Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 33

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, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal 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

With­out fur­ther ado, I give you the inter­est­ing things:

1. What Would Cool Jesus Do? ( Taffy Brodess­er-Akn­er, GQ): this is a long and amaz­ing piece. Jew­ish reporter goes to Hill­song in NYC, likes it but doesn’t buy it. Fun to read and inter­est­ing through­out.
2. When Abor­tion Sud­den­ly Stopped Mak­ing Sense (Fred­er­i­ca Matthews-Green, Nation­al Review): unusu­al­ly insight­ful. Today is the 43rd anniver­sary of Roe v. Wade. Vague­ly relat­ed: 43 years lat­er, a look at Nor­ma McCor­vey, the Roe of Roe v. Wade, the pro-choice poster child turned abor­tion oppo­nent (Keri Blakinger, NY Dai­ly News). The lat­ter arti­cle is a use­ful reminder that peo­ple are com­pli­cat­ed.
3. Is “Slave” A Good Eng­lish Trans­la­tion? (Andy Nasel­li, per­son­al blog): there is a 4 minute BBC video embed­ded at this link which is worth watch­ing about the com­plex­i­ties of Bible trans­la­tion, fol­lowed by many good links for dig­ging deep­er.
4. No Food Is Healthy. Not Even Kale. (Michael Ruhlman, Wash­ing­ton Post): Peo­ple can be healthy. Food can be nutri­tious. This is a won­der­ful essay about how we mis­use lan­guage to our detri­ment. If you’re sur­prised I includ­ed this, I believe that our cul­ture has a qua­si-reli­gious rela­tion­ship to health and to food, and I also believe that the use of lan­guage is pro­found­ly moral and that our cul­ture is a lin­guis­tic mess (to which I know of no fin­er guide than The Under­ground Gram­mar­i­an).
5. To The Per­son Who Tried To Pray My Dis­abil­i­ty Away (Madylin Ullmin, The Mighty): a min­is­ter friend of mine with cere­bral pal­sy  shared this on Face­book. He prays for the sick and has seen mir­a­cles. He added this when he shared the arti­cle: “I have also expe­ri­enced more than a few times in my life where a per­son asked to pray for my heal­ing and if it did­n’t hap­pen, they felt they had to explain to me why God did­n’t heal me right there and then. It got to the point where the per­son pray­ing for me was often more dis­ap­point­ed than I was , which made me won­der if the per­son cared about me as a per­son, or were more con­cerned about a cer­tain result. I have no doubt almost every­one means well and wants to see God heal but the way that it hap­pens is some­times jar­ring for a per­son who needs heal­ing.”

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.

Also, remem­ber that I’m not report­ing news — I’m giv­ing you a selec­tion of things I found inter­est­ing. There’s a lot hap­pen­ing in the world that’s not mak­ing an appear­ance here because I haven’t found stim­u­lat­ing arti­cles writ­ten about it.