A Few Bits I’ve Run Across This Week

Cohesive only in that each is about people. Enjoy as you will.

The stranger in the mirror: how will a hotter earth change humanity?

Two apes sitting on a branch of a tree in a forest.

Mesopithecus pentelicus thrived in the rainforests of the late Miocene, 7 million years ago. Credit: Mauricio Antón

Small, slender and short-lived, with broad noses, big, dark-adapted eyes, living underground, and in the shadows of a shattered, steamy, chaotic world. Richard Musgrove asks: will this be us in 10,000 years?

Climate change is the greatest challenge in human history – current trends could have us eventually approaching extremes not seen on our planet for 15 million years. Will a destabilised global climate wreak economic havoc, leading to societal collapse, mass mortalities, even extinction? Or will we pull ourselves out of this spectacular self-imposed nose-dive?

Which raises the question – what if we don’t? How will humanity change on a much hotter Earth?

Numbers matter

Uncharted territory approaches as we nudge the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, on track for a potentially catastrophic 2.7°C by 2100. What about 2200, or 3200?

Globally, days above 50°C have doubled since the 1980s – in Australia, Pakistan, India and the Persian Gulf – with the ‘feels-like’ temperature often higher. Even immediately reduced carbon emissions will still mean lingering planet-wide heating and associated effects for many thousands of years.

Our adaptability has led us this far, but what does evolution have in store for our species if we don’t rise to face our greatest challenge? The answer is unlikely to be in the mirror.

Nothing sweats like us (snip-MORE)

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Medicaid ‘gamers’ are the new ‘welfare queens’ by Aaron Rupar

Republicans are taking strawman arguments to absurd extremes. Read on Substack

Earlier this month, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a grotesque budget bill that (partially) funds massive tax breaks for the wealthy and a ramped-up ICE goon squad by cutting cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and an additional $185 billion from federal food assistance programs, all while adding $2.8 trillion to the deficit.

Not surprisingly, the bill is massively unpopular. As a result, Republicans are gaslighting Americans about its impact, particularly regarding the cuts to Medicaid, which are expected to cost 10 million Americans their health coverage.

The Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 extra deaths per year, researchers say. Republicans have tried to distract from that reality with a combination of blatant lies and misdirecting rhetoric. To hear them tell it, they’re only cutting supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. So when you lose benefits, they’re here to explain why it’s probably your own damn fault.

The lazy gamer myth

Republican messaging surrounding Medicaid cuts borrows heavily from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. (snip- MORE)

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Living Faith Women and Girls

What Does the Bible Say About Gender?

By Heather Brady

The Bible has a lot to say about gender.

Of course, there are innumerable instances when the Bible has historically been used to enforce the idea that gender is a divinely ordained binary, with male and female genders that are distinct, complementary, and assigned at birth.

But by going back to the original languages of the Bible and examining modern translations more closely a much more complex spectrum of biblical gender is revealed. At some rabbinical colleges, scholars have identified as many as eight genders represented in the original Hebrew.

Indeed, the Bible’s general attitude toward gender is expansive, with verses exploring God’s focus on the interior over the exterior, the distinction between sex and gender, the role of eunuchs in scripture, and more.

Here are 10 Bible verses that show a biblical approach to gender that is as varied as the colors in a rainbow.

Genesis 1:27
So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Day and night. Water and dry land. Male and female. The creation poem might sound like it’s dealing in binaries, but we know that all of these things have transitional elements. Day and night contain transitions at dawn and dusk; the spectrum of water and dry land includes tidal plains and coral reefs; and people who are intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, and more can be found between “male and female”.

Genesis 25:27
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.

Jacob is described as “smooth” (Genesis 27:11) and stays in the tent where he cooks – traditional female attributes in the ancient world. Yet he is chosen over his “hairy” brother Esau, a skilled hunter, to lead God’s people, showing that God does not place value on traditional gender norms.

Isaiah 56:4-5
For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Eunuchs were men who had been castrated, especially those employed to guard the women’s living areas. They represent clear historical examples outside of the gender binary in the Bible and are welcomed into the temple and to the community of worship.

Matthew 19:11-12
But [Jesus] said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

The disciples ask Jesus to clarify the explanation of gender in Genesis 1 as it relates to divorce. In answering them, Jesus offers this non-judgmental example of eunuchs that invokes a range of genders. This indicates the law should be flexible enough to allow for this range, instead of being too narrow to recognize its existence.

Galatians 3:27-28
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

The apostle Paul explains that unity in Christ is what’s important, superseding the concept of gender and other identity markers.

Mark 11:17
[Jesus] was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

In this verse, Jesus is referencing Isaiah 56, when eunuchs are welcomed into the community at temple. He prioritizes welcoming all people, regardless of gender.

Acts 8:38-39
He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.

The baptismal inclusion by Philip of the Ethiopian eunuch in the early church echoes the affirmation of eunuchs who are welcomed to the temple in Isaiah 56. “In neither case [both in Isaiah and Acts] is change required of them before they can join the community in worship,” writes Robyn J. Whitaker for The Conversation.

1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

When the prophet Samuel was charged by God to look for a new king, David didn’t seem as king-like as the other options presented to Samuel — but he was still the right choice. Once again, we see that God does not share the human preoccupation with external biological features. Our physical bodies do not determine deeper matters of our identity.

Romans 2:29
Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

As with the example of God choosing David because of what was in his heart, here the Bible says that physical alteration (like being circumcised) isn’t what matters to God — it’s what’s in the heart.

Genesis 16:13
So [Hagar] named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”

Hagar changes the name she uses for God, reflecting a change in how she recognizes who God is — not a change in God’s own identity, but an uncovering that leads to a fuller understanding and affirmation of God’s identity. Similarly, someone may choose to change the gender (and the name that goes with it) that they identify with as a reflection of a greater understanding and affirmation of who they are, out of a desire that the world may better know and understand them, too.

Heather Brady Heather Brady is the audience engagement manager at Sojourners.

Bruce Gerencser Brings Us Alan Cumming!

I’m a huge admirer of Alan Cumming the human, as well as the talented star.

Sacrilegious Humor: Alan Cumming on Jesus, Kindness, and Trans People

Bruce Gerencser July 22, 2025 Evangelicalism

This is the latest installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s video is of Alan Cumming guest hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Transcript:

Jesus Christ.

And talking of Jesus . . .

Even as an atheist, I’m a big fan of Jesus. I really am. What’s not to like? A tall, gorgeous man with great abs and flowing hair getting his feet washed by prostitutes. And encouraging people to love their neighbors while slaying in a loose kaftan. And Jesus was an immigrant, by the way. Let’s not forget . . .

Jesus would have loved trans people. He changed water into wine; is that not itself an act of transition? And you know how I know Jesus would love trans people? Because he loved people. He loved all people. So, of course, he would love trans people and all queer people. I mean, Jesus was followed around at all times by 12 single hot guys, all of them also sporting kaftans. You do the math. Jesus loved the gays, America. Deal with it.

The only thing our current president has in common with Jesus is that they both owe their career to their dads.

Seriously, just think to imagine what it must feel like to be trans person in America today. Our government has legislated that trans people do not exist. It is trying to erase them completely. Imagine having to stockpile your essential lifesaving medicine because your president might cut off access to it for no other reason than it makes him look strong to his base. If the government is going to declare a whole group of people shouldn’t exist, why can’t it be truly a dangerous group of people like those who take off their socks and shoes on airplanes and then go into the bathroom? Why can’t it be people who use leaf blowers at unearthly hours in the morning? Why can’t it be unkind people? Which brings us back to Jesus. Yes, of course. Jesus just wants all of us to be kind. So, for once, America, I beg you, let’s all really try to give kindness a go. Like my little mom says, “It doesn’t cost anything to be kind.” And I guarantee you any situation you find yourself in will go better with a little kindness.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. (snip)

An Interview With One of My Favorite Legislators

Carol Moseley Braun, first black female senator: ’Sexism is harder to change than racism’

David Smith in Washington

Trailblazing Illinois Democrat reflects on political career and says party is ‘in a daze’ about how to combat Trump

Carol Moseley Braun speaks after Rahm Emanuel wins Chicago’s mayoral race in February 2011. Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP

“Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton … ”

Carol Moseley Braun was riding a lift in the US Capitol building when she heard Dixie, the unofficial anthem of the slave-owning Confederacy during the civil war. “The sound was not very loud, yet it pierced my ears with the intensity of a dog whistle,” Moseley Braun writes in her new memoir, Trailblazer. “Indeed, that is what it was in a sense.”

The first African American woman in the Senate soon realised that “Dixie” was being sung by Jesse Helms, a Republican senator from North Carolina. He looked over his spectacles at Moseley Braun and grinned. Then he told a fellow senator in the lift: “I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries.”

But clearly, Moseley Braun notes, the senator had never tangled with a Black woman raised on the south side of Chicago. She told him calmly: “Senator Helms, your singing would make me cry even if you sang Rock of Ages.”

Moseley Braun was the sole African American in the Senate during her tenure between 1993 and 1999, taking on legislative initiatives that included advocating for farmers, civil rights and domestic violence survivors, and went on to run for president and serve as US ambassador to New Zealand.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian from her home in Chicago, she recalls her history-making spell in office, argues that sexism is tougher to crack than racism and warns that the Democratic party is “walking around in a daze” as it struggles to combat Donald Trump.

As for that incident with Helms, she looks back now and says: “I had been accustomed to what we now call microaggressions, so I just thought he was being a jerk.”

Moseley Braun was born in the late 1940s in the post-war baby boom. Her birth certificate listed her as “white” due to her mother’s light complexion and the hospital’s racial segregation, a detail she later officially corrected. She survived domestic abuse from her father, who could be “a loving advocate one minute, and an absolute monster the next”, and has been guided by her religious faith.

In 1966, at the age of 19, she joined a civil rights protest led by Martin Luther King. She recalls by phone: “He was a powerful personality. You felt drawn into him because of who he was. I had no idea he was being made into a modern saint but I was happy to be there and be supportive.

“When it got violent, they put the women and children close to Dr King in concentric circles and so I was close enough to touch him. I had no idea at the time it was going to be an extraordinary point in my life but it really was.”

Moseley Braun was the first in her family to graduate from college and one of few women and Black students in her law school class, where she met her future husband. In the 1970s she won a longshot election to the Illinois general assembly and became the first African American woman to serve as its assistant majority leader.

But when she planned a historic run for the Senate, Moseley Braun met widespread scepticism. “Have you lost all your mind? Why are you doing this? But it made sense to me at the time and I followed my guiding light. You do things that seem like the right thing to do and, if it make sense to you, you go for it.”

Moseley Braun’s campaign team included a young political consultant called David Axelrod, who would go on to be a chief strategist and senior adviser to Obama. She came from behind to win the Democratic primary, rattling the party establishment, then beat Republican Richard Williamson in the general election.

She was the first Black woman elected to the Senate and only the fourth Black senator in history. When Moseley Braun arrived for her first day at work in January 1993, there was a brutal reminder of how far the US still had to travel: a uniformed guard outside the US Capitol told her, “Ma’am, you can’t go any further,” and gestured towards a side-entrance for visitors.

At the time she did not feel that her trailblazing status conferred a special responsibility, however. “I wish I had. I didn’t. I was going to work. I was going to do what I do and then show up to vote on things and be part of the legislative process. I had been a legislator for a decade before in the state legislature so I didn’t at the time see it as being all that different from what I’d been doing before. I was looking forward to it and it turned out to be all that I expected and more.”

Woman looks at television — *Carol Moseley-Braun watches the delayed launch of the space shuttle Discovery in Chicago in October 1998. Photograph: Michael S Green/AP*

But it was not to last. Moseley Braun served only one term before being defeated by Peter Fitzgerald, a young Republican who was heir to a family banking fortune and an arch conservative on issues such as abortion rights. But that did not deter her from running in the Democratic primary election for president in 2004.

“It was terrible,” she recalls. “I couldn’t raise the money to begin with and so I was staying on people’s couches and in airports. It was a hard campaign and the fact it was so physically demanding was a function of the fact that I didn’t have the campaign organisation or the money to do a proper campaign for president.

“I was being derided by any commentator who was like, ‘Look, this girl has lost her mind,’ and so they kind of rolled me off and that made it hard to raise money, hard to get the acceptance in the political class. But I got past that. My ego was not so fragile that that it hurt my feelings to make me stop. I kept plugging away.”

Eventually Moseley Braun dropped out and endorsed Howard Dean four days before the opening contest, the Iowa caucuses. Again, she had been the only Black woman in the field, challenging long-held assumptions of what a commander-in-chief might look like.

“That had been part and parcel of my entire political career. People saying: ‘What are you doing here? Why are you here? Don’t run, you can’t possibly win because you’re not part of the show and the ways won’t open for you because you’re Black and because you’re a woman.’ I ran into that every step of the way in my political career.”

Since then, four Black women have followed in her footsteps to the Senate: Kamala Harris and Laphonza Butler of California, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware.

Moseley Braun says: “I was happy of that because I was determined not to be the last of the Black women in the Senate. The first but not the last. That was a good thing, and so far the progress has been moving forward. But then we got Donald Trump and that trumped everything.”

Harris left the Senate to become the first woman of colour to serve as vice-president, then stepped in as Democrats’ presidential nominee after Joe Biden abandoned his bid for re-election.

Moseley Braun comments: “I thought she did as good a job as she could have. I supported her as much as I knew how to do and I’m sorry she got treated so badly and she lost like she did. You had a lot of sub rosa discussions of race and gender that she should have been prepared for but she wasn’t.”

Trump exploited the “manosphere” of podcasters and influencers and won 55% of men in 2024, up from 50% of men in 2020, according to Pew Research. Moseley Braun believes that, while the country has made strides on race, including the election of Obama as its first Black president in 2008, it still lags on gender.

“I got into trouble for saying this but it’s true: sexism is a harder thing to change than racism. I had travelled fairly extensively and most of the world is accustomed to brown people being in positions of power. But not here in the United States. We haven’t gotten there yet and so that’s something we’ve got to keep working on.”

Does she expect to see a female president in her lifetime? “I certainly hope so. I told my little grandniece that she could be president if she wanted to. She looked at me like I lost my mind. ‘But Auntie Carol, all the presidents are boys.’”

Still, Trump has not been slow to weaponise race over the past decade, launching his foray into politics with a mix of false conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace and promises to build a border wall and drive out criminal illegal immigrants.

Moseley Braun recalls: “It was racial, cultural, ethnic, et cetera, backlash. He made a big deal out of the immigration issue, which was racism itself and people are still being mistreated on that score.

“They’ve been arresting people for no good reason, just because they look Hispanic. The sad thing about it is that they get to pick and choose who they want to mess with and then they do. It’s too destructive of people’s lives in very negative ways.”

Yet her fellow Democrats have still not found an effective way to counter Trump, she argues. “The Democratic party doesn’t know what to do. It’s walking around in a daze. The sad thing about it is that we do need a more focused and more specific response to lawlessness.”

Five years after the police murder of George Floyd and death of Congressman John Lewis, there are fears that many of the gains of the civil rights movement are being reversed.

Over the past six months Trump has issued executive orders that aim to restrict or eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. He baselessly blamed DEI for undermining air safety after an army helicopter pilot was involved in a deadly midair collision with a commercial airliner. Meanwhile, Washington DC dismantled Black Lives Matter Plaza in response to pressure from Republicans in Congress.

None of it surprises Moseley Braun. “It should have been expected. He basically ran on a platform of: ‘I’m going to be take it back to the 1800s. Enough of this pandering and coddling of Black people.’”

But she has seen enough to take the long view of history. “This is normal. The pendulum swings both ways. We have to put up with that fact and recognise that this is the normal reaction to the progress we’ve made. There’s bound to be some backsliding.

More than 30 years have passed since Moseley Braun, wearing a peach business suit and clutching her Bible, was sworn into the Senate by the vice-president, Dan Quayle. Despite what can seem like baby steps forward and giant leaps back, she has faith that Americans will resist authoritarianism.

“I’m very optimistic, because people value democracy,” he says. “If they get back to the values undergirding our democracy, we’ll be fine. I hope that people don’t lose heart and don’t get so discouraged with what this guy’s doing.

“If they haven’t gotten there already, the people in the heartland will soon recognise this is a blatant power grab that’s all about him and making a fortune for himself and his family and has nothing to do with the common good. That’s what public life is supposed to be about. It’s public service.”