Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 6

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.

1. From the sex­u­al­i­ty depart­ment: in light of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion to rede­fine mar­riage to include same-sex cou­ples I’ve got some sug­gest­ed read­ings.
   • Think­ing as a Chris­t­ian:
     1. Don’t Hate (Adam4d — a web­com­ic). This one comes through the rec­om­men­da­tion of a stu­dent.
     2. Hop­ing For Love (Wes­ley Hill, a celi­bate gay Chris­t­ian). Hill has also writ­ten a short and help­ful book called Washed and Wait­ing. If you expe­ri­ence same-sex attrac­tion, I high­ly rec­om­mend Hill’s book to you.
     3. Same Sex Mar­riage and the Tyran­ny of the Chris­t­ian Major­i­ty (Seth Vil­le­gas, Thoughts From The Whale): Seth is an alum­nus of our min­istry who is cur­rent­ly study­ing at Fuller The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary.
     4. So-Called Same-Sex Mar­riage (John Piper, a pas­tor).
     5. How I Wish The Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty Debate Would Go (Trevin Wax, The Gospel Coali­tion): if you find your­self hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions with your friends about this, the arti­cle will be help­ful as long as you remem­ber how much messier con­ver­sa­tions are in real life.
     6. You may come across arti­cles claim­ing that the Bible does not con­sid­er same-sex erot­ic rela­tion­ships sin­ful. After study­ing this issue, I am con­vinced such revi­sion­ist claims are not ten­able. The most thor­ough book I have read on the sub­ject is The Bible and Homo­sex­u­al Prac­tice by Robert Gagnon. For a much short­er (and online) option, read Homo­sex­u­al­i­ty: Speak­ing The Truth In Love by Mar­di Keyes.
   • Think­ing as a cit­i­zen:
     1. Why These Four Jus­tices Reject­ed Mar­riage Equal­i­ty (Sun­nivie Bry­dum, The Advo­cate): these excerpts from the dis­sents are worth read­ing. You’ve like­ly seen them car­i­ca­tured, but they are worth inves­ti­gat­ing. If that piques your inter­est, you could go so far as to read all 103 pages of the opin­ion and the dis­sents.
     2. In con­junc­tion, read Shot­guns and Wed­dings (Scott Adams, per­son­al blog): Adams is the cre­ator of Dil­bert a fas­ci­nat­ing pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. In this essay he points out that while he per­son­al­ly likes the rul­ing of the court he believes it is ground­ed in dan­ger­ous prin­ci­ples.
   • Think­ing as an ambi­tious per­son: How Gay Mar­riage Became A Con­sti­tu­tion­al Right (Mol­ly Ball, The Atlantic): this is an excel­lent study in how cul­tur­al change hap­pens. If you want to change the world, there are lessons for you here. For a strik­ing reminder of how quick­ly elite opin­ion has shift­ed, read Three Cheers For Bill and Hillary Clin­ton (Justin Tay­lor, blog).
2. From the some­thing-com­plete­ly-dif­fer­ent depart­ment: On Obsti­na­cy In Belief (C.S. Lewis, The Sewa­nee Review): I was not aware of this C.S. Lewis essay before this week. It was reward­ing.
3. From the if-it-is-not-news-can-it-be-dis­ap­point­ing-news depart­ment: How Aca­d­e­mics View Con­ser­v­a­tive Protes­tants (Yancey, Reimer, and O’Connell, Soci­ol­o­gy of Reli­gion): The lead author, a soci­ol­o­gist, blogs at Black, White and Gray and I fre­quent­ly ben­e­fit from what he shares there.

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.