Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 97

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom. I wel­come your sug­ges­tions. If you read some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. The ben­e­fits and harms of mar­i­jua­na, explained by the most thor­ough research review yet (Ger­man Lopez, Vox): “the bot­tom line is that mar­i­jua­na does pose some harms — par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple at risk of devel­op­ing men­tal health dis­or­ders, preg­nant women, those vul­ner­a­ble to res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, and any­one get­ting into a car. And while some of these harms may be over­come by marijuana’s ben­e­fits or cur­tailed by con­sum­ing pot with­out smok­ing it, the evi­dence shows that weed’s rep­u­ta­tion as a safe drug is unde­served.”
2. What do slave­hold­ers think? (Austin Choi-Fitz­patrick, Aeon):  “The con­tem­po­rary traf­fick­ers and slave­hold­ers I spoke with are not moti­vat­ed by a love of injus­tice. They are instead dri­ven by cul­tur­al iner­tia, a desire for prof­it or, more fre­quent­ly, a need for basic sus­te­nance…. The terms used here – slav­ery and slave­hold­er – nev­er crossed the lips, nor per­haps even the minds, of the men I spoke with.” The author is a soci­ol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Diego.
3. The Cri­sis of West­ern Civ (David Brooks, NY Times): “These days, the whole idea of West­ern civ is assumed to be reac­tionary and oppres­sive. All I can say is, if you think that was reac­tionary and oppres­sive, wait until you get a load of the world that comes after it.”
4. Charles Murray’s ‘Provoca­tive’ Talk (Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci, NY Times): two Cor­nell pro­fes­sors “tran­scribed Mr. Murray’s speech and — with­out indi­cat­ing who wrote it — sent it to a group of 70 col­lege pro­fes­sors (women and men, of dif­fer­ent ranks, at dif­fer­ent uni­ver­si­ties)… the 57 pro­fes­sors who respond­ed to our request gave Mr. Murray’s talk an aver­age score of 5.05, or ‘mid­dle of the road.’” This, of course, is the speech which faced a back­lash result­ing in a pro­fes­sor need­ing a neck brace. Fas­ci­nat­ing.
5. This Is About That (Andrew Wil­son, Vimeo): this 3.5 minute video starts slow but ends strong. A med­i­ta­tion on the rela­tion­ship between mar­riage and the gospel. Rec­om­mend­ed.
6. Inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty Is a Polit­i­cal Foot­ball; Here’s Why It Doesn’t Have to Be (Chris Mar­tin, Het­ero­dox Acad­e­my): “Pro­gres­sives have adopt­ed an over­am­bi­tious mod­el of inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty in which every­one lies on axes of oppres­sion, and I will explain this model’s three flaws. Con­ser­v­a­tives gen­er­al­ly believe that inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty is use­less, but I explain how inter­sec­tion­al schol­ar­ship can be use­ful to researchers, regard­less of whether they are lib­er­al, cen­trist, con­ser­v­a­tive, lib­er­tar­i­an, or eclec­tic.”
7. Here’s the Mil­lion-Dol­lar Answer to How Per­se­cut­ed Chris­tians Per­se­vere (Sarah Zyl­stra, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): “Researchers grouped respons­es to per­se­cu­tion into three cat­e­gories: sur­vival, asso­ci­a­tion, and con­fronta­tion…. ‘Evan­gel­i­cals are divid­ed between those who are will­ing to take up arms and those who view wit­ness and non-retal­i­a­tion as the respons­es to which the Bible calls Chris­tians,’ the report stat­ed. They tend to be more skep­ti­cal of the inter­re­li­gious dia­logue favored by Catholics and main­line Protes­tants, and more like­ly to pur­sue evan­ge­liza­tion.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

• Every­thing That’s Wrong Of Rac­coons (Mal­lo­ry Ort­berg, The Toast): “Once when my dog died a pas­sel of rac­coons showed up in the back­yard as if to say ‘Now that he’s gone, we own the night,’ and they didn’t flinch when I yelled at them, and I found it dis­re­spect­ful to 1) me per­son­al­ly and 2) the entire flow of the food chain. Don’t dis­re­spect me if you can’t eat me, you false-night-dogs.”
• Ani­mat­ed Gif of a Pool With a View (imgur): not for every­one.
• Church Greeter: I Will Shake Your Hand Whether You Like It Or Not, So Help Me God (Baby­lon Bee)
• Local Man Con­fi­dent 17th Mis­sion­ary Dat­ing Attempt Will Yield A Con­vert (Baby­lon Bee)

Why Do You Send This Email?

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. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

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 (although if I strong­ly dis­agree with some­thing in the arti­cle I’ll usu­al­ly men­tion it).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.