

Miami mayor calls for Trump to 'immediately' reinstate TPS for Venezuelans (January 4) "'The instability unfolding in Venezuela today makes it even clearer that the country remains unsafe for people to return. No one should be forced back into chaos and uncertainty,' Higgins wrote in a statement. 'They have built lives here, contributed to our community, and deserve the security to remain while their homeland regains stability. This is not just a matter of policy — it is a matter of basic human dignity and safety.'"

6. DHS pauses immigration applications for an additional 20 countries (January 2) "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, in a memo released Thursday, said it would pause the review of all pending applications for visas, green cards, citizenship or asylum from immigrants from the additional countries."

When God Says It's Your Choice

Image text: "Choice." Image source.

Long ago, I was at some Christian event, and a speaker was giving a talk about listening to God, and how to know what God wants you to do. One of the examples he gave went something like this: "I was thinking about asking my girlfriend to marry me, so I prayed about it, I prayed about it so much, asking God if I should do it, and finally I felt like God was saying 'it's your choice.'" (And then he did end up marrying her.)

This was really surprising to me at the time because the idea of God giving you a choice- rather than God "having a plan" regarding a big important decision in your life- was totally new to me. I think this speaker's talk also included other examples where he was trying to make a decision, and he determined that God wanted him to make some specific choice- but this is the example that I remember, because it was the exception to the rule. We had a very strong belief that "God has a plan for your life" and you have to pray about every important decision, to make sure you're following God's plan and not accidentally ruining your life (this is very stressful). The idea that sometimes there can be multiple good choices, and God is fine with you choosing any of them- well, that was new and surprising.

Okay, so here's a question: Let's imagine 2 different ideologies. In the first one, God has a plan for your life, and you have to do what God wants, but perhaps occasionally God is okay with you choosing for yourself based on your own preferences. In the second, you always make your own choices, without input from God. When God lets you make your own choice in the first ideology, is that the same situation as a choice you make in the second ideology? 

No, I don't think it's the same at all.

In this story where this guy prayed about marrying his girlfriend, and God said "it's your choice," what kind of circumstance would lead to God saying that? God must be looking at the available options, and reasoning that if this dude is allowed to choose for himself, he's not going to choose anything that's going to end up being catastrophic. I imagine it like, he really wants to marry her, but he's hesitating because he's not sure if God is okay with it, or if there might be something bad about the relationship that he's unaware of. God knows it will work out fine, really the only determining factor is this guy's own interest in marrying her, and so it's okay for God to let him make his own choice.

So God knows that no matter which way it goes, it will be okay. God knows there's not some unexpected terrible thing that's going to happen as a result of them getting married. When God lets you make your own choice in a situation like that, it's basically like God is giving you information- now you know that there's not going to be some horrible outcome that no one could have predicted.

(Or, alternatively, it means that if something does go wrong afterward, it's still okay because God believes this is an okay outcome for you.)

Another example might be, if you're thinking about moving to another country to become a missionary, and it's going to be difficult and maybe even dangerous- and you ask God if you should do it, and They say it's your choice. In this case, God lets you have a choice because you know the risks, and They are letting you decide for yourself if you're willing to take on those risks.

So I would say, in this "God has a plan for your life" ideology, in the cases where God lets you make your own choice, it's because all the options are basically fine and nothing terrible will happen, or it's because you clearly understand the risks and the benefits and it's a matter of your own feelings and opinions about taking an action that has those risks and benefits.

This is completely different from just living life without ever running any of your choices by God. In this kind of lifestyle, there are plenty of decisions you have to make where you don't know the outcome, you don't really have enough information to say one option is better than another, but you just have to do your best. What job to take, where to live, decisions about dating and marriage, having kids, buying a house, whether or not to go see a doctor when you might have a medical issue or it might just be nothing, or even situations where you're just living your normal life and then something bad comes out of nowhere (like you got in a car accident that could have been prevented if God had told you not to drive there that day), etc. We don't have anyone directing us toward the options that have everything working out okay. We just have to do our best, with the limited information we have. 

It's a totally different thing than believing that God has a plan but lets you make the decision if it's one of the more straightforward ones.

Honestly I'm glad I'm no longer living in the "God has a plan for your life" way, because it was so stressful, making decisions based on analyzing my feelings to try to figure out if any of them were planted there by God in order to tell me what the right choice was. In that ideology, you can't just look at the situation, look at the real-world facts- because the real-world facts will tell you that there is some probability it will go a certain way, and some probability it will go a different way, probability this probability that- but if you could get God's take on it, then you could have certainty. The path to certainty is overanalyzing all of your feelings and asking if they seem like the sort of feelings that God would give you if They wanted you to choose a certain option- and of course there's no actual standard to check that against. 

So much stress, trying to figure out what God was telling me, rather than just looking at the facts and doing my best and taking the responsibility myself.

When God says "it's your choice"... what would that mean, under the "God has a plan for your life" paradigm? It must mean God knows that whatever choice you make, it's okay- none of the available options would be horribly worse than the others. Or, it must mean that God knows you already have an accurate understanding of the good and bad aspects of each of the options. There are guardrails- God's not going to say "it's your choice" if one of the options would lead to something really bad, in a way that's impossible for you to have predicted. This is very different from a belief system where we're on our own and we don't try to suss out "God's will for your life" when making big decisions.

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Related

I'm SO HAPPY I Won't Be Praying During Childbirth 

God, Soul Mates, and International Marriage

The Power Dynamics of the "Personal Relationship With God"

I Didn't Like the Ocean in "Moana" Because it was Too Much Like God

Blogaround

The last blog post of the year~ Happy new year everyone!

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. My favorite Christmas song: Casting Crowns - I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day Live 

2. The NIMBY Christmas cinematic universe (December 23) "Particularly frustrating is the argument that economic growth, development, and newcomers — the very things that ailing small towns desperately need — are actually the root of their problems."

3. Firewood Banks Aren’t Inspiring. They’re a Sign of Collapse. (December 9, via) "You don’t start a wood bank in a country with functioning institutions. You start one when heating assistance programs can’t keep up, when the grid flickers every time the wind shifts, when propane and heating oil costs swing so hard that families can’t budget more than a week out. You start a wood bank when seniors stop turning on their heat because they’re scared of the bill. You also start one when the country pretends energy insecurity doesn’t exist because acknowledging it would mean admitting that entire regions were left behind on purpose."

4. Collections: Coinage and the Tyranny of Fantasy ‘Gold’ (January 3, 2025, via) "So a denarius or a drachma isn’t a unit so big that no normal person would ever use it, but it is a big enough unit that one is hardly going to use it casually"

5. Israel says it will bar aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, from Gaza (December 30)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Is It Too Late? (December 9, via) "The full-on hijacking of the 14th Amendment has not been challenged with commensurate concerted outrage and political clarity. That is because far too many white Americans associate the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of birthright citizenship and equality, as provisions that only protect Black people, migrants, Latino people, and other marginalized groups, rather than as core democracy infrastructure of our Constitution."

2. What We Can Learn from the Right’s Attack On “Toxic Empathy” (December 11, via) "But by trying to get inside Chauvin’s head and heart, by insisting that he should be the focal point of identification, Stuckey can move away from what actually happened, and can instead present herself as the truly thoughtful and empathetic voice, feeling along with the right, white, and supposedly Godly person."

3. The return of the r-word (December 23) "But it turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all."

4. Conservatives Want the Antebellum Constitution Back (December 21) "What this means in practice is that if you are not white, you cannot go certain places without the risk of being kidnapped by federal agents. That is not “common sense”; it is the nullification of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights under the law."

Christmas Stockings in Chinese

Christmas stocking for sale on a Chinese site. Image source.

How do we say "Christmas stocking" in Chinese?

Well, it's 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ]. 圣诞 [shèng dàn] means "Christmas", like when you're using "Christmas" as an adjective to talk about Christmas cookies, Christmas trees, etc- but when you're talking about Christmas the holiday, as in "Today is Christmas", it would be 圣诞节 [shèng dàn jié], because 节 [jié] means "holiday." And 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock.

Wait, 袜子 [wà zǐ] means sock? Like any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]? Yes, any normal sock is 袜子 [wà zǐ]. Every day when you wear socks, they are 袜子 [wà zǐ]. The Chinese word for Christmas stocking is Christmas sock.

Something about this feels a little wrong, to me. When we talk about "stockings" in English, the feel of it is like... an old-fashioned sock. An old-timey word for "sock." Like the origins of this tradition are that long ago, people really did hang up actual socks for Christmas, but now we use a dedicated product specifically made to be a Christmas stocking, which would not work as an actual sock you can wear on your actual foot. 

All of that is wrapped up in the English word "stocking," and the Chinese 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ] doesn't have any of the same feel.

There's no tradition about Christmas stockings in China. I think a lot of Chinese people have seen them used in Christmas decorations, so they vaguely know that Christmas stockings are a thing that exists, but they don't know any details beyond that.

This is how translation always is. You take a word in one language and you want to translate it to a second language, but the second language doesn't have a word with the exact same feel. And I just asked me husband (who is Chinese) about this, and he said "we don't care" about the fact that "stocking" sounds more old-fashioned and not like an actual sock, because in China they don't have this tradition. (And perhaps there *is* a Chinese word that feels more old-fashioned and is related to socks- though I don't know one myself- and one might argue that it is a better translation for "stocking", except that you won't get anywhere making that argument, because Chinese people are already using the translation 圣诞袜子 [shèng dàn wà zǐ].)

Translation is like that.

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Related:

Chinese Jokes Make Me Think About God

"Ayi" vs "Aunt"

The World of "Pride and Prejudice" is Not the World of Purity Culture

Book cover for "Pride and Prejudice." Image source.

[content note: spoilers for "Pride and Prejudice"]

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, was first published in 1813. It's a romance story, about how the fancy gentlemen and ladies of 1700's England go about partnering up and getting married.

Those of us who grew up in purity culture in the American church in the 1990's were taught an ideology about "sexual purity" and rules about dating and gender roles. This ideology was presented as timeless, traditional, how God always intended relationships to work. Like everyone has always known that these were the rules, until the sexual revolution of the 1960's- that's when all the problems started. We need to just get back to these traditions, which are straight from the bible. That's how dating is supposed to be.

So, naively, one might imagine that when you encounter writing about romance/relationships/marriage from hundreds of years ago, in a society that was greatly influenced by Christianity, it would basically match what purity culture teaches. That the rules that proper men and women followed back then should be more or less the same as the rules that purity culture is putting on us now. That the way that people in that time period viewed romantic relationships would match what purity culture tells us.

But oh goodness, let me tell you, this is very much not true about "Pride and Prejudice."

Wow, it is very much NOT TRUE that purity culture ideology is just getting back to the way that every proper and respectable person used to approach romantic relationships. Purity culture is a movement that was invented in the US in the 1990's, and its aesthetics give the appearance of being old and traditional, but it's not.

So let me tell you about 4 things in "Pride and Prejudice" that are at odds with the purity-culture perspective on relationships.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Merry Christmas! Here's the song "Adoration" by the Newsboys.

2. Australia’s Social Media Ban is a Win for Gambling Companies (December 21)

3. Victory in New Zealand, For Now—Injunction Brings Puberty Blocker Ban to a Screeching Halt (December 18)

4. Funny Numbers (December 22) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Families Bring Legal Challenge Against Yale, CCMC For Capitulating To Trump On Trans Youth Care (December 18) "Critically, no law in the United States currently bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth, meaning the hospitals cannot credibly claim federal preemption of state law. Instead, the cessation of care appears to be driven solely by fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. This is particularly significant in Connecticut, which—like several other states where hospitals have dropped care—has strong statutory protections for transgender people, raising the possibility that these decisions violate state civil rights law, a question GLAD is now seeking to resolve."

I have a lot of links from Erin in the Morning: 

Nationwide Trans Youth Care Ban Incoming As Trump Admin Announces "Nuclear Option" Federal Rule (December 19) "These draft rules comprise a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to undermine the longstanding right of states to ensure the health and well-being of their residents, the right of parents and caregivers to support and love trans and nonbinary young people, and the guidance of doctors and medical organizations on the well-established standard of care."

ACTION ITEM: You can submit a public comment here, Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Hospital Condition of Participation: Prohibiting Sex-Rejecting Procedures for Children. The comment period ends February 17, 2026.

Trans Youth Emergency Project Offers Families Guidance To Help Keep Getting Care After New Trump Anti-Trans Rule (December 21) "Adam Polaski explained, 'At every turn, we have been able to pivot and scale up and show people the reason that this is important. Folks have stepped up with their dollars, and also folks have requested support and spread the word. So right now, I don’t want folks to feel like they shouldn’t reach out because they ‘don’t really need it’ or someone else ‘needs it more than them.’ Everyone needs the support right now, and it’s ok. We have the capacity to take it on.'"

You can donate here: Trans Youth Emergency Project

ACLU Pledges To Challenge Trump Admin In Court Over National Trans Youth Care Ban Rule (December 23) 

2. Let's all watch the CECOT 60-Minutes segment that Bari Weiss doesn't want us to watch. 

[content note: torture]

60 Minus (December 22) "If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient."

Links where you can watch it: here, here, here

3. The year Trump broke the federal government (December 21, via) This is very long, and hard to read. I haven't read the whole thing. It's about the huge numbers of government workers who have been fired this year.

4. The Horns and Whistles Work (December 19, via) "Border Patrol might spend hours waiting to detain an immigrant, only to be thwarted by a united neighborhood effort."

5. Univ. of Oklahoma punishes instructor for failing Christian student who didn't do the assignment (December 23) "The only person who behaved with integrity in this saga was the graduate instructor who gave Fulnecky detailed, thoughtful feedback. And that’s the only person who was punished."

6. ICE officer accused of excessive force, then sent back to work despite active probe (December 24) "By the following Monday, Mojica was back on the job, without any further explanation from the agency."

7. Biden stopped the executions of 37 men. Trump's DOJ wants to punish them (December 23) "'These are new punishments,' said Maher. 'This is an additional punishment for these men who have already been sentenced.'"

On Christianity and Waiting

Book cover for "Washed and Waiting"

Today in "books that Perfect Number heard about 10 years ago and finally got around to reading"...

I recently read Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, by Wesley Hill, published in 2010. Hill is a gay Christian and believes in the traditional Christian teaching that says same-sex romantic/sexual relationships are sinful. The book is about how he struggles with the pain of loneliness and desire that can't be fulfilled, but he holds on to his faith that God sees what he is doing, that it's the right thing to do, and God will reward him some day. The purpose is to encourage other gay Christians who hold these beliefs and struggle with them.

I wasn't going to blog about this because I'm not really the right person for this... I feel like, a very obvious solution suggests itself... like why don't you just date a man? See, but I shouldn't actually say that to someone who is in this situation because it would come across as really insensitive. People in this situation are working so hard to keep the rules that they believe God is requiring them to keep, and they feel like it's so difficult and painful and lonely and they need encouragement, and if I come along and say "hey good news, your beliefs are wrong and you don't have to do any of this at all" well that is not helpful.

Actually, though, I think a lot of what Hill writes about in this book can be applied to singleness in general. People may be single for all sorts of reasons- all sorts of reasons which don't have an "obvious solution"- and they often do feel like it's overwhelmingly lonely. The book emphasizes that we all need human connection, and that the desire for friendship/connection should be embraced, and the church is supposed to meet that need. The church doesn't do a good job of this- churches often don't seem to know what to do with single people- but, in an ideal world, it would be a place where people can form deep, meaningful friendships. It's good that this book exists.

Anyway, the main thing about this book that inspired me to write this blog post is this: This is a very different version of Christianity than what I believe. Superficially, one might thing that it's just a matter of "some Christians think same-sex relationships are sinful, some Christians think same-sex relationships are okay", perhaps just a few Greek words in a bible verse being interpreted differently by the 2 different sides. But it turns out it goes way deeper than that. 

The book is called "Washed and Waiting"- because celibate gay Christians are "washed" clean from their sins and are "waiting" to get to heaven and finally be rewarded by God and healed of their homosexuality. (Yes, the book says that homosexuality is an abnormality that will eventually be removed when we are all made perfect in heaven.) The "waiting" part is really difficult- living one's whole lifetime with this pain and longing and loneliness, struggling, failing, trying to be faithful to God's law, clinging to the hope that someday God will reward you.

Is the Christian life about waiting, and trying not to sin? Wow, no, I very much do not see it that way. The Christian life should be about doing, not waiting. We are supposed to take action to help people and do good and make the world better. That is what actually matters. Not the extent to which you can control and discipline and repress yourself as it relates to your own personal habits and thoughts.

I was also struck by how much this ideology relies on heaven to finally make everything better. This life is full of pain and struggle and that's just how it is; we won't be healed until after we die and meet God. I don't agree with this. I don't think we should wait for heaven; I think we should bring the kingdom of heaven to the earth. As Jesus taught us to pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." We can't wait for God to save us; we need to take action and do it ourselves. And what if there is no heaven? I don't want to bank on that. We need to do what we can now to make this world better. 

If our religion doesn't help people right here and now, I think it's worthless. 

I will say, I can think of some circumstances where you can't really do anything to solve your problem except look forward to heaven. For example, what if someone you love died? Nothing you can do about it, except hope that you will see them again in heaven. Or what if you have a chronic illness or disability that you wish you could be healed from- nothing you can do except look forward to being healed in heaven. So yes, this idea of "waiting" and relying on heaven's existence can apply to some situations, but I very much do not think this "waiting" is the main point of Christianity. The book talks about it like it's the main point of Christianity. Waiting and *not* doing things. Maybe Hill would disagree with me saying that; maybe he doesn't think it's the main point of the Christian life. But if you read *only* this book, that's the impression you would get.

Still, though, it shouldn't just be "waiting"- we should take action to change the world and help people and advocate for disabled people's rights, etc, do what we can to make things better here on earth, even though we can't *completely* solve these problems. It feels so bizarre and jarring to me, to encounter this ideology that says gay Christians can't date a same-sex partner, because reasons, and that causes them to suffer loneliness and it sure seems like we could easily solve this by allowing them to date, but no no, let's not do that, let's wait for heaven.

(Okay, yes, I'm kind of oversimplifying it- Hill *does* give reasons in the book for why he believes he can't just date a man. It's not like this "obvious solution" has never occurred to him. All his reasons rely on a view of Christianity that's very different from mine though, so they don't really do anything for me.)

I don't think we should wait for heaven, and accept that we suffer in this world because that's just how it is. Christianity should be about bringing the kingdom of heaven to this world. Christianity shouldn't be about waiting, it should be about doing.

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Related:

If heaven is so great, why did God even make this world?

"On earth as it is in heaven" 

"Slaves, Women & Homosexuals" (What is this book actually about?)

"Waiting On God" - But Like, Why Though?

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Why people like your quick bullshit takes better than your high-effort posts (November 29, via) "but the attention of the internet is best modeled as a random swarm of locusts that will occasionally land on your ripe fields based on its inscrutable whims."

Oh yeah this has happened to me. The posts that get the most views aren't the ones I really really care about and spend a lot of time on. Hey if you really want to make my day, you can leave an appreciative comment on any of my very long blog posts about the bible.

2. Apples (December 12) From xkcd.

3. Journal Club: The Quoiromantic Manifesto (December 17) "'Quoiromantic' was especially a response to asexual discourses where romantic orientation is so common that people are expected to have it as a slot in their identity. Quoiromanticism expresses unwillingness to participate in this framework."

4. I usually do a "Christmas music roundup" post in December, but it turns out I just like all the same songs every year. So instead of doing a whole post, I'll just share them one by one here and there.

Emmanuel (Michael W Smith & Amy Grant- w/lyrics)

5. OpenAI says dead teen violated TOS when he used ChatGPT to plan suicide (November 27, via) [content note: suicide]

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ‘Good will to all’ rejected as ‘political’ and ‘divisive’ (December 9) "'Peace on earth, good will to all' is the same thing Christians have been reciting every year at Christmastime for centuries, but those Christians can’t say it this year without being — correctly — perceived as 'political' and 'anti-Trump' and 'anti-ICE' and 'anti-MAGA,' because 'peace and good will to all' is the opposite of everything that Trump and ICE and MAGA stand for."

Also from the Slacktivist: The end of 20th-century white evangelicalism (December 15) "I remember what it feels like to identify as an evangelical because loving Jesus and loving the Bible was the most important thing to me only to be told, constantly, that this did not matter at all — to constantly have the gatekeepers of evangelicalism reminding me that loving Jesus and loving the Bible wasn’t nearly as important as voting Republican no matter what. And then seeing 'no matter what' ratcheted into something ever more extreme."

This is so real. I'm also one of those evangelicals who followed Jesus right out of the church.

2. Trump Finds Way To Be Bigger Piece Of Sh*t Than Ever, Re: Rob Reiner (December 16) This is really shocking and horrific, what he posted on social media.

3. Her Christmas lights were going up. Then Border Patrol showed up (December 13) "'It looks completely ridiculous,' she said. But she decided to leave it that way 'as a symbol of what happens when ICE and Border Patrol get involved in your world. Things don't go as planned. And a lot of work doesn't get done.'"

4. DOJ releases Epstein files and the first batch is short on new information (December 19) 

5. A radio station in Amsterdam is a lifeline for Sudan. After USAID cuts, it's faltering (December 21) "From Amsterdam, the journalists at Radio Dabanga try to shed some light on the dire situation. They report on where fighting has erupted, on disease outbreaks in refugee camps, and the aftermath of recent atrocities, such as those in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher."

6. Trump's push to end transgender care for young people opposed by pediatricians (December 19) "Goepferd, who is the founder of Children's Minnesota Gender Health Program, says that for the medical community, nothing has changed about the evidence supporting gender-affirming care that could justify the government's actions."

Ariana Grande is advancing the cultural mythology around Santa Claus

Ariana Grande. Image source.

"Santa Tell Me" is a 2014 song by Ariana Grande. The chorus goes like this:

Santa, tell me if you're really there

Don't make me fall in love again if he won't be here

Next year

Santa, tell me if he really cares

'Cause I can't give it all away if he won't be here

Next year

She is interested in a boy, but doesn't want to fall in love with him if the relationship isn't going to last. So she's asking Santa if she will still be with this guy in 1 year, and also if this guy really cares about her.

She's asking Santa? Since when do people ask Santa for dating advice??? Since when is Santa believed to have the ability to see the future? Since when does Santa read people's minds and feelings?

Like, okay, sure, according to the standard tropes about Santa, he has a "naughty list" and "nice list." I suppose Santa could look this guy up and see which list he's on, but I don't think Santa's naughty/nice binary categorization system is really going to give Ariana Grande the information she needs. Just because this guy is nice enough to deserve a Christmas present doesn't really tell you if he's boyfriend material. This song seems to be implying some kind of knowledge or ability on Santa's part that goes beyond "he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice."

Also, "don't make me fall in love again"- is she saying Santa has the power to manipulate her emotions to stop her from falling in love if the relationship isn't going to last? What? Since when is that something that Santa can do? Or, maybe we should just read this as, he should give her the information she is asking for, and then she will be able to keep *herself* from falling in love.

This song has bothered me for so long because these are just *not* things that Santa is typically regarded as being able to do. This is not the role that people expect Santa to play. He just judges who's "naughty or nice" and gives gifts. That's all. He doesn't give relationship advice, what on earth, who has ever asked Santa of all people for relationship advice? He doesn't predict the future, my goodness. (This seems like more the sort of thing that people would ask God. Not Santa.)

But actually, this is how the Santa mythology has always worked. Pop culture is always adding to it, through songs, movies, Coca-Cola ads, adding to the body of knowledge that people "know" about who Santa is. It changes and develops, and we should read "Santa Tell Me" as an attempt to develop the cultural ideas about Santa in this direction. If it catches on, then there will be more songs and movies made, which portray Santa as an all-knowing relationship-advice-giver, and people will think it's just self-evidently obvious that that's who Santa is, just like it's obvious that he lives at the North Pole and gives gifts to children and has "naughty" and "nice" lists.

Well, the song is from 2014 and this new interpretation of Santa doesn't seem to have caught on. But I will always be on the lookout for anyone else claiming that Santa knows the future and has insights about whether your boyfriend really cares about you.

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