Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 25

In the time of King David, 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, on Fri­days I’ve been shar­ing 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. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

There’s a lot of heavy con­tent in this one. Buck­le your seat­belt. With­out fur­ther ado, I give you the inter­est­ing things:

1. Alco­hol, Black­outs, and Cam­pus Sex­u­al Assault (Texas Month­ly, Sarah Hep­o­la): I think this is the most thought­ful sec­u­lar piece I’ve read on the issue. “Con­sent and alco­hol make tricky bed­fel­lows. The rea­son I liked get­ting drunk was because it altered my con­sent: it changed what I would say yes to. Not just in the bed­room but in every room and cor­ri­dor that led into the squint­ing light. Say yes to adven­ture, say yes to risk, say yes to karaoke and pool par­ties and argu­ments with men, say yes to a life with­out fear, even though such a life is nev­er pos­si­ble… We drink because it feels good. We drink because it makes us feel hap­py, safe, pow­er­ful. That it often makes us the oppo­site is one of alcohol’s das­tard­ly tricks.”
2. Fatal Flaws In That Reli­gion And Gen­eros­i­ty Study (The Stream, George Yancey). Yancey is a soci­ol­o­gy prof. Relat­ed: Are Reli­gious Kids Real­ly Mean­er Than Their Coun­ter­parts? by a social psy­chol­o­gist.
3. Now for a ton of links relat­ed to the racial inci­dents and respons­es at Yale and Miz­zou (which seem dif­fer­ent to me but which hap­pened in such close prox­im­i­ty that they are linked in the nation­al dia­log).
   • Tyler Cowen, an econ­o­mist at George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty and one of my favorite pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als (with whom I fre­quent­ly dis­agree), has a thought­ful post up: My Thoughts On Recent Cam­pus Fra­cas­es.
   • This speech at Har­vard by for­mer ACLU pres­i­dent Nadine Strossan was giv­en just before these two cas­es erupt­ed into nation­al news, and so has the advan­tage of not being reac­tionary: Free Expres­sion: An Endan­gered Species on Cam­pus? Mon­ey quote: “In short, when it comes to safe­ty, our stu­dents are being dou­bly dis­served.  Too often, denied safe­ty from phys­i­cal vio­lence, which is crit­i­cal for their edu­ca­tion, but too often grant­ed safe­ty from ideas, which is anti­thet­i­cal to their edu­ca­tion.”
   • MU Pro­fes­sor Shares Sto­ries of Racism (Mis­souri­an, Cyn­thia Fris­by): a thought­ful per­spec­tive from a Chris­t­ian close to the scene. Relat­ed (and rec­om­mend­ed by a stu­dent): Why I’m Absolute­ly An Angry Black Woman. This is a win­dow into the lev­el of frus­tra­tion and pain the pro­tes­tors are speak­ing out of. Not specif­i­cal­ly linked to the recent events (writ­ten a few weeks before them).
   • Sup­port­ing My Miz­zou Stu­dents (Thom Lam­bert). Thoughts from a law prof at Miz­zou.
   • The New Intol­er­ance of Stu­dent Activism (The Atlantic, Conor Frieder­s­dorf): I could eas­i­ly imag­ine this Yale sce­nario hap­pen­ing at Stan­ford. If you only read one link this week, pick this one. (Dan Drezn­er from Tufts is slight­ly more sym­pa­thet­ic, but only slight­ly). It got some push­back from U Conn pro­fes­sor Jelani Cobb in the New York­er Race and the Free Speech Diver­sion, to which Conor respond­ed: Free Speech Is No Diver­sion. A semi-response piece that does not address Conor direct­ly but engages some of his posi­tions is Yale’s Unsafe Spaces by Meghan O’Rourke as does When Minori­ties Demand Equal Respect by Sal­ly Kohn.
   • Cam­pus Activists Weaponize Safe Spaces (The Atlantic, Conor Frieder­ers­dorf): the sto­ry he describes here bog­gles the mind. Wow.
4. In glob­al news: On The Brink: Chris­tian­i­ty Fac­ing Mid­dle East Purge With­in Decade, Group Says (Fox News). Sto­ries like this have led one law­mak­er to intro­duce a bill to Pri­or­i­tize Refugee Sta­tus For Chris­tians Flee­ing ISIS (The Hill). See also Islam Is A Reli­gion Of Vio­lence by Joel Miller, where­in he argues that the lack of Trini­tar­i­an doc­trine cor­rupts the Mus­lim con­cep­tion of God.
5. Chris­t­ian Belief Cost This Man His Job: (Wall Street Jour­nal, Jason Riley): appar­ent­ly the fire chief of Atlanta was fired because of some­thing he said in a book he wrote. Note that this is an op-ed, not a news sto­ry.
6. Hat­ing Queer­ness With­out Hat­ing The Queer (The Atlantic, Emma Green): basi­cal­ly an arti­cle-length inter­ac­tion with Albert Mohler’s book We Can­not Be Silent.
7. Quick Links:
   • If Richard Dawkins Is Right Hilar­i­ous. (rec­om­mend­ed by a recent alum­nus)
   • The Star­bucks cup brouha­ha summed up in one tweet. A slight­ly longer take: Most Chris­tians Don’t Actu­al­ly Care About Star­bucks Cups. Here’s What We Do Know (Wash­ing­ton Post, Jonathan Mer­ritt).
   • Why Sci­ence Fic­tion Has So Many Catholics (The Atlantic, Grayson Clary): I liked the whole thing, but I par­tic­u­lar­ly liked the last para­graph. (for the record, I am sym­pa­thet­ic to the view­point about Plu­to which Stephen Col­bert expressed to Neil deGrasse Tyson)
   • The Con­vert Series: Leah Libresco. An inter­est­ing inter­view with an athe­ist turned Catholic.