When I became a theologian.

My pastor recently asked me what led me to go to a bible college and study theology.

It strikes a lot of people as odd that I majored in biblical and theological studies… and yet never had any plans to become a pastor nor college professor. ’Cause that’s usually why people major in that area. Or it’s not, but it’s what they naturally gravitate towards next. Whereas I went right back into journalism.

Well, journalism and theology are both searches for truth, y’know.

But generally how it happened was like this: I originally majored in journalism. Then I got sidetracked by newspaper jobs. And since the whole point of journalism school was to get newspaper jobs—and I already had newspaper jobs—I ditched school for work. Till I got downsized out of a job. Then I decided to knock out that bachelor’s degree once and for all.

By this point, I realized I didn’t need a journalism degree to get a journalism job. Half my fellow employees had no such degree: They majored in other stuff, and a lot of times they used that other stuff to help ’em be better reporters. A political science major is definitely gonna write better stories about politics, as will an economics major about business trends, or an education major about schools. You certainly don’t need a journalism degree to own or start a newspaper. Since I figured I’d taken all the relevant editing, ethics, media, and law courses, I didn’t feel like taking the others. I wanted to do journalism, not study it.

My mom asked me what I’d study if it could be anything I wished; I picked God.

For that, I figured my best bet would be a college in my denomination, the Assemblies of God. I looked into their nearest school, Bethany College (later Bethany University, which closed in 2011). The biblical studies major covered everything I wanted, so I knocked out the last general ed classes I needed to complete my A.A. in journalism, then transferred in. The journalism stuff didn’t transfer—which left me some units short, to my annoyance—so I minored in biblical languages. They come in handy.

And yeah, it confused my fellow students when they found out I had no plans to get a pastoral or teaching job. ’Cause that’s why they were studying it. What, was I there for fun?

Darn right I was there for fun. I had a blast. Really annoyed my roommates, ’cause all those years writing on deadline means papers come ridiculously easy to me. Plus I have this bad habit of remembering everything I read, so I spent way less time studying than they did, and aced tests anyway. I spent my free time turning the school newspaper from a monthly to a weekly, and writing a third of it myself. And yes, I still had a social life. And got my seven hours of sleep every night.

And after graduating, went back into journalism. Teaching came later.

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Simony: Christians who wanna make a buck off you.

Simony /'s(a)ɪ.mə.ni/ n. The buying or selling of religious things which are meant to be given freely, or given only to qualified individuals.

[Simoniac /saɪ.mə'naɪ.ək/ adj., n.]

One of my bigger pet peeves are churches who forget a significant part of our job as Christians is to preach good news to the poor. Mt 11.5, Lk 4.18, 7.22 They kinda forget they even have poor among ’em. Consequently the poor find church a surprisingly expensive place to go.

Certain churches don’t want you in their Sunday services unless you’re in your “Sunday best.” I’ve actually heard a preacher justify this idea by pointing to Jesus’s story where a king throws out a guest for not wearing his wedding clothes. Mt 22.11-14 He figures Jesus is the king, and you better show up for his church in your Sunday best. Can’t afford the clothes? Try the thrift stores. Keep looking till someone finally donates a suit or dress in your size. ’Cause the people of the church won’t offer you any help, and people never think to ask; they just assume they’re not welcome there. Which ain’t far wrong.

Once you can finally dress for church, you’ll find many churches have hundreds of activities—but nearly all of them have a fee. It’s $100 to go to the men’s retreat. It’s $50 to register for the women’s conference. It’s $40 per couple for the couples’ dinner. Childcare’s an extra $5. There’s a six-week class on spiritual gifts, and the book is $18.95. There’s an out-of-town speaker, and people from the church will carpool to hear him, but gasoline and parking will be about $10, and afterward they expect to have dinner at a nice restaurant, which’ll set you back another $15.

And I haven’t even touched on simony yet. Now I shall.

There’s a growing trend in revivalist churches: They wanna open a school. Nothing wrong with that; a lot of great Christian colleges began as revivalist schools. (I graduated from one.) Now, if we’re talking a regionally accredited school, with educated faculty, transferrable units, and recognized degrees, that’d be one thing. We’re not. We’re talking about Sunday morning bible studies, now taught five days a week, and now people have to pay $1,000 or more to attend. Same variable content and quality as those conference speakers I just mentioned. I once visited such a school and sat in on such a class: It’s basic information which every church should teach every Sunday. But at this church, they have no Sunday morning classes. All their classes are behind a paywall.

Bigger churches tend to have midweek services, like on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights, to supplement the Sunday morning services, or accommodate people who couldn’t make ’em. One large church in my area put them behind a paywall too. Now they hold regular conferences: One of their pastors, or some visiting speaker, picks a topic, speaks two evenings plus Sunday morning, and the church charges $50 or more for the evening meetings. For some speakers, this (plus pushing their books) is their bread and butter. Content varies. Some of it’s actually good. Others are clearly winging it, and quote scripture out of context more often than not.

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“I’ve never heard that before.”

In bible studies, whenever certain topics came up in the passages we’re reading, my habit is to bring up the different beliefs and interpretations which different Christians have about them. You might notice I also do this on this blog. Yeah, I do it all the time. For three reasons.

1. My church is hardly the only one out there. Hardly the only denomination; hardly the only tradition. Hardly got a monopoly on the truth. Lots of other Christians have pitched their two cents on these issues. Some of their ideas are useful.
2. And some of ’em aren’t. They’re problematic. So it’s a bit of warning: At some point you’re gonna run into people who actually believe such things. (Even in your own church—what with the way Americans switch churches so often, not everybody grew up with your traditions.) You’ll wonder why the two of you seem to be talking past one another. Helps to know where they’re coming from.
3. In general, it’s not wise for Christians to develop the idea, “There’s only one way to think about this—and it’s how I think, and everyone else is wrong.” No; we’re all wrong. So these are my reminders no one Christian, myself included, has all the answers. But some of us have different parts of the whole.

Most of the folks listen. Or politely pretend to, anyway.

But in one bible study I attend, there’s a person (we’ll call her Marlies) who regularly scoffs, “I don’t know where you meet these people. I don’t know any Christians who think that way.”

She’s hardly the first person who’s told me this. I’ve met people like this ever since seminary. I used to be this person.

Marlies has been a Christian three decades. But like a lot of people, she’s chosen to exist within a handcrafted echo chamber. Back when she was a newbie, she determined generally what she will and won’t believe. She then shunned everyone who won’t believe likewise. She doesn’t really come to these bible studies to learn, but to judge: She’s trying to make sure her church isn’t quietly teaching heresy behind her back.

But because Marlies’s entire Christian life has been spent within this echo chamber, where nobody tells her anything other than what she chooses to believe, there’s a lot of Christendom she’s wholly unfamiliar with. She doesn’t know Christian history. Doesn’t know other movements. Doesn’t know other denominations. Doesn’t care: She’s never gonna read their books, listen to their podcasts, interact with their churches. They’re not Christian enough for her, so she’s gonna pretend they’re pagans and leave them be. That is, unless she’s trying to share Jesus with them… but because their beliefs don’t line up with hers enough, she’s pretty sure they only think they’re Christian.

So when I talk about different Christians, Marlies doesn’t really believe in different Christians. Can’t believe true Christians would actually hold such beliefs. Kinda wonders about me, since I seem to think these crazy people are nonetheless Christian. Hence the scoffing: “I’ve never heard such a thing before.”

After all, Marlies figures she’s the baseline for Christianity. If she’s heard of it, or agrees with it, it’s Christian. If not, it can’t be.

It’s actually how a lot of Christians practice theology. It’s just that they tend to be quieter about it. Marlies isn’t. She’ll publicly proclaim she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. And kinda take some pride in that… even though the room is occasionally full of people who grew up in churches like that, and know exactly what I’m talking about.

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Who’s the Man? That’d be us Christians.

There’s a 2005 Sprint commercial pertinent to this discussion. I attached the video… which has been on YouTube a while, so let’s see how long it continues to stick around. The dialogue:

Stickin’ it to the Man.

ASSISTANT. “Is that your new Sprint phone?”

BOSS. “Uh-huh. With Sprint’s new Fair and Flexible plans, no one can tell me what to do. I can talk when, and how I want. It’s my little way of… sticking it to the Man.”

ASSISTANT. “But… you… are the Man.”

BOSS. “I know.”

ASSISTANT. “So you’re sticking it to yourself.”

BOSS. “…Maybe.”

Sprint’s sales pitch follows.

What makes this commercial funny is the idea someone in the ruling class, underneath all his success, still has a little bit of rebellion in him, getting satisfaction from the idea of resisting someone who’s got one over him.

What also makes it funny is it’s self-delusion. In fact he’s resisting no one. Sprint wants people to have their phone and data plan. They invented the packages and sell them to anyone, whether the Man or not. Hence the ad. This guy can imagine he’s sticking it to the Man all he likes, but nobody’s harmed by the fact he can spend all day on the phone. Well, depending on what he does on that phone.

By “the Man” we usually mean someone in the ruling class who can actually get consequential stuff done, even change things for the better… but doesn’t, ’cause the status quo profits him. For that matter, the Man created the status quo to profit himself, and won’t change it until he sees profit in another direction. If fighting pollution suddenly became super profitable, we’d see a whole lot of people miraculously come to believe in climate change. (The downside is the common misbelief that when something is profitable, it’s probably a scam; it’s a view which keeps the gears of conspiracy theorists spinning.)

Here’s the issue. If this dude is the Man, but he imagines someone else is the Man, you do realize he’s not utilizing any of his power to improve anything. He figures that’s someone else’s job.

It’s a common problem we have in the United States. Because we’re a democracy, we imagine everyone’s equal. And yeah, as far as votes are concerned, we are. But as far as power’s concerned, we’re not even slightly equal. Some of us wield a great deal of power: Authority, wealth, charisma, public influence, political capital. Others wield little to none. As Stan Lee famously put it, with great power comes great responsibility. Or as Christ Jesus put it, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Lk 12.48 KJV

But those who can make positive changes, who are best equipped to do and fix and improve things, don’t. Not ’cause they really can’t, or don’t care: It’s because they believe it’s not their duty. They don’t have the power. They aren’t the Man. Someone else is.

And there’s a popular mindset among Christians where not only are we not the Man, but the Man’s busy crapping all over us.

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Christians in private, but reprobate in public.

Whenever people claim to be Christian, but it’s kinda obvious they’re following the Christian crowd instead of Jesus—or at least sucking up to the Christian crowd heavily in order to get votes—I call ’em “Christianist.”

It’s a word I learned from Andrew Sullivan, and it’s a godsend. ’Cause too many people don’t know what to call such people. Fake Christians? Cultural Christians? Christians-in-name-only? I don’t wanna call them false Christians, ’cause they may very well have an actual saving relationship with Jesus. Maybe they just suck at religion. Maybe they’re hiding their light. A lot of partisans claim our current president is a “baby Christian,” and the reason his behavior is as filled with bad fruit as a moldy mock apple pie, is because he hasn’t learned any better… but he does know Jesus. Well, “Christianist” gives him the benefit of the doubt.

But people of course assume by “Christianist” I mean you’re not Christian. So I get rebuked from time to time for using the term. How dare I state certain people aren’t Christian… just because I see no evidence of the Spirit’s fruit in these people’s lives: “You don’t know what’s in their heart.”

Well, Jesus said it’ll be obvious in their fruit, so I think we all know; it’s just when you’re partisan or biased, you don’t wanna see it.

But let’s give ’em the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know how they are in private. I only know what they do in public. In public they’re just awful.

They’re promiscuous, and sometimes proud of it. They’re unethical. They blatantly worship Mammon, and prioritize it over the needy. They’re filled with fear, hatred, and anger. They get envious, jealous, and partisan. Try to pick fights; try to cause division; try to create enemies. Y’know, stuff which indicates they’re not gonna inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.19-21 Yet I’m expected to ignore all the bright red flags because I’m “not supposed to judge.” Or I’m not supposed to forget God’s grace can save any a--hole, ’cause hey, God saved me.

Let’s not forget the “fruit” these miscreants regularly point to. Some claim they read the bible; problem is we’ve no evidence they live by what they read from the scriptures. (Being able to quote bible doesn’t count.) Or they claim they pray; problem is we’ve no evidence they ever heard God talking back. Which is a vital part of prayer, y’know. Granted, they might be cessationists who believe God doesn’t respond, or only speaks to prophets—even when their churches teach otherwise.

Or they go to church! Fr’instance many politicians claim to be Catholic. Problem is, we all know they’re hardly in lockstep with their church’s teachings. The Roman Catholic Church’s views on abortion and the death penalty are widely known: They’re prolife, and consider both acts murder. Yet political conservatives ignore their church on the death penalty, and progressives ignore their church on abortion. Politicians claim it’s ’cause they heed the public will, and won’t foist their church’s teachings upon the public. Problem is, their every action proves their church’s views aren’t theirs: They publicly, loudly, and vigorously defend the contrary view with legislation, speeches, marches, and rallies. If you claim to be a church’s member, yet publicly stand against your church’s interpretation of the fifth commandment, stands to reason you likewise ignore their other teachings.

In sum, their public actions declare for all the world to see, “I don’t give a sloppy wet crap what Jesus teaches.” It’s the passive (in some cases passive-aggressive) form of denying Christ before others. Something Jesus kinda sees as important:

Matthew 10.32-33 KWL

32 “Everyone who’ll agree with me before the people: I’ll agree with them before my heavenly Father.

33 Those who’ll refuse me before the people: I’ll refuse them before my heavenly Father.”

I can’t say with absolute certainty they belong to Jesus or not. But they really haven’t given me a lot of evidence in favor of such a relationship.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

The Johnson amendment, and preaching the wrong kingdom.

In the United States we have a Constitutional right to freedom of religion. Since tax status has been specifically used in the past to interfere with unpopular religions, the U.S. Code makes churches tax-exempt.

Yeah, here’s where the legalese comes in. (Hey, I wanna be thorough.) Most churches fall under what we call a 501(c)(3) organization, named for that specific subsection of Title 26 of the United States Code. For your convenience, here it is.

Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. 26 USC §501(c)(3)

Basically if you’re a nonprofit church, university, charity, society, or promotional group, you needn’t pay taxes. And people who give you money can deduct their donations from their taxes. Nice, huh? But here’s the catches:

• All your incoming money shouldn’t be controlled by, or benefit, one individual—like the head pastor. Your church shouldn’t be merely a promotional tool to help your pastor get speaking engagements and sell books and videos. Nor should it spend all its money enriching your pastors, but do little to no ministry.
• The church shouldn’t spend “a substantial part” of its money (and other laws define how big is “substantial”) on pushing its politics: Promoting causes or lobbying government.
• The church can’t promote a political candidate or campaign.

And of course churches aren’t permitted to break other laws. None of that “We have freedom in Christ; no government can tell us what to do” malarkey like we find in cults. Either prove the law’s unconstitutional, or follow it like a good American. (And for those of you who are paranoid about Islam: This applies to Muslims too. I know you don’t believe me; I can’t help what you refuse to believe.)

Now, why am I spelling all this out? ’Cause last Thursday during the National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump repeated his intent, which he voiced throughout his presidential campaign, to do away with the “Johnson amendment,” the part of 501(c)(3) which forbids churches from promoting candidates and campaigns. There’s currently a bill in Congress, House Resolution 6195, the “Free Speech Fairness Act,” which’ll overturn it.

The Johnson amendment is named after Lyndon Johnson—who was still a senator when he got it passed in 1954. It applies to every 501(c)(3) nonprofit; not just churches. It wasn’t controversial when it was first passed, because back in the ’50s most pastors recognized politics is a dirty business, and didn’t want to soil themselves in it.

But times have changed, and a lot of ’em nowadays roll around in politics like pigs in poo.

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I’m a self-discoverer? Not really.

You are a Self-Discoverer

You’re not religious, but you’ve created your own kind of spirituality. Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine. You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion. You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.
 What’s Your Religious Philosophy? at Blogthings 

When I first got into this blogging fad way back in 2004, I used to have a regular feature I called “Stupid Internet Surveys.” People on the internet create quizzes, y’know. It’s not just BuzzFeed; they didn’t start the trend either. But because the other early bloggers didn’t always know what to write about—much like the other folks on Facebook who have no idea what to post about themselves on a daily basis—they were sorta desperate for any junk to fill the blank spots in their blogs. Quizzes made up some of that junk. Still do.

So, take one of their quizzes and find out which Disney princess you are. Or what’s the exact age you’ll get married. Whether you can tell the superhero movie by these emojis. Which yoga pose matches your personality. How many NHL logos you can identify. Which Harry Potter character you’d be bestest friends with. Whether they can guess your age with a food quiz. Whether your parents are cool. What’s your Myers-Briggs personality type.

Like I said, stupid.

Blogthings is still around, and someone sent me their “What’s Your Religious Philosophy?” quiz… the results of which indicate I must be an eclectic pagan.

Pretty sure where I went wrong was in putting way more thought into these answers than the author of the quiz intended. Well, I do that.

Okay, I am religious. But I haven’t created my own kind of spirituality: In the course of following Jesus, I’ve fallen into the category of Pentecostalism. I try for introspective and thoughtful, but I hardly look inward for the divine: I already know he’s not me. I don’t distrust organized religion: I not only attend church regularly, but I’m actively involved in church leadership. Yeah, I believe in healthy skepticism, but disorganized religion is hardly an alternative. Nor do I dislike gurus and leaders and think ’em frauds: There are plenty of frauds out there, but most of the leaders I’ve known, have been earnest and truthful and pointed to the one leader we should follow, Christ Jesus.

So why’d the quiz get me so wrong? Well, let’s look at the questions… and my hyper-analytical answers.

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Footprints. (My version.)

You might’ve heard of the “Footprints” or “Footprints in the Sand” story, which Christians tend to be overly fond of. Don’t know who wrote it; it arose at some point in the 20th century. Usually it’s printed on a photo of a beach, and sold, framed and unframed, in Christian bookstores.

The general idea is this: The poet dreams he and Jesus have been walking through life, and during life’s rough patches Jesus carried the poet through it. Yet for some reason the poet was totally unaware of this, and accused Jesus of abandoning him, ’cause the poet’s an ungrateful, inattentive dick, and a bad Christian.

…Well okay, people never notice that aspect of the story. But anyway.

“Footprints” is popular, and so many Christians find it inspiring, you wind up seeing it way too often. I do, anyway. For a while there in the 1980s, I think it was mandatory to hang a copy of it in every church’s youth room. As soon as the internet became widely available, people were forwarding it to one another as if it were part of a chain letter which they dared not break. It’s everywhere.

My way of dealing with such things? Make fun of ’em. Write my own version of it.

Mine rhymes.

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Tattoos require commitment.

Got into a discussion with Mathilda (name changed to protect the feelin’-guilty) and I found it interesting enough to rant about. Even though my views may get me into trouble with both legalists and libertines.

Mathilda has a tattoo. I do not. Never got one. Not that I disapprove of them per se. I simply haven’t found anything I’d like to permanently decorate myself with.

I know; the older folks are gonna quote bible at me about how you’re never, ever supposed to tattoo yourself.

Leviticus 19.28 NIV

“Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.”

The word the NIV renders “tattoo” is qaháqa. In modern Hebrew it means “tattoo,” and it only appears this one time in the bible. Unless you count the apocryphal book of Jesus ben Sirach, which I don’t. (Long story as short as I can make it: Sirach was written in Hebrew, translated into Greek; the Hebrew got lost; the 11th-century rabbis translated it back into Hebrew and translated exétilen/“plucked” Si 10.15 as qaháqa; when a Hebrew copy was rediscovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls, verse 15 was missing. So all this means is the medieval rabbis didn’t think it meant “tattooed.”)

Qaháqa comes from the root quch/“cut [with a sickle],” like in harvesting. It refers to scarification: Decorating yourself with scars. Usually for religious reasons, like the pagan practice of marking yourself so the spirits of the dead might identify and protect you—which, you’ll notice, is the very context referred to in the verse.

As usual, I point this out to Christians who are anti-tattoo, and they immediately object, ’cause bias. Everyone they know, every bible translation they use, interprets qaháqa as “tattoo,” and they assume I’m just looking for a lexical loophole in Leviticus. Even though they don’t pay their employees daily, Lv 19.13 nor treat foreigners, illegal or not, the same as natives. Lv 19.34 Seems it’s more about cherry-picking beloved causes than really following the scriptures.

But if you honestly are trying to follow this command—and to be on the safe side, you’ve decided to ban any kinds of marking on yourselves, including piercings, tattoos, makeup, henna, drawing on yourself with markers, or writing quick notes on your hands; for any sort of reason, and not merely as magic symbols to attract the dead—that’s between you and God. Not between me and God. I haven’t been similarly convicted. If you wanna judge me for that, you might wanna read Romans 14 again.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Good and bad bible translations.

I realize people are gonna find the title of this article through Google or one of the other search engines, and are gonna be vastly disappointed I haven’t provided an easy-to-use chart establishing, “These translations are good and holy and inspired of God… and these translations are the product of an international conspiracy of devil-worshipers,” or some other such extreme. You want fear-ridden nutjobs, you’ve come to the wrong blog.

Nope; today’s rant is about the bible translations I wind up reading through—and getting irritated by—when I do my bible in a month thingy every January. That’s right; I don’t merely suggest you do it, and leave you with a big pile of reading material. I do it too. I pop over to Bible Gateway, pick a translation I’m not all that familiar with, and get to readin’. Sometimes I start in December, while it’s still Christmas. Sometimes later in January. Still tend to get it read within 3 to 4 weeks.

Most of the time it works out okay. I pick an unfamiliar translation, read it in its entirety, and now I can experientially tell you what it consists of… unlike some nimrod who reads a few passages and jumps to a conclusion; usually an angry one. Fr’instance a decade ago I read the Message back to front. So now, when people ask me what I think of it, I can say, “I read it,” and not just mean a book or two, or assorted chapters; I read it. And…? And I like it. It’s good. I don’t agree with all the translation choices, but I’m never gonna agree with all the translation choices. But it’s good. Feel free to use it for casual reading, devotional reading, or even in church. It’s not gonna bite.

It’s not infallible. No translation is. When you do serious bible study, do not use only one translation, the Message included, without double-checking it against many other translations. (Even when you know biblical languages: Make sure your interpretation isn’t too far afield from all the others!) But again: Casual, devotional, church, Twitter: Use it. Have fun.

Then there are the translations I don’t care for. And yeah, even if you found this article for other reasons, you’re probably gonna be curious about my take on them. You’re looking (in vain) for a perfect translation, and you wanna eliminate a few contenders. Or you’ve already convinced yourself it’s the King James Version, but you spitefully wanna know why other translations suck, just so you can bash ’em a little more. I don’t wanna enable you, but at the same time I don’t wanna encourage publishers to crank out bad bible translations. So I’ve got mixed feelings… but I’m plowing ahead anyway.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Growing up with Santa Claus.

Dad’s an atheist. This means for him, Christmas is Santa Claus. Not Jesus. Not any of our Christian junk. He doesn’t wanna hear it. He wants nothing to do with our church functions; not our live nativities, nor our church’s Christmas services. He’ll go to the city Christmas festival, but only because the churches hand out free treats. (Cookies and cider or cocoa, mainly; I keep trying to talk my own church into serving coffee. ’Cause nobody else serves coffee. We’d corner the market.) He won’t pass up a freebie, but it’s a hard pass on the free gift of eternal salvation.

Santa getting liquored up. Hammerstone Whiskey Disks

He loves Santa. Mainly the wonder on children’s faces once you get ’em to believe Santa, and Christmas magic, are real. This is the only supernatural he believes in: The fake stuff. Tricks.

Hence when I was growing up Santa Claus was a big, big deal.

Till 1978. One day I was poking round the garage looking for something. Don’t remember what. Probably paper. I wrote and drew a lot, and in order to keep me in paper, Dad stole lots. Yes, stole. He’d find a stack of flyers someplace, and whether the function had taken place or not, Dad would swipe the stack ’cause the back of the flyer was blank, so I could draw on it. So much of my childhood art is on the back of party announcements, Chinese restaurant promotions, and newsletters. And printer paper; he’d grab a bunch after the Air National Guard was done with it. I hope all the stuff on the front wasn’t classified.

Anyway Dad stashed all the paper in a cabinet in the garage, and while I was in there getting paper, I peeked in a corner of the garage and saw what I shouldn’t: Our Christmas presents. The stuff which later turned up among the presents “Santa” had brought us. The jig was up.

I played along till about 1980 or so, once my parents figured a 9-year-old was a little old to still believe in Santa. So they sat me down and, just as they’d explained how babies were made (yes, I was told that first), explained this particular fact of life to me. And they expected me to play along with their game, and not blab to my siblings.

Yes, I blabbed.

They were extra pissed about it when I told my youngest sister. She was three. She asked me a casual question about Santa, and I came right out and said, “You realize Santa’s just a story.” She hadn’t, and immediately told on me. My parents were upset. My aunts and uncles, who were there at the time, were horrified—I’d “ruined Christmas.” They were all pagans, y’see.

If Christmas is Santa, and you take away Santa, Christmas is dead.

Dad used to love Christmas, but now that his kids don’t believe in Santa—and have raised their own children to think of Santa as a fun story, not reality—he could care less. He used to preach Santa to us kids like Elmer Gantry on meth. Now that he has no grandkids to fool, Christmas is no fun anymore.

Nowadays Mom insists she had no part in Dad’s Santa madness: It was all him. It’s not the way I remember it. She made just as big a deal about how we needed to get to bed Christmas Eve, so Santa could arrive sight unseen. She’d purchased most of the “Santa” gifts. Part of me wonders if she’s not just editing her personal history a bit… but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. She did emphasize Jesus on the holidays. It’s just on Christmas night and morning, Santa got all the attention.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

The live nativity.

Evangelicals celebrate Christmas in all sorts of ways. Some of us decorate like crazy; some don’t. Some of us preach nothing but advent or birth-of-Jesus sermons; some preach as they’d usually do, and only preach a Christmas sermon on Christmas. Some of us have a special Christmas production; some don’t, or would if we could staff it (or afford it).

Two of the larger churches in my town do a “live nativity.” If you’re a newbie, or somehow never paid attention to Christendom all your life, this’d be a birth-of-Christ diorama with live humans instead of the typical lit plastic statues on the front lawn. (There’s an inflatable version now! But I digress.) Actors portray Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the magi, and in many children’s productions the animals. Although these two churches prefer actual animals. And use the same animals; in the proper spirit of Christian cooperation, their productions are on different weekends, so they don’t overlap.

From last night’s live nativity. Nope, blurring all their faces wasn’t deliberate; my phone can only do so much.

To my knowledge these churches have always used a baby to portray Jesus. It’s not all that hard to get one: Round February, start nudging all the young families in the congregation. “Come on, people! Give us a baby Jesus!” But the baby doesn’t have to be a newborn, although it kinda spoils the effect if the “newborn King” doesn’t need “Mary” to support his head.

Sometimes a baby won’t work. Outdoor performances might get so cold, Child Protective Services might wish to intervene. Or the church isn’t large enough to come up with a baby every year. Or the baby doesn’t wanna. For any number of reasons you might wind up with a doll. Or, if you’re going the special-effects route, a lightbulb. Last year it was something hidden in a bundle of blankets, rocked throughout; could’ve been a canned ham for all we knew.

I went to both productions. One’s called “A Night in Bethlehem,” which is designed to represent first-century BC Bethlehem, with shops and “smiths” and “Roman soldiers” and “lepers” and, for some reason, dancers—a string of people who’d dance through “town.” People you could interact with, who might tell you something historical if they know it. (Though speaking as an historian… well, they were close enough.) Every half hour, Jesus got “born” in a stable conveniently placed near the entrance. Born again and again and again. With “prophets” placed nearby so they could tell you, in English and Spanish, why this birth is a big deal.

The other’s a musical performance. (“Night in Bethlehem” had no singing.) They knock out six of ’em over the weekend; I attended the fifth. We, the guests, watched from bleachers. They always have a sketch which introduces the nativity story and reminds people of “the reason for the season.” They have a choir, who included “angels” on the roof of the church, singing some forgettable songs to a CD of background music. The only song they don’t switch up is Robert Sterling and Chris Machen’s white gospel song “I Have Seen the Light,” sung by the magi every year, which never fails to remind me of karaoke. The pastor preached a brief evangelistic Christmas message. Then we were invited to sing a Christmas carol medley, and were outa there before the next performance.

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Easy to shop for.

Some years ago my mother told me, “You’re hard to shop for.” Which is baloney: I’m easy to shop for. Just get me coffee. Everybody who knows me, knows I love coffee.

“Forget Jesus; think about the economy!” Pierre Bourgeault

They don’t always know I also love tea. Nor that I drink about as much tea as coffee. They assume the big giant travel mugs I carry around always contain coffee—even when there’s an obvious teabag string dangling from the lid. Even when it rattles ’cause I’ve got ice and water in it; they just assume it’s iced coffee.

The big giant mugs? Yeah. I’m an American. I like big mugs and I cannot lie. My largest holds 54 ounces—and yes, that’s about 1.5 liters of coffee. And I used to have a 96-ounce mug—yep, it held nearly three liters, a carafe and a half. But the most I ever filled it was halfway, if that. Not because I’d never drink 96 ounces of coffee, but because, despite the insulation, the coffee would be cold by the time I drank a quarter of it. I may drink a lot, but I don’t drink it that quickly. Best to go with 30 ounces at a time.

Of course, the 96-ouncer put fear into the souls of everyone who saw it. “You can’t possibly drink that much coffee,” was the usual reaction.

Sure I can. So could they. The typical coffeemaker carafe holds 64 ounces. My last office job, I’d drink two carafes a day. (One regular, one decaf.) So, nearly four liters of coffee. And I’ve known serious caffeine addicts who’d drink five carafes a day: 320 ounces, or 9.5 liters. I agree that’s a bothersome amount. Yet people think me nuts if I get two refills of black coffee at Starbucks.

Depending on who did the study, the average American coffee drinker downs 2.6 or 3.4 cups a day. The studies don’t say how big these cups are. I don’t believe they’re talking about the measuring-cup size of 8 ounces, but the average American coffee mug size of 12 to 20 ounces. (The 12-ounce size is what restaurants call a “medium” and Starbucks a “tall.” Starbucks does have an 8-ounce size—a “small”—but doesn’t bother to put it on the menu, ’cause come on, we’re Americans.) So my two refills likely fall within the average American’s coffee consumption.

But if you want nuts, people regularly buy, and drink, a 64-ounce Double Gulp from 7-Eleven. That’s two liters of soda, y’know. That’s a whole lot of corn syrup and—if you’re buying cola or Mountain Dew—a lot of caffeine. But swap the cola for coffee, and people leap to the conclusion the tremendous intake is gonna cause every blood vessel in my head to burst simultaneously, in a Scanners-level explosion which’ll shower everyone in the vicinity with blood and brain matter. Whenever they see my 54-ounce mug, they instinctively back away.

I do have to down the stuff in my 54-ounce mug quickly, though. Y’see, it’s not dishwasher-safe, but I tend to ignore those warnings and wash ’em in the dishwasher anyway. Well, the insulation swelled and began to burst out of the seam on the side, and give the cup a bit of a tilt. When it was finally about 20 degrees off, I had enough and took the mug apart, removed most of the insulation from the bottom, and put it back together. So it gets cold quicker than it used to. Works great otherwise.

Anyway, you get the idea.

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Questioning authority.

I’m a trained skeptic.

Seriously. I have degrees in both journalism and theology. In both fields, we’re taught to ask the question, “Is that really true?” Don’t swallow whole what anyone tells you. Anyone. Fact-check it.

In journalism, that’s done by finding a valid authority on the subject, and a second source to corroborate the first one. (I know; internet “journalists” seldom bother to find that second source, but they never went to journalism school, and it shows.) In theology, find a proof text, and make sure you quote it in context. One will do; more is better.

Problem is, people are very, very used to having their every statement accepted without question. So when I ask “Is that really true?”—just doing my duty as both a journalist and theologian—they take offense. What, don’t I trust them? Why not? What’s my problem?

Since I give most people the benefit of the doubt, no I actually don’t think they’re lying. (Usually.) But I know how human nature works. I know how gossip spreads. People spread stories because they’re interesting, not because they’re true. People believe stories when they confirm what they already believe, and reject ’em when they don’t. Good people can unintentionally be very, very wrong. Happens all the time. Happens to me.

Hey, humans aren’t all-knowing; they aren’t God. And some of us actually are evil. Like politicos who deliberately spread lies about their opponents. Like kids who bully their enemies. Some Christians have a political axe to grind, so their teachings are always skewed to suit their views. If I just met someone, I don’t automatically assume this is why they’re wrong: Give me time, and I’ll recognize the pattern of partisanship, overzealousness, anger, and other fleshly motives. But most folks are just honestly mistaken.

Still, that self-preservation instinct kicks in, and people are quick to attack my simple doubts as if they’re frontal assaults: “What, d’you think I’m lying to you?”

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Translating it myself. (And why that’s okay.)

During my church’s services, in between worship songs and sermon notes, sometimes I’ve put bible verses on our video screens. Not as part of the service; just as something to have on the screen in between the other stuff. Something other than a blank screen.

A few weeks ago I got asked,

SHE. “Which translation is ‘KWL’? What’s that stand for?”

ME. “Me. K.W. Leslie. I translated it.”

SHE. “Why’d you use your own translation instead of an official translation?”

ME. “What do you mean, official translations?”

SHE. “Well, like the Authorized Version. The NIV, the New King James…”

ME. “Those aren’t official translations. They were produced by publishers. The bible’s the most popular book in the world; there’s good money to be made by owning your own translation. So publishers hired scholars, and now they have their own translations. But none of them are official.”

(I should clarify: Some churches have made the KJV their official translation, and Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses have produced their own officially-approved translations. But neither our church nor denomination has an official translation.)

SHE. “Well, they were done by churches.”

ME. “They were not. They were done by publishers. Who did hire actual scholars to do the translating, so they’re not bad translations. But they weren’t done by any one church; they wanna sell bibles to every church, y’know.”

SHE. “But why do you do your own translation?”

ME. “As part of my bible study. When I’m studying a verse, I wanna really understand it, so I read it in the original, and translate it. I’m not trying to produce ‘the KWL version of the bible’; I’m just trying to understand it better. Sometimes I’ll use different words than other translations. But I’m not too far different than any of the other translations. In fact if I were too far different, it’d mean I’m doing it wrong.”

SHE. “But why use your translation instead of one of the official translations?”

ME. [letting go the fact she still insists there are official translations] “Certain words I used, which I like better than the words other translations used.”

SHE. “Well I would be nervous about that. Aren’t you changing the words of the bible to suit yourself?”

ME. “I’m trying not to do that. I’m trying to stay true to the original language, the original authors’ intent.”

SHE. “But why do you think you’ve done a better job than the official translations?”

ME. “Because sometimes I did do a better job. Certain translations bend the meaning to fit how popular Christian culture interprets the bible. The new edition of the Amplified Bible does it all the time. The New Living Translation does it a few times. The New International Version tries to hide all the bible difficulties. I tend to compare my translation with the King James Version because I’ve found that translation bends it least. But translators aren’t infallible. Everybody makes mistakes. Myself included.”

SHE. “So how can you put your translation up there like it’s authoritative?”

ME. “’Cause it’s just as ‘authoritative’ as those other translations. Which is to say, don’t take any one translation’s word for it. Compare it with other ones, just in case one of us made a mistake.”

Pretty sure I didn’t convince her, though. When you grow up thinking of certain bible translations as absolute authorities… it kinda bothers you to discover they’re not the work of extra-special anointed creatures, but ordinary women and men. Especially once you personally know any of those ordinary women and men.

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“Be careful, little eyes…”

Some years ago when I finally got round to reading the unabridged edition of The Stand (which, I remind you, is my favorite End Times novel, and not just ’cause it’s way better written than those stupid, stupid Left Behind novels), I casually mentioned to a fellow Christian (let’s call her Asha) I was doing so.

Wrong Christian to mention such things to. Asha was horrified. I think she was afraid I’d lose my salvation over it. You think I’m being facetious, but some Christians actually do believe there are such things as mortal, unpardonable sins. To Asha, Stephen King novels are apparently one of ’em.

Y’see, King is known as a horror writer. So he’ll write about evil spirits, vampires, werewolves, devilish magic creatures, and so forth. He’ll also write about non-supernatural things, like sex and violence. He’ll use the F-word, and take the Lord’s name in vain. Pagan stuff like that.

Therefore Asha insisted I was a bad Christian for exposing myself, even opening myself, to such evil influences. Why, the indwelling Holy Spirit might be so offended he’d flee my body, and devils would rush in, and I’d wind up committing all sorts of sinful atrocities. Blah blah blah, the usual clichés from people who don’t understand how temptation works.

If you’re human, you get tempted. We all do. You know how temptation works. But if you forgot, I’ll remind you.

Let’s say Stephen King wrote a novel where the main character liked to huff paint. Now, if we read the novel, we might identify with this guy in many ways: He’s good to his kids, he loves barbecue, he likes monster trucks, he likes to watch police procedurals. We might even think, “Wow, he’s a lot like me.” But that paint-huffing thing: That’s just nuts. We’d never do that. Never want to; never think to. Aren’t tempted in that direction in any way. Right?

Of course I assume you’re a typical sane human being. Maybe you are that susceptible to suggestion. And if that’s the case, why don’t you sign on to PayPal, and send $500 to my email address? Thanks a bunch.

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Things I want when I’m in a coma.

The subject came up recently. It's kind of a morbid subject, but honestly, you never know when you might wind up in a coma. I’m not expecting to go into one anytime soon; no, I’m not suffering from anything. But I know people who went from hale and hearty (or appearing so) to dead in very short periods of time. If I ever go into one, I should make my wishes nice and obvious. So I’m sticking ’em on TXAB. Somewhere, in the back of someone’s mind, they’ll remember I listed ’em here.

Here ya go. If I’m ever in a coma, this is what I want.

KEEP ME PLUGGED IN. Keep the feeding tubes going. Keep the oxygen flowing. I wanna live, dangit.

If I ever change my mind on that, I’ll stop trying so hard to live, and just die. So if I’m alive, assume I wanna be alive. Keep me alive. Don’t disconnect the food and air; that’s a nasty way to go.

I’ll make an exception if I’m brain dead. Then, obviously, I’m dead. Keeping my body alive, other than to harvest organs, means you’re struggling to let go, or hoping some miracle will bring me back to life—and y’know, you don’t have to wait for some miracle. I’m totally fine with being dead. I’ll be with Jesus; I’ll come back when he does. Relax.

Otherwise keep me plugged in.

KEEP THE MORPHINE COMING. This only goes for if I’m in pain. The times I’ve been prescription-strength stoned, I didn’t enjoy it. So if I’m not in pain, don’t dope me up. But if I’m in pain, or likely in pain, I’d rather be loopy than hurting, so go right ahead and load me up. I’m in a coma; it’s not like I’ll be operating heavy machinery anytime soon.

Speaking of pain: No poking, slapping, or otherwise abusing me in the hopes of getting a response. I won’t appreciate it.

IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME, that’s fine. Feel free.

Talk as normally as you can. I’ve watched people talk to the sick, elderly, and non-responsive as if they’re babies. I don’t understand that; I think it’s condescending and a little bit insane; don’t do it. Don’t get weird on me.

Don’t just take advantage of the fact I’m non-responsive. Don’t try to answer or speak on my behalf, or presume what my responses might be. You should know me well enough to know I won’t always give predictable answers. (Often on purpose.) If I have to listen to a schizophrenic conversation between you and your parody of me, I’m not gonna enjoy it. Would you?

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Bad candidates, Big Pictures, and false prophets.

I live in California. My state is two-thirds Democratic. Only liberal Republicans get elected to statewide offices anymore. Otherwise we elect Democrats, same as we have in the last six presidential contests. Barring some freak occurrence, we’re electing a Democrat to the Senate this year, and all our 55 electoral votes are going to the Democratic nominee for president.

So it’s out of my hands. Doesn’t matter whether I vote with the Democratic supermajority or against it.

I suppose I can concentrate on the other elections—which stand more of a chance of affecting my daily life. Got a city council race. A congressional race. State propositions.

But I keep coming back to the presidential race. Mainly because the candidates are so galling. The “third party” candidates are barely worth mentioning: One is greatly uninformed (and probably useless every day after 4:20 p.m.); one has demonstrated she’s more interested in being right than in making deals and bringing people to consensus, which is half the president’s job.

As for the institutional parties: The Democrat is largely competent, though I disagree with her in many areas. But she has a significant character defect: She’s willing to make serious ethical lapses, and justify them to herself because her intentions or goals were good. Let’s also not forget the level of grace ambitious people will automatically grant themselves—even though they’ll seldom grant it to others.

In any other election year, I’d easily lean towards her opponent. But it’s not just any other election year. She has great flaws, but her Republican opponent is vastly worse.

I likewise disagree with him in many areas. Particularly his xenophobia, his lack of knowledge of international issues, his tactless forms of diplomacy (and how he dropped his bluster during a trip to Mexico, demonstrating how he can’t be consistent in that either), his opportunistic switch to the prolife movement so as to appease Evangelicals, and his unproven economic and military beliefs. That’s in the areas where he’s expressed a coherent opinion. In most other situations his opinion is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

I mentioned the Democratic candidate’s ethical lapses. The Republican candidate has the very same problem. But there’s more. Time and again he expresses little to no respect for the value of others; women in particular. Disagree with him, or challenge him in any way, and he responds with ridiculous insults, holds the grudge far longer than reasonable, and fires you if he can. If he doesn’t know, he lies; if he does know, he exaggerates; if he has to admit he’s wrong, he pretends he was never wrong to begin with. He makes foolish statements on a whim, holds no counsel with anyone but toadies, takes no thought no care to the international fallout.

He’s a manchild. His immature character renders him wholly unfit for any leadership position.

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Doesn’t matter how “prolife” the president is.

I’m prolife. By which I mean I’m anti-death.

I know: Most of the time when Evangelical Christians call ourselves prolife, we really mean anti-abortion. We’re against that kind of death. All the other kinds?…

Well, some of us are against the other kinds of death. The rest of us only care about preventing abortion. To them, the unborn baby is the epitome of innocence, and totally undeserving of death. The rest of humanity: Meh, they’ve sinned already. Screw ’em.

In case you’re not clear what I mean by “the other kinds of death,” let me spell out a few of them.

• Death due to criminal or terrorist activity.
• Death due to domestic violence or child neglect.
• Death due to inadequate healthcare.
• Death due to inadequate gun laws.
• Death due to inadequate prison supervision.
• Death due to unnecessary, unjust war.
• Death due to unnecessary, unjust police shootings.
• Death due to inconsistent implementation of the death penalty.

Christ Jesus came into the world to defeat sin and death. Problem is, your typical “prolife” individual only frets about one form of death. But has no problem with implementing death of all other sorts, for every other form of sin. Not only that, they’re annoyed when we don’t implement it. All murderers should be executed, they insist, instead of clogging our prisons. All terrorists should be shot. Forget humane forms of execution; draw and quarter them!

For that matter, they’ve no problem with death being the unfortunate side effect their other beliefs. They want unlimited access to guns, and lose their tiny minds over a 5-day background check, yet bellyache against unrestricted access to abortion because it’s “too convenient.” They want free-market capitalism to dictate how healthcare runs—even if it means the sick can’t afford healthcare, and die—but rage when the free market decides abortion services oughta be made available. But I digress.

No, I’m not saying we need to abolish the death penalty, ban guns, never go to war, or nationalize healthcare. I wouldn’t mind way more responsible legislation regarding all these things. Stating, “The system has problems, so let’s be rid of the system,” is stupid. Doesn’t matter whether a liberal or libertarian says it.

But as we’re waiting for Jesus to return and overhaul our system top to bottom, let’s be good and faithful servants. Let’s do what we can to make it work as best we can. Let’s fight sin, and also fight death.

Reducing “prolife” to only being against one type of life, is also stupid. But let’s be blunt: It’s stupid because in its current form, it’s not actually a Christian movement. It’s political.

The prolife movement in the United states exists for the sake of winning the absolute loyalty of prolifers to the Republican Party. That is, so long that the party claims to be prolife. Claims is the vital word; in practice the Republicans do jack squat to reduce or prevent abortion. If they were serious, they’d’ve been successful. They’ve had the authority, the ability, and the mandate of their base. For eight years (from 2001 to ’09) they had control of the White House, and majority control of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the statehouses. Eight whole years. Changed nothing.

Seriously. Substantively. Nothing.

Well, they did in that time finally get me to stop putting my faith in Republicans. I already distrusted the Democrats and third parties, so now I’ve been disabused of any naïve beliefs that any one party is any sort of savior. (Currently I’m registered as a Democrat, but only for pragmatic reasons. And yes, there are such political animals as prolife Democrats. Lots of ’em, actually. And unlike Republicans, you know they’re really prolife… ’cause they’ve very little to gain within their party for taking up that cause.)

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Is it worth our time for me to be the advice guy?

Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. Not as a regular advice column; that’s not what I do.

I don’t know how I turned into the advice guy. It just sorta happened. Years ago I was contributing to a couple different websites, and I had my own personal blog, and out of the blue strangers started asking me religion questions. Guess I sounded knowledgeable to them, so they figured they’d test my knowledge.

So what’s the best bible translation? Or what do I know about a particular Christian denomination? Or what have I heard about this or that book?—this or that preacher?—this or that theological idea? Am I Arminian or Calvinist, and why? Pretrib or posttrib, and why?

It’s not a new experience for me. I got questions like this from my students in Sunday school classes or Christian school. Or from newbies in my church who found out I knew stuff, and consider me less intimidating than our pastor. (Intimidating for no reason, I should add; he’s a very friendly guy.) I joke all the time, “I learned all this stuff so you don’t have to. If you’ve got questions, go ahead and pick my brain. That’s why God gave it to me.” So they do.

But writing stuff for the internet means now I also get email and direct messages from friends and strangers, also wanting to pick my brain. I don’t even have to solicit it. It just comes.

Since I’m always coming up with topics for TXAB, I’ll take some of my answers and turn ’em into full-blown articles. Lots of TXAB’s posts are the result of someone asking me, “What do you know about [subject]?” I even used to have a regular question-and-answer feature. (On my personal blog, back when I had one, I called it “Questions and Rants.”)

Only problem with having a Q&A feature: Certain other people take it upon themselves to rebuke my answers and offer their own. They do it in the comments section. Sometimes actually try to get ahold of the person who emailed me the question, and try to respond to them directly. It’s not a matter of people correcting me ’cause they disagree with me. It’s people who object to me offering any answers. They wanna be the advice guys. Not me.

There’s a paranoid belief you’ll frequently find among dark Christians. It’s that if any Christian teaches any error, it‘s intentional, and they’re knowingly working for Satan. That’s what I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with: People who think they’re “liberating” my questioners before they fall under my spell and believe every single thing I teach, and are thus led astray. Even though I regularly make a point of teaching I’m hardly infallible.

So they keep trying to hijack my advice. I used to think this was just a bizarre form of jealousy. I told ’em: Create your own blog, wait for people to come to you, and answer their questions. Since their unsolicited advice is often impatient and jerkish, I can certainly see why nobody goes to them for advice. But their misbehavior quickly became tiresome, so I banned ’em. They adopt new usernames and try again, and I ban ’em again. After I switched to the Disqus comment system, I’ve been blacklisting ’em as soon as they pop up again, and so far so good.

Now it’s fine if you don’t agree with something I write. I can be wrong, y’know. When I am, I honestly do appreciate the constructive criticism. Not so much when the criticism is more hostile than constructive, but still.

I never bothered to create a Q&A feature for TXAB. I usually give the answer and don’t post the question. Some people are really anxious about my posting their questions (and certainly their names) anyway. Fine; I’m not out to embarrass anyone. Well, not out to embarrass most people. Some of you could use a little embarrassment. Namely these wannabe advice guys.

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