We were listening to Christmas carols today and they reminded me disturbingly that the Christ child was a baby boy, not a girl, destined to grow up to be a man, not a woman.

All my life I have marveled that no amount of absurdity in religious doctrine seems to dent people’s faith. But listening to these carols, for the first time, I had a glimmering of what might finally bring Christianity down. Cathedrals of nonsense and impossibility? — no problem. Traditional sex roles? This is a problem.

[20 December 2018]