Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 5

In the time of King David, the Bible says that the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

Heads up: in light of today’s Supreme Court deci­sion I’ll like­ly include some arti­cles about mar­riage and same-sex rela­tion­ships in next Fri­day’s update. If you see any­thing you find help­ful, please send it my way.

1. From the ongo­ing reflec­tions on Charleston depart­ment: Per­se­cu­tion and the Black Church (Ross Douthat, NY Times) — Douthat is a NY Times colum­nist who con­sis­tent­ly talks about issues of faith (he is a devout Catholic).
2. These next two arti­cle­sare linked in that they are about peo­ple dri­ven by their Chris­t­ian faith. One is an out­spo­ken lib­er­al and the oth­er an out­spo­ken con­ser­v­a­tive. If you only have time to read about one, read about the one you prob­a­bly dis­agree with.
   • From the pos­si­ble Chris­t­ian role mod­el (lib­er­al) depart­ment: Kirsten Pow­ers is an antiabor­tion, anti­war evan­gel­i­cal lib­er­al who works for Fox News. Got a prob­lem with that? (Kris­sah Thomp­son, Wash­ing­ton Post): If you don’t know who Kirsten Pow­ers is, you should read about her con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty.
   • From the pos­si­ble Chris­t­ian role mod­el (con­ser­v­a­tive) depart­ment: Prison Revolt (Bill Keller, The New York­er): It’s always a pleas­ant sur­prise when an arti­cle in The New York­er quotes Scrip­ture.
3. From the back­sto­ry depart­ment: Pales­tin­ian BDS Move­ment: Get­ting a Han­dle on a Com­pli­cat­ed Sto­ry Ahead of Dead­line (Ira Rifkin,GetReligion): this is an arti­cle for jour­nal­ists help­ing them pre­pare for cov­er­age of the Boy­cott, Divest­ment, and Sanc­tions move­ment as it comes to the aware­ness of the Amer­i­can pub­lic (it hit Stan­ford last year, as you no doubt recall).
   • Inci­den­tal­ly, it’s real­ly hard to get a good under­stand­ing of this or of most top­ics relat­ed to Israel, espe­cial­ly as it con­nects to Pales­tine. For an eye-open­ing (and dis­may­ing) expe­ri­ence, read What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel (Mat­tie Fried­man, The Atlantic).
4. From the Chi Alpha world­wide depart­ment: Geor­gia Cou­ple Defend Their Love After Bou­quet Self­ie Gets Neg­a­tive Com­ments: Our Rela­tion­ship ‘Is Not About Looks’ (Caitlin Keat­ing, Peo­ple): I include this only because it is about two Chi Alpha stu­dent lead­ers at Colum­bus State Uni­ver­si­ty, which I know because I know their cam­pus pas­tor. On a relat­ed note — if you are ever in the news please feel free to wear your Chi Alpha t‑shirt.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and we are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read wide­ly (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and in part because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand”) and may at times share arti­cles that have a strong par­ti­san bias sim­ply because I find the arti­cle stim­u­lat­ing. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with every­thing an author says in an arti­cle I men­tion, much less things the author has said in oth­er arti­cles.