#dr. wai in the scripture with no words

[linggluu]

bet ya never seen takeshi kaneshiro and jet li dressed up as ladies :D

[creature-wizard]

Hii genuine question. Are Christian holidays not actually from a basis of paganism? I felt like from what I’ve read about it before made sense to me

So like, a lot of people basically jumped to conclusions whenever a Christian holiday was either celebrated near the time of an old pre-Christian holiday, or its name sounded superficially similar to something pre-Christian, or its popular celebrations included elements that didn't seem quite Christian enough.

So, let's take Easter, for example. At one point, this guy Bede mentioned that the holiday got its name from "Eostremonath," IE, Eostre Month, which was named after an old goddess, Eostre. Now, that may very well be true, but it doesn't demonstrate that the holiday had pagan origins. See, when it comes to words for the holiday celebrating Jesus's resurrections, English is an outlier. Most European languages use words that derive from Pascha, which is ultimately derived from the Hebrew word Pesach, as in Passover.

There's also no evidence that Eostre's symbols included eggs or hares. In fact, everything we know about Eostre comes from Bede. Anything else is just guesswork. Dr. Andrew Henry of ReligionForBreakfast on YouTube, by the way, has a decent video on the topic of Eostre.

So why eggs, anyway? Well, back in the day, eggs were forbidden during Lent, so by the time Easter rolled around people had like a month's worth of eggs stacked up. So like, why not eggs?

And then of course, Alexander Hislop completely pulled the Easter/Ishtar connection out of his ass, because he was an anti-Catholic conspiracy theorist who did not care about scholarship, only about demonizing the Catholic Church.

Christmas has been claimed to have been derived from Saturnalia or Sol Invictus based on similarities in dates, but scholars have found that there was this belief that holy men died on the same day they were conceived. So if we start with Good Friday and fast forward nine months, that puts us either in December or January, depending on when exactly you believe Jesus was crucified. So Western traditions, which went for March 25, settled on December 25, whereas Eastern traditions, which went with April 6, got January 6. Dr. Andrew Henry talks about this here.

Christmas trees are also claimed to be pagan, but in reality they weren't a thing until the late medieval period. The earliest known reference to a decorated tree goes back to 1419. Or, it might be a tree; the word used ("Bom") could also mean a pole, as in a decorated pole like a maypole. It was shortly after this that people began erecting trees out in public squares. Again, Dr. Andrew Henry has a video on this.

And yes, it's true that Christmas is called something like Yule or Jol in other languages, but as we've determined from Easter, a name doesn't necessarily tell us where something came from. Most languages don't use anything like Yule; for example, English uses Christmas, as in, "Christ's Mass," while many languages use a word deriving from the Latin natalis, as in "birth," as in "Jesus's birthday."

Just about every attempt to link a Christian holiday to a pre-Christian one is operating on similarly poor methodologies. People just kinda drew conclusions based on things looking kinda similar without looking closer to see if they were really actually connected, or based on things not lining up with their personal ideas of how Christians ought to behave. (This whole idea that pure, true Christianity is sourced 100% from the Bible and the Bible alone is very Protestant, btw. It's also a position that would have baffled the earliest Christians, who didn't even have a New Testament and didn't regard things like the the epistles as holy scripture yet.)

Now of course, the Christianization of Europe didn't overwrite its cultures entirely, and local cultural beliefs and traditions ultimately did influence holiday traditions in some way; Christmas elves are a pretty clear example of this. But this whole idea that the Catholic Church just stole all these pagan holidays and remade them into Christian ones is pseudohistory.

[a-big-apple]

Gideon, Harrow, and "Wedding Vows"

i frequently see the interpretation that this:

"The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee," said Gideon. (GtN 438)

plus this:

"If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten," her mouth was saying. "Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee." And, unsteadily: "Griddle." (HtN 360)

plus this:

It didn't even matter when Kiriona said, "Sure, Cam. Marry a moron, then die. I get the urge." (NtN 372)

equals Gideon and Harrow are married! crying face emoji!

i'm not disparaging that interpretation, i think it's valid and has some basis in the text, and even if it wasn't/didn't, i think fans should have all the fun they want. but for me, it doesn't fully capture the complexity of what Gideon and Harrow are to each other, and i want to explore a slightly less straightforward reading.

Catholic weddings, vows, and Ruth under the cut ;)

Gideon and Ninth House traditions

let's start with Gideon quoting Ruth. i've seen folks repeating the idea that this is a wedding vow. it's more accurate to say that this is a verse often used as a wedding vow, in other denominations of Christianity, and secularly as well. but in a (traditional) Catholic wedding, the couple can't write or choose their own vows--the Celebration of Matrimony has specific text, with one or two variations, that is always used.

now, we haven't seen a Ninth House marriage ceremony. if we do see such a thing in AtN and discover that Ruth 1:17 is part of that tradition, i will cry a million happy queer tears about it. but i think it's somewhat likely that Gideon has never even seen a Ninth House wedding, given how small and trending elderly the population is, and that we know no couples in her lifetime have had kids other than the Reverend Parents.

what i'm getting at here is that this quotation from Ruth doesn't seem, to me, to represent something that's religiously or traditionally binding in Ninth House culture. it uses some similar language to Catholic marriage vows, "until death do us part" etc, but i don't think these are words that make them married in the eyes of the Ninth or the Houses at large, i think these are words Gideon has chosen as a specific expression of her devotion. and where does she get them from, if not some Ninth House ceremony or scripture?

well, this is a slightly longer stretch, but at the point in the story when Gideon says this, she's already dead. Harrow has begun to absorb her--and thanks to "The Unwanted Guest," we know that souls are porous, permeable, and rub off on each other when they're in contact. Gideon's soul is at this moment being integrated into Harrow's; Harrow has certainly read all kinds of books on the Ninth ranging from usual to totally heretical, some of them probably extremely old, and it's not unreasonable to think writings from before the Resurrection might have been copied and recopied into something Harrow could access. And speaking of soul permeability, Harrow's had Alecto's soul clinging onto hers for seven years, and Alecto's soul is in intimate contact with John's soul--there are so many ways for this bit of scripture to make its way into Gideon's non-corporeal mouth. the STI (Soulfully Transmitted Infection) of biblical knowledge.

Ruth in context

now let's talk a little about Ruth, the book of the Bible and also the character of the Bible, and Naomi, who she is swearing her devotion to. tl;dr, Naomi and her husband and two grown sons are Israelites who immigrate to Moab, a "pagan" nation, to escape famine. Naomi's two sons marry Moabite women; then the sons both die, as does Naomi's husband. Naomi, having lost everything, decides to return home where she'll be penniless and have a bad life but at least she'll be among her people; she tells her two daughters-in-law to go back to their families. One of them goes.

The other, Ruth, refuses, and swears beautiful devotion to Naomi, as we've heard Gideon quote: "She answered: Be not against me, to desire that I should leave thee and depart: for whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go: and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. The land that shall receive thee dying, in the same will I die: and there will I be buried. The Lord do so and so to me, and add more also, if aught but death part me and thee."

in a biblical context, this has nothing to do with a wedding vow. Ruth is promising to leave the comfort of her own people, religion, and homeland to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, even though the connection they had (Naomi's son, Ruth's husband) is gone, and all they have to look forward to is a terrible life of grief and bitterness. this is frequently interpreted as a parallel to Jesus, who (in the religious perspective) made the sacrifice of leaving his place with God and becoming human out of devotion to humanity, in order to live and suffer and redeem us. woof, this is giving me flashbacks to CCD.

of course, many Christians resist interpreting what passes between Ruth and Naomi as resembling a wedding vow for homophobic reasons too--making it about Jesus is a way to make it less queer--but i think the point still stands that this is a more complicated, and less marriage-related, expression of love than it seems taken on its own.

Harrow's lamentation

when Harrow later echoes it back, she conflates it with a different biblical quotation: "On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments. For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy."

it's a lament, an expression of mourning, a longing for home from someone who has been forcibly removed from it. when combined with the Ruth quotation, in which Ruth is giving up her home in her devotion, this really reads to me as both Harrow's grief, immediate and overpowering, and a realization that Gideon is her home, and failing to acknowledge that is as disabling as the loss of a hand or of the power of speech. Gideon is the beginning of her joy, and Harrow is, in this moment, putting Gideon above the Ninth House in her devotion. above Alecto. above everything.

and again, i'm not saying all of that can't be about marriage, but it's about a relationship much more complicated than marriage can encompass in the context House cultural norms.

Kiriona Gaia, saddest girl

this brings me to Kiriona, and "marry a moron, then die." consider the context of this, and the tone. Kiriona's deeply, deeply hurt. the saddest girl in the universe. she died for Harrow, avowed her devotion to Harrow, and then (from her perspective) was rejected; buried; excised from Harrow's brain and then from her body. Kiriona, as she did when she was Gideon, covers her emotions with humor and sarcasm. i suspect she's even less able to handle being vulnerable as Kiriona than she ever was before. she's making light of Canaan House and what happened there, and it's only in sarcastically downplaying what she's been through that she recounts her relationship to Harrow as a marriage--something she has almost no positive examples of, something that is in her experience frequently political and joyless. also notably, she frames it as a marriage that occurred before she died.

Their actual vow

what Gideon (and Kiriona) really wants--she tells us over and over again--is to be a true cavalier.

and what does Gideon's ghost repeat right before she devastates us with Ruth 1:17?

"One flesh, one end," said Gideon, and it was a murmur now, on the very edge of hearing. Harrow said, "Don't leave me." (GtN 438)

it's taken me a dozen paragraphs just to propose that this is their vow. "One flesh, one end" are the actual words that need to be spoken, in Gideon and Harrow's cultural context, to bring them into an official union with each other; a union that is arguably more fundamental in the Houses, and certainly more complicated, than a marriage. a union Gideon specifically wants, and has seen in action.

in the pool, they vow to each other as cavalier and necromancer. in the moments before Gideon's death, she forgives Harrow again, and exposes her heart: "'You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush" (GtN 430). then she repeats their oath again, acknowledges the pain she's about to cause for Harrow, and rededicates herself to the Ninth--a place she never really belonged, Harrow's home and people more than her own, as Ruth dedicated herself to Naomi's home and people. Gideon "married" her moron in the pool, and now she dies to fulfill that vow.

and as we saw above, after Gideon's death, she reminds Harrow again of their union--of its importance, of how she's fulfilling what she has interpreted to be her whole purpose as a cavalier--and it's in response to Harrow's "don't leave me" that Gideon offers a final reassurance of her devotion. in her mind, this sacrifice is its ultimate expression, the most inextricable and undeniable union two people can achieve.

Gideon believes she'll be part of Harrow forever.

[walkswithmyfather]

✨ Mary, mother of Jesus

“…the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” —Luke 2:35 (NIV)

“As someone who has spent years teaching and attending women’s Bible studies, I’ve scribbled my way through multiple workbooks featuring women in the Scriptures. Ironically, though, only one such study has included the fourth most described person in the New Testament: Jesus’s mother, Mary.

Considering that Mary is the only primary witness of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection—three events on which Christianity’s core doctrines are built—such an omission is a major oversight. To neglect Mary is to miss an important figure with much to teach us.

In an early scene from Jesus’s life, we find Mary with Joseph taking Baby Jesus to the temple to dedicate Him. And there an elderly man, Simeon, took the child in his arms, offered praise, and predicted Jesus would be the light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel. But then Simeon offered Mary a grim prophecy: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:34–35).

Three decades later, when a Roman sword pierced her son’s body, Mary stood watching as a sword pierced her soul. And that was not the first time following Jesus exacted a price from her. Yet from the beginning Mary had determined to do the will of God, as seen in her words to Gabriel, “I am the Lord’s servant…. May your word to me be fulfilled” (1:38).

The One who “abhorred not the virgin’s womb” told His disciples that in the world they would experience trouble (John 16:33). Doing His will may bring soul-piercing pain. Yet Mary’s choices remind us that it is worth any cost to follow Jesus. We can even be merry—because He has overcome the world.”

—Dr. Sandra Glahn

Professor of Media Arts and Worship (Dallas Theological Seminar)

From: “The Spiritual Encourager” (FB)

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey I don’t mean to further flood your inbox and I know I sent an ask a week or so ago. But in church this morning the sermon was on the 1 John passage about how if you hate your brother or sister you don’t love God, and I just. I bet you can guess which political figure immediately comes to mind. I know we’re supposed to love and pray for and forgive our enemies, and it’s not supposed to be a thing where you only do it if you know you’ll get an apology/changed behavior/etc. But the most positive thing I can say where he’s concerned is if he showed up on my doorstep bleeding and starving I would work past my anger to bind his wounds and feed him cuz that’s what you’re supposed to do for fellow human beings. Other than that I have no love for him (or people like him, really). Just anger and immense disdain. Maybe even hate. What do I do with that??

Hey there, I feel you on this. I can also think of maaany political figures I feel this about lol.

I have an old post delving into what it means to love one's enemy and what forgiveness is (and isn't) that I recommend to you.

I'll start with a TL;DR from that post, and then add some other stuff about working through feelings like anger and hate, and close with some reading recs <3

When we find it desperately difficult to love, or to forgive, we can ask God to feel and be what we find ourselves unable to feel and be.

We can remember Christ's words on the cross about the soldiers crucifying him: he does not say "I forgive them," but asks, "Father, you forgive them, for they know not what they do."

He cannot himself forgive them in that moment — not while they are in the act of torturing and killing him, not while they hold all power over him, not even when his compassion allows him to understand that they do what they do out of ignorance — so he asks God to be that forgiveness for them.

When I struggle to feel love for someone who is doing great harm and seems completely unrepentant of that, I turn to God the way Jesus did: "God, I'm struggling to see the spark of You in them. Please love them the way I can't in this moment."

Next point:

Throughout the Bible, the concepts of love and hate are much more about action than sentiment.

If you feel love for someone, yet don't come to their aid when they need it most, what use was that love to them? Meanwhile, if you fear or disdain someone, yet help them in their direst need, you have acted with love.

Furthermore, when it comes to difficult emotions, the good news is that we are indeed invited to bring all our feelings — anger, disdain, even hate — to God. We can be real about what we're feeling.

Scripture shows us this over and over: There are so many psalms, and passages from the prophets, where someone has been hounded and terrorized enough to wish pain or even death upon the ones who oppress them. In one of the most infamous, Psalm 137, the psalmist even goes so far as to wish that their oppressors' children might be "dashed upon a rock" — that everything Babylon has made them suffer might be enacted on Babylon.

These are not pretty feelings, yet they are preserved in holy poetry, because they are part of the human experience. (And tantamount to understanding them is realizing that those praying such things will happen almost never have the power to enact them. The psalmist who wishes Babylon's soldiers experience what they've put the psalmist's people doesn't have the army, the weapons, the power to actually make that happen. They're just honest about wishing it in a moment of collective trauma and grief.)

In all this, I'm not saying God "wants" us to feel loathing or hate — any thought or feeling that puts us at risk of denying another person's humanity is one we do need to work on; but we do that work by being honest about feeling it, rather than being too ashamed to face it or to share it with God.

No pressure to read any of these of course, but here are texts I'd recommend on these topics:

James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, a brief but rich text in which (among other things) Baldwin grapples with the need to love his oppressor (namely white people) — to affirm their humanity in a way they have denied him. Only in recognizing one another's humanity can we have any hope of something like justice and peace for the generations to come. Baldwin believes this vehemently, but he still acknowledges that it's still not easy, in fact it's one of the hardest things, to love one's oppressors in such a way. .

Cole Arthur Riley's This Here Flesh, another short book rich in meaning. I especially recommend the chapters on lament, rage, justice, and repair for this topic. One thing she discusses is that love is not "niceness," that rage can be righteous, that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to let a harmful person witness our rage, to call them out. .

The same link from the beginning to that post about what forgiveness is and what it is not

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Will Sommer at The Bulwark:

RFK’s biggest fans turn on him

For vaccine opponents, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment as secretary of health and human services represented something close to nirvana. It was a chance, finally, to take on Big Pharma and to bring their long-stigmatized beliefs into the political mainstream. Perhaps no one in the country has done more than Kennedy to convince people not to vaccinate themselves or their children. Now, he was going to be in charge of the country’s vaccine programs. Those dreams came crashing down Sunday afternoon, when Kennedy visited the family of the second child to die in the Texas measles outbreak for a trip that was billed as an effort to better understand the federal response to the disease. Buried near the bottom of an X post about his visit, Kennedy conceded that the measles vaccine is “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.” He also said the government was providing ��needed MMR vaccines.”

That statement went off like a bomb in MAHA-land, where it’s taken as scripture that basic sanitation and vitamin A are the real way to avoid measles, which (they add) isn’t that serious of a disease anyway. The replies to Kennedy’s tweet filled up with former supporters, prominent and not, who thought he had made a grievous error. “There is no defense for this poorly worded statement,” wrote Sherri Tenpenny, a prominent anti-vaccine activist who has called concern about the measles outbreak “hysteria.” Kennedy has a long history of criticizing the measles vaccine, which—to be abundantly clear—is empirically effective and may well constitute one of the great medical breakthroughs of the twentieth century. He said in a video recently released by his Children’s Health Defense group that it’s possible the measles vaccine is causing more deaths than measles itself. He’s been blamed for fueling anti-MMR vaccine sentiments in Samoa before and during a fall 2019 measles outbreak that ended up killing 83 people.

As recently as last month, Kennedy did an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity at a Steak 'n Shake where he expounded on the supposed dangers of the measles vaccine. Still, Kennedy’s supporters were already growing restless in early March, when he wrote an op-ed amid the measles outbreak saying the vaccine should be available to people who want it. Given his previous claims that the vaccine was actually harmful, they wondered, why would he now want to make it available? Others groped for conspiracy theories to defend Kennedy. Kim Iversen, a former host of the Hill’s daily talk show, speculated on her own show in March that nefarious forces were deliberately spreading the measles in Texas to make Kennedy look bad.

[...] As early as December 2024, Dr. Mary Bowden, a Houston doctor who was suspended from her job for pushing COVID-19 misinformation, complained on a podcast that Kennedy was ditching attacks on vaccines for the more politically palatable, blander “Make America Healthy Again” movement. She and other anti-vaccine activists worried that he and the incoming Trump administration would be more preoccupied with eliminating “Red Dye no. 4” and seed oils from the food supply than on going after vaccines. “He’s our nuclear bomb—we’re in World War III, he’s going to take down Japan,” Bowden said in the podcast interview. “All of a sudden, the nuclear bomb—the target has shifted to food.” The fury has only grown now that Kennedy managed to eke out one wholly positive statement about vaccines—whether because of bad press or because the death of a second child during the outbreak brought about his Damascene conversion. Former One America News host Liz Wheeler, whose YouTube channel has more than 400,000 subscribers, accused Kennedy of no longer being “based.” “What on earth is going on with Bobby Kennedy,” Wheeler wrote in a post on X. “We voted for based. We didn’t vote for ‘needed MMR vaccines.’” This brewing discontent with Kennedy among the MAHA faithful is also one of the forces behind the obviously fake but increasingly popular “RFK blackmail” conspiracy theory I touched on last week. In this telling, Kennedy only stopped being “based” because someone—presumably Israel—is blackmailing him with some unspecified but damaging material.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s reluctant support for the MMR vaccine has infuriated anti-vaxxer extremists.

[hamliet]

Love your blog, Hamliet and also your take on theology. What do you think about Jezebel and Vashti? Now, as Christian myself, I've been told since childhood to not grow up to be like both queens above but become like Eshter and Ruth. But as I grew older, I started to think differenly of those two queens. I grew to like their characters and think they are more interesting than Eshter and Ruth (not that I think badly of the later, I also like them).

What do you think?

Hi! Thank you for this ask; I love talking about Biblical narrative!

To start with, I'm gonna chat about Vashti-Esther, and Jezebel, under the cut. But first I'm gonna go to bat for my girl Ruth, because she is so not the "good girl" modern Christians depict her as. Her story is so much more complex, and there's a reason a lot of modern churches ignore talking about the Jewish context.

Ruth: Brave, Bold, Thirsty

Ruth is a go-getter. Ruth didn't patiently wait like a meek girl. Ruth took her destiny into her own hands--with her mother-in-law's guidance.

See, when Ruth goes to lie down with Boaz at night and uncovers his "feet," she didn't uncover his feet. Feet is a euphemism. It is indisputably his penis.

Like, Christians rarely talk about this because they don't want to acknowledge it because it goes against their image of Ruth. But they also don't have a counter for it because it factually is Ruth, y'know, having agency.

So, Ruth is trying to seduce Boaz, because she knows he likes her. And being crafty about it, because if someone catches her there, Boaz (being an honorable man which she already knows he is), even if they haven't had sex he'll have to marry her because everyone will think they have. Genius.

And despite people trying to say Boaz and Ruth are too honorable so clearly it was just about marriage and nor her actually attempting to initiate premarital sex, the Bible expressly has another widow called honorable for initiating premarital sex that actually happens (with her father-in-law no less) specifically to ensure her survival when she would else wise have been left childless and abandoned. tl;dr: Ruth was attempting to seduce Boaz. That's the obvious meaning of this, and whoever wrote the story wasn't obsessed with getting the audiece to think otherwise.

Thematically, also, Ruth going outside of the norms of what is considered moral (via asking for sex before marriage, even if there is an understanding that sex would lead to marriage) is kind of a major tie-in with the other aspect of Ruth's story: she's a foreigner. The Law frowns on marrying foreigners for the most part. Yet, by going outside the normal parameters, they get King David and later, for Christians, Jesus himself.

Ruth left her homeland after losing her husband and stuck with her mother-in-law, knowing that doing so meant that she had no future (she would need children to provide for her in her old age; as a foreigner, she likely wouldn't be able to marry again and have kids. But she went with Naomi so that Naomi wouldn't be alone, because she could ensure Naomi had someone to take care of her at the very least, without any hope for herself).

But when she saw a chance to secure her future, she took it. And Naomi encouraged her to do so. Ruth is brave, and smart, and kind. And Boaz is also a good man who not only helped Ruth, but didn't take advantage of her desperation on the threshing room floor. He didn't have sex with her, and he forbade others from talking about her coming there. Instead he went about it the honorable and human-affirming way--marrying Ruth according to traditional cultural customs, at the city gates.

In other words, Boaz said this isn't going to be a shameful, backroom thing. He says, I'm going to make it public, because I'm proud to have you as my wife.

Honestly, healthiest couple in all of Scripture.

Others below!

Esther and Vashti: Bringing Good from Bad

Esther and Vashti I see as a story about making the best of a terrible situation. Vashti deserves no hate, and I do see Christians coming around to that as well. I mean, her husband essentially said come parade yourself naked in front of all my drunk friends. Sounds like he wanted an orgy, or at the very least public sex with her. And she said no, like she should have. King, you're gross. Vashti did nothing wrong.

But Ahasuerus is kinda portrayed like a... very passionate but not very wise person throughout the story. So not really surprising. But the point also is that while he doesn't want to acknowledge his stupidity or allow a woman to counter his authority, he does eventually not only pardon Esther when she flouts his authority by entering without permission, but comes up with a counter to his previously issued decree to slaughter the Jews. A king can't go back on his word, but he can give others power to counter it when he's wrong. Which is kind of the main theme--making the best out of a shitty situation.

Esther is then taken from everyone she's ever known and forced to become a concubine wherein most of the girls around her will be used once, probably not get pregnant, and live the rest of their lives alone and untouched in the king's harem. But Esther, like Ruth, is clever. She asks for advice from the eunuchs to endear herself to the king because she wants more than a life of luxury and loneliness. Because of her attempts to save herself from a fate that, on the surface, isn't nearly as terrible as what Ruth was facing but is still emotionally devastating, she ends in a perfect position to save all of her people from annihilation.

Jezebel (and Athaliah): A Critique of Power

Jezebel... well, she's kind of portrayed as vain and cruel. Plus she murders some people whenever they flout her authority. So she's not like, a morally awesome person.

That said, I always felt sorry for her. She also clearly wanted power and lived in a society where women had little say and little power, even as queen, which is probably why she lashes out so brutally at those who threaten her power and position--the vineyard owner, the prophets, etc.*

But instead of Jezebel being seen as a sign for how marriages to foreigners is a way of corrupting the Israelites with foreign gods, I wonder whether the story would be different if people had treated Jezebel more of as a potential Ruth, as a human being, instead of just a symbol of political power.

Because that's what she was--her marriage is a symbol of power for King Ahab and for her father. I see her corruption and cruelty as a condemnation far more of what happens when we focus on gaining political power than what happens when we marry the wrong person or whatnot. And also, like, maybe the way women were treated may have led to her desperation for power. Just maybe.

Along those lines, I also wonder if the prophets had been less condemning of her as a person and more corrective (and if her husband wasn't himself such a spineless meatbrain), if her story might have been more of an Esther's.

But patriarchy is far more interested in condemning Jezebel as a whore despite like, there being no record of that, rather than in, like, examining their own human desire for control and political power and how that can corrupt (but also! doesn't! have! to! see Esther).

*Like, Jezebel's flaw being her focus on power is very clear not just in her actions but her daughter Athaliah's--Athaliah marries the king of Judah and then massacres all his sons to take the crown for herself, with only one son, a baby, surviving thanks to a princess named Jehoshabeath, who was married to the chief priest, smuggling him out. Later on there's a coup and Joash, the son, reclaims his father's throne. Yes, the classic fantasy trope of secret son reclaiming a father's throne is partially Biblically based.

[hiswordsarekisses]

“…Not making any claims regarding the validity of the following experiment...

But I do believe faith and love are powerful and life-changing… and in any case, the rice experiment itself is not my point.

It is a beautiful picture. It illustrates the thoroughly biblical and observable truth, that we’re designed to be permeated with love through and through, to the deepest core of our being, and we can’t thrive unless we are…

Dr. Emoto placed cooked rice into three jars and treated them differently every day for a month.

To one jar of rice, he spoke words of affirmation like “thank you” or “I love you.”

To the next, he spoke negative words like “you idiot” or “I hate you.”

And with the third, he completely ignored it.

After a month, he claimed, the first jar demonstrated healthy fermentation and remained white. The second turned dark and moldy. And the neglected one began to rot.

That’s why God’s love is so thoroughly emphasized in scripture. It isn’t just an encouraging word or a promise of acceptance. It’s the driving force of the universe.

If you want to immerse yourself in the truth about love, John’s first letter is a great place to go. These nuggets will thoroughly reorient your life, if you let them:

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). This one is so foundational that John wrote it twice. We can make a lot of inferences from it, one being that if God himself is love, and if all things were created by him and for him, then living outside of love gets us out of sync with the design of all creation and the heart of the Creator. If you’re searching for a life that feels “right,” this is the starting point. Everything else flows from it.

We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). Some biblical manuscripts add “him” — we love him because he first loved us — but whichever textual source we use, the principle is the same. We can’t love until we know we are loved. We can’t give what we haven’t received. His love awakens love in us. When we know how thoroughly, deeply, extravagantly we’re loved, we find that we have a lot of love to give away — to him and to others.

Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Few people realize how much of our lives is shaped by fear. It’s the reason we desperately seek out safe relationships…

People who know how thoroughly, deeply, extravagantly they are loved have nothing to prove, drop the poses, and live freely.

These are the truths behind the scenes of our highest calling, the Great Commandment — to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then to love others as you love yourself.

Notice that there’s an implicit command here to love yourself — to let yourself be loved by God and resist the urge to disagree with him on that exceedingly vital point.

We could spend the rest of our days contemplating the implications of this.

If you want others to thrive — and if you’re filled with love, you definitely will — shower them with words of love and affirmation.

……They may instinctively resist too; it takes time for wounds to heal and trust to build. But keep soaking them in the love that’s rooted in truth and see what happens. Eventually they’ll flourish too.

Way down in my heart of hearts, Way down in my soul of souls, Way down I know that I am a fortunate girl, To have known divine love.

(From an old song by Leslie Phillips called “Heart of Hearts” - I will put it in the comments!)

Divine love, received and given, is foundational to life. And blessed are those who know it.”

(Excerpts from Chris Tiegreen)

[yourfaveisqueerandreligious]

Sorry if this sounds disrespectful or rude, but isn’t it against Muslim faith to be LGBT, I’m not Muslim or sapphic so I’m sorry if I got this wrong, it’s just a thing I’ve heard from Muslim friends, again I’m not meaning any disrespect or harm it’s just a genuine question :]

hi!! important disclosure: i am not muslim. i don't know many aspects of muslim faith or really anything about interpretations or readings of the quran. if anyone who is muslim or has a muslim background wants to provide their perspective and knowledge, i would greatly appreciate it (but by no means are you forced to).

from my very barebones understanding, the quran can be interpreted non-affirming, or affirming. while it does not have translation issues (because the quran is not translated), some believe that the words used to condemn queer people in the modern were used to mean queer people after the quran was penned. furthermore, islam encourages the diversity of creation, with some taking this to be related to sexuality and thus supportive of queer identities. a sort of "God makes no mistakes" rhetoric.

islam has many followers, and as a result, there will a diversity in views. individual life experiences and backgrounds will play a role in interpretation of the scripture that individual holds as holy, so many different muslims will have many different interpretations.

again, i am not muslim. this is not my area of expertise, and i, unfortunately, cannot be the person to give you a detailed answer. thank you for asking genuinely and i hope this can help in one way or another :)

tl;dr - no, it's not against muslim faith to be lgbtq <3

[linggluu]

nerdy ah wu

[blogger360ncislarules]

Nearly 70 years ago, Edward R. Murrow famously defined television as being much more than merely wires and lights in a box: “This instrument can teach it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire,” he said in a famous 1958 address to the Radio-Television News Directors of Association.

The spirit of Murrow’s vision for the medium was reflected in the conversation held this week at Bel Air Church, which hosted a dinner and screening event for an episode of the Amazon Prime Video series “House of David.” The Biblical-themed series revolves around the story of David and Goliath and the fall of King Saul hails from indie studio the Wonder Project and Amazon MGM Studios.

“House of David” bowed Feb. 17 on Prime Video. The show to date has garnered an audience of more than 22 million viewers, which validates Prime Video’s push to add more shows that directly touch on faith and spirituality issues. The goal is to help expand the boundaries of faith-related programs beyond the traditional stereotype that such shows are G-rated treacle. “House of David” mixes sword-and-sandal costume drama with considerable action and a large cast of supporting characters.

“It was a tremendous reminder that this is indeed something that’s important to a lot of people,” said Brooke Zaugg, executive director of the nonprofit Faith and Media Initiative that advocates for more nuanced portrayals of people of faith in TV and film.

The screening was introduced by Martyn Ford — the towering actor who plays Goliath. Wonder Project founder Jon Erwin, who is the creator, writer and director of “House of David,” greeted the crowd of a few hundred people who gathered March 24 in the church’s sanctuary. Erwin, who could not attend because he was on location shooting, explained his overarching goal with “House of David” and other properties in development at Wonder Project.

“House of David,” which runs eight episodes, is deeply rooted in Bible stories. But it is first and foremost meant to entertain a general audience, and hopefully encourage some viewers to dive deeper into Biblical texts.

“The whole point is to make an entertaining TV series — but it’s not Scripture,” Erwin told the crowd via video. “What we do is like a gigantic billboard pointing to the Bible.” The fact that such a show can reach a broad global audience via platforms such as Prime Video is significant. “It really is a profound moment in our industry,” Erwin said.

After the screening of Episode 1, the leader of Bel Air Church, the Rev. Dr. Drew Sams, gave the glory to Erwin and Co. “I think that was the best sermon that’s ever been preached in this sanctuary,” Sams said of the episode. “And I preach more in this sanctuary than anybody else.”

Pastor Chad Veach and Rabbi Steve Leder, of Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard Temple, echoed Sams’ praise of the show’s handling of the Biblical material. Lines from Scripture are used to great effect but not to the distraction of the narrative. For Veach, it’s a refeshing experience. “Because so much of Scripture has been cheapened in storytelling and becomes a caricature of the actual power of God’s word,” he said.

Traci Blackwell, head of targeted content for Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, reaffirmed that “House of David” has been embraced by a large and global audience. At a time of great disruption and division, stories that revolve around themes of morality, ethics, equality, human rights and freedoms are more vital than ever, she argued.

“I just think the culture needs this,” Blackwell told the crowd. “We need this, particularly during this time, I think people are looking for hopeful stories. I think they’re looking for stories about God in a way that they don’t feel preached to but understood and seen. And this is a really big attempt on our part to see them, so I just think it’s incredibly important that we tell these stories.”

Blackwell and other panelists agreed that engaging storytelling is key to helping an increasingly secular culture in the U.S. have greater understanding of modern spirituality and faith practices. Blackwell was unapologetic about being on a “mission” to help viewers understand the teachings of Christianity outside of the context of today’s messy partisan politics.

“I personally feel like for the last few years, our faith practice has been a bit co-opted by particularly by politics. The messaging about who God is, who Jesus is and what he stands for is getting really twisted, and messaging about him being a God of love is getting twisted,” Blackwell said. “Part of why I feel like it’s important to do these stories is to reset and remind people who God really truly is and what he’s about. And he’s a God of love, and he’s a God who loves everybody.”

To accomplish that larger goal, however, “House of David” has to connect with viewers as entertainment. It can’t be seen as homework.

“At the end of the day, we need them to do well. This is a business right here. We have to deliver results,” Blackwell said. “I’m on a whole other plane. I need to deliver results, for sure, but I am here to change lives, and I’m here to save them.”

[sapphosremains]

@imorepizzanow asked me this great question in a comment, and my answer was way too long to post there:

"I have a question!🙋‍♀️ Why do people oppose the suggestion that Jesus was queer (I personally think that He had a relationship with John the Beloved) and think it’s wrong but people are fine at the interpretation of Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s relationship and even encourage it?"

answer under the cut bc this will be fairly long :)

i think this is super interesting! i think there are a lot of nuances here to be unpacked.

tl;dr: rejecting homosexuality

firstly, i would argue that most christians disagree with the idea of a relationship between mary magdalene and Jesus. there is no scriptural evidence for this (we only have the apocryphal and gnostic gospel of philip, which is not accepted by the church in general. our other evidence is the gospel of the 'wife of jesus', but most scholars agree this is fake. if you're interested in either of these controversies, there is a wealth of academic literature on them to be found online - this is a very brief and simple overview.) what we learn from this is that the official position of 'the church' overall (i know, referring to all churches sharing an opinion is ridiculous, but bear with me! i don't want this to be too long! the individual positions of each church can be found online, but this is the general idea) is that Jesus did not marry or have a relationship with anyone. the bride of Christ is His Church.

secondly, where people believe in Jesus having relationships anyway, there's two things at play here. people can have opinions, and think He had a relationship with john and not mary, or vice versa, and that's fine. people are welcome to believe what they want and find supporting evidence for this, and i think it is easy to find evidence that can be interpreted in this way for both. at the end of the day, i don't think we can ever be truly sure how exactly Jesus 'loved' each of his disciples etc, so everyone is welcome to their own opinion. where this becomes a problem is when people are attacked for their opinions. disagreeing with the idea of Jesus in a queer relationship can come from a place of personal preference (believing in his relationship with mary, believing he wasn't in a relationship, believing he wasn't queer, all of which are completely valid personal opinions and beliefs), or from a place of homophobia, whether explicit or internalised. for the latter, we find ourselves back in the 'is homosexuality okay' argument, which i won't even begin to get into. there is so much nuance and so many different opinions here, and although i believe that homophobia is wrong, i can understand (as much as it hurts my heart) the opinions of those who think it is and their scriptural grounding, and i can understand why they wouldn't want God to be linked to what is in their eyes a sin. however, this does not justify them attacking you or anyone who believes in a relationship with john.

at the end of the day, we are all entitled to our own opinions, and we can understand that some of those come from places of intolerance, and some are unfounded. all i can say is that the best we can do as christians is pray for those who are intolerant and pray that they might find peace. i personally believe that jesus was never in a relationship, but i wouldn't see a difference between him being with john or mary. i won't try to defend this belief now as it honestly doesn't come from a place of deep research etc, just from my personal belief and what sits with me right now.

in the interest of turning the other cheek and informing oneself, i would recommend looking into the sides of opinion on homosexuality (side a, b, x, y - i did begin defining these but they're so nuanced again there's not point trying to define them in a few words). however i would warn against this if you're not in a strong place spiritually! i fell down a bit of a side x/y thing a while ago and found it super tricky. i would recommend justin lee's side a defence essay and his recommendation for the side b defence essay to start to understand these two sides.

if you don't want to look at morals of homosexuality, but you do want to think about both sides from a theology pov, there is definitely literature on whether or not mary was the wife of jesus to be found online, and although i couldn't immediately find anything on whether john was in a relationship with Jesus, there is a lot about his role as a disciple and identity all to be found on google scholar, and i'm sure other places (jstor, archive etc) too.

this was obviously more a question and response of why do people act like this, as opposed to theologically what is the grounding for both, but if anyone would like an academic theological dive into the scriptural support for either, lmk!

i hope this is somewhat clear - it's definitely a difficult topic to discuss, so please let me know if you have any questions or criticisms! open to debate and discussion as always :)

[colorful-cryptid]

Re: Patriarch Kirill supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It's bad, but it's far from the only bad thing in Orthodox history; there was a period when the Ecumenical Patriarchate was an arm of the Ottoman Empire and the most common way of becoming Patriarch of Constantinople was murdering the previous patriarch.

The bigger reason this doesn't dissuade me from being Orthodox is that, as regards Scripture (I haven't researched the testimony of Tradition about this), I see no evidence for and a significant amount of evidence against the idea that the sins of the People of God (Israel in the Old Covenant, the Church in the New Covenant) makes them cease to be the People of God. The Israelites were punished for apostatising from Yahweh, but remained the chosen nation. The Temple was still the Temple even when statues of Shamash and altars to the stars were set up there. Christ prefaced his tirade against the Pharisees with "the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you" (Matthew 23:2-3a)

Thanks for the historical perspective. When talking about the situation, my parish priest expressed optimism that the Orthodox Church will overcome such issues; that it has before and will again.

I see no evidence for and a significant amount of evidence against the idea that the sins of the People of God (Israel in the Old Covenant, the Church in the New Covenant) makes them cease to be the People of God.

Absolutely agree with you here.

As for Christ’s words in Matthew 23, I’d like to explore this more with you. I’m not sure what translation you’re using, but I’ll use the RSV as recommended by Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, and expand the passage:

Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.

I think the RSV’s “practice and observe” instead of your “do and observe” makes it clearer to me that Jesus is probably talking about the ritual aspects of the Church life, no? I could be wrong but I take it to suggest that we should still receive Tradition from Church leaders even if they are hypocrites, presumably because the value in the Divine Liturgy and the Sacraments is not tainted by clerical sin. But I’m far from a Bible expert so I can’t claim to be able to explore the nuances using scripture alone here.

I’m recalling something I’m struggling to find now, but I recall reading about an Elder teaching the importance of a good catechesis of the laity, especially so that they can correct clergy when they go astray. So there is some precedent for, in some sense, pushing back against clerical error. It doesn’t seem as though we should just blindly follow what we are told.

Especially when Patriarch Kirill is apparently pushing this nationalist “Russian World” narrative, denouncing pacifism altogether, and calling the Russian aggression a “holy war.” (I can think of few things more oxymoronic than a “holy war”) In that context, following Jesus’ words too literally and just going along with the corrupt manipulation is, it would seem to me, a great error.

It is hard for me to see Patriarch Kirill as anything other than illegitimate, and my inclination would be to disregard him altogether, rather than continue to pay him honor as seems to be his due as a Patriarch, regardless of his actions. I’m trying to wrap my head around the Orthodox understanding, as the Orthodox Church has been a great source of wisdom for me and I might like to convert, but as I said my anticlericalism remains my biggest hurdle and it’s hard not to feel protestant when I look to the evils of clergy now and historically.

Any light you can shed for me regarding this area would be greatly appreciated.

[rolkientolkien]

In view of God's sovereignty, is it correct to say that God allows bad things to happen, or that he causes bad things to happen? To disambiguate this a little, assume we are talking about a natural disaster rather than something that is the direct result of human sinfulness. When should we say that God "allowed" something, and when should we say that God "caused" something? Does God cause some disasters but merely allow others? Is "allow" merely a semantic way to place emphasis on another causative agent (Satan, man, random chance) or is God's role in disasters he "allowed" actually different than his role in disasters that he caused?

Sorry for sitting on this ask! So I would say that this falls under the secret will of God mentioned in Deuteronomy 20:20. There are just some things we will not fully understand this side of Heaven and probably in the New Heaven and Earth. That being said, Scripture makes it clear that God does ordains the beginning from the end. Isaiah 45 opens up with God saying that Cyrus, before he was even born, will be his instrument and his anointed one, and that He, YHWH, creates light and dark, calamity and peace, and that there is no one else besides Him. God's sovereignty is a mystery, all that's been revealed to us by His word is that He ordains the ends and means to bring about His purposes and yet isn't the author of sin. Smarter men than me have thought over this question (particularly the Westminster Divines, and some modern Theologians like Dr. Sproul, Dr. White etc) but I think it's best to say with Joseph, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Unduly Influenced By Celebrity Culture?

by Tony Felich

Christian people should be careful not to be too influenced by the celebrity culture of our age when being guided in some way by spiritual leaders who are not their local pastors or elders. Podcast preachers and YouTube teachers are not your pastors. Christians should commit to membership in a local congregation and eagerly sit under the preaching of that church for their primary spiritual nourishment.

It struck me as odd recently when a person I know expressed his personal devastation about a popular preacher falling into sin and being removed from his pastoral position and connected social media teaching platforms. My friend never met the well-known preacher in person, yet he acted as though he was his personal pastor who had fallen into a disqualifying sin.

Several years ago, Carl Trueman demonstrated how celebrity culture has greatly impacted evangelical Christianity in this country. He noted if you ask a person who their most influential preacher was, they would almost always list a well known “celebrity” pastor before their local church pastor(s).

Christian pastors and Christian people need to think honestly about whether this is true. Have we been unduly and unhealthily influenced by celebrity culture?

Allow me to postulate a bit…

The vast majority of those called to be Christian pastors should be satisfied with faithfully pastoring their local congregation and not seek after a wider “platform.” Pastors should know their ministry is to shepherd the flock of God “among them” (1 Pet 5:2). Shepherding includes feeding and tending. “Pastor” means shepherd. It is a hands-on, personal, localized ministry. If a pastor is doing these things in a particular local church, he won’t have much time to be online trying to influence everyone else’s flock. The idea of a pastor building his platform outside his local church seems to be a overestimation of his importance to God’s Kingdom. It’s hard to see how “He (Christ) must increase but I must decrease” (John 3:30), comports with “building my platform.” There are obviously exceptional Christian teachers, but they are much rarer than we think. For most of us local church pastors, we need to know our very limited place, put our shoulder to the plow, pray for God’s sustaining grace, eventually die and be forgotten. Faithful perseverance is our goal, not a massive “platform.”

Allow me to get to meddling…

Christian people should be careful not to be too influenced by the celebrity culture of our age when being guided in some way by spiritual leaders who are not their local pastors or elders. Podcast preachers and YouTube teachers are not your pastors. Christians should commit to membership in a local congregation and eagerly sit under the preaching of that church for their primary spiritual nourishment. It’s certainly a blessing to have so many sermons at our disposal digitally, but I sometimes wonder if such easy access has inoculated people from accountable application of biblical truth. We have a generation of hearers of the Word but not doers of the Word. Your best opportunity to live out biblical truth happens in your local church family where everyone is under the preaching of Scripture (what is true) that will include ways to live it out (what to do). Detaching a person’s feeding (preaching/teaching) ministry from their tending (personal interaction/example) ministry is a recipe for disappointment. Follow your local pastors/elders for spiritual nurture, where you can see their lives as well as hear their preaching and teaching.

In a nutshell, we will know Christianity is in a good place when its adherents cite their local church pastors/elders as their most influential preachers instead of Tweeters and Youtubers. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7).”

Dr. Tony Felich is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and serves as the Pastor of Redeemer PCA in Overland Park, Kansas.

[sambhavami]

Dushyanta & Shakuntala

Personally, this story as documented in Mahabharata is a cautionary tale against verbal-only contracts. You should always get things in writing/have neutral witnesses.

The way Dushyanta mansplains, manipulates and basically coerces Shakuntala into being intimate with him is a terrifying read. This is a testament to how women must be overly cautious even now while negotiating any deal.

The first thing Dushyanta does (after finding Shakuntala alone, and gauging exactly how long her father will be gone), is that he confirms her caste status.

Laughable, considering the glass house he has in his skeleton closet (this part is not his fault, but it sure is ironic how he uses the same regressive logic to evaluate the worth of Shakuntala, which can be used to disqualify him from his throne itself if one was feeling vile enough).

The moment that he is assured of her 'good breeding', Dushyanta starts cornering her. While his tone is sweet and polite, it's clear that he intends to fully exploit the fact that he's the local King and Shakuntala is just a law-fearing subject (a young and naive one at that).

Shakuntala however isn't completely clueless. Once it is clear that Dushyanta is in no mood to wait for her father to return (rather he wishes to finish the 'deed' as soon as possible and then run), Shakuntala exacts a promise that Dushyanta will make their future offspring the yuvaraja.

Solid plan. Only one problem, Shakuntala didn't think Dushyanta would be so brazen as to completely deny the whole encounter.

So, when she presents herself and her Sarvadamana in Allahabad, Dushyanta's words hit her like a metaphorical kick in the teeth.

Dushyanta, among other grossly misogynistic comments, calls into question the character- both Shakuntala's and her mother's. He penalizes her for her father's dodgy track record and her mother's perceived lack of morals, by invoking their names and stories to discredit both her honour and honesty.

It is then, that Shakuntala becomes a (n unnecessarily) strong heroine, standing up for both herself and her mother, all the while defending her son's right to his father's throne.

In doing so, dishing it right back to Dushyanta, she brings up the disparity in their births (it's nice to see Shakuntala being proud of her mum...even though that relationship too is a can of worms). She asserts that Dushyanta would not be doing her son a favour if he accepts him now and here, because her son is perfectly capable of taking, in due time, what is owed to him.

Just as she is about to leave, there is this shloka.

In Dr N P Bhaduri's research, he mentions that this shloka is old and unchanged in multiple scriptures. In fact, as per his understanding, it might be pre-Vedic.

Bharasva Putram Dushyanta |

Mavasangstha Shakuntalam ||

Tanchasya Dhata Garbhasya |

Satyamaha Shakuntala ||

In essence, in breaking the metaphor, I assume Dushyanta's ministers remind him of the social clout of Kanva (and that he so callously dragged one of the most powerful rajarshis' name through the mud) and by extension the damage Shakuntala can really do with (both of) her father's help in a Brahman-dominated society, and hence they advise him to give up the ruse and accept both mother and son.

In fact, that is where Bharata gets his name (the bold portion of the shloka)....Bhara (Bharasva) + Ta (Dushyanta).

After the fact obviously Dushyanta gives a very Rama-like excuse...wanted to test her piety, gods' approvals blah blah. As a headcanon, I like to believe that Shakuntala never really forgave him (because that sets a terrible precedent), and neither did Bharata.

As a moral, I would repeat, have written contracts, pre-nups+post-nups, read all the pages, call witnesses and make sure you're actually legally married. Basically, know your rights or you may end up fighting your own case in a biased court sans lawyer.