You’ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. Isaiah Identified in Archaeology (Titus Kennedy, Substack): “Despite fulfilling the role of prophet for more than 50 years, serving under multiple kings, and encountering the Assyrians, until recently there was no archaeology directly attesting to the renowned Isaiah, and at present, there is no archaeological confirmation for the prophets Hosea, Nahum, and Micah, who were contemporary with Isaiah. This all changed when excavations of an Iron Age II layer of the 8th to 7th century BC at the Ophel area in Jerusalem unearthed a seal impression. This discovery was a clay bulla about 1.3 cm in diameter impressed by a seal with the name ‘Isaiah’ and the title ‘prophet’ in the paleo-Hebrew script.… Excavations in this area also discovered a bulla of one of the kings Isaiah served under, Hezekiah of Judah, along with 32 other Hebrew bullae with various names. It was found outside what has been called the ‘royal bakery,’ where royal officials and other dignitaries may have discarded old letters and the clay seals attached to those documents.”
2. Some thoughts on AI
   • Why I Don’t Want My Pastor to Use AI (Leah, Substack): “If my pastor won’t wrestle with God through writing a sermon, I begin to question: will he wrestle with Him in prayer? Will he be bothered to wrestle with God over the state of my soul, to plead on my behalf when I am tempted and suffering? …God called you to be my pastor. I want you to be my pastor.”
   • Who Uses AI in Congress? (Nicholas Decker, Substack): “Adoption has been substantial. In the past three months of the 119th Congress, fully 25% of documents in the Congressional Record are AI-generated.… However, mere adoption is an uninteresting topic. Of course they are going to adopt the tools available. What would be much more interesting is if AI tools were having an actual effect on the policy positions or the rhetorical emphasis. Unfortunately, we can pretty conclusively rule those out.” — The author is a PhD student in econ at George Mason.
3. The Afterlife Isn’t Going Away (Ryan Burge, Substack): “In the full sample, 88% of folks said that they did believe that each being possesses both a soul and a physical body. I look at survey data all day, and here’s what I know: it’s hard to get 88% of Americans to agree on anything, really. If you tried to pull together a battery of ten public policy proposals, it’s very unlikely that any of them would get 88% support. But the data tells this story clearly: almost all Americans believe that there’s something happening beyond our physical bodies.… Among the non-religious, there’s also a huge divide on this question. Among nothing in particulars, 80% believe in a soul. That’s just a few clicks away from the national average. Agnostics score 11 points lower than nothing in particulars. But then take a look at atheists—just one-third of them believe ‘in a soul or spirit in addition to their physical bodies.’ ”
   • He kinda buried the lede here: 1/3 of atheists believe in a soul. That’s remarkable!
4. Some thoughts on the war
   • The Trump Administration Goes to War, by Any Memes Necessary (James Poniewozik, New York Times): “For Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, war was hell. But as represented by the Trump White House’s social feeds, war is LOL.”
     • Recommended by a student and quite interesting.
   • America’s Conflict in Iran Is Not a Just War (Ed Feser, Public Discourse): “Many who have commented on the war on social media appear to think that as long as some aim for which a war is fought is in itself a good aim—such as deposing tyrants or preventing them from getting hold of weapons of mass destruction—then the war has met the just-cause condition of just war doctrine. That is not the case. This is merely a necessary condition for having a just cause for war, not a sufficient condition.… It is clear that the attack on Iran was not in fact a ‘preemptive war’ in the sense of a military action taken in order to head off an imminent attack. Rather, it is a ‘preventive war,’ in the sense of a military action carried out against a country that does not pose an imminent threat but _could_ do so in the future. But while preemptive war can be justifiable in light of the just war criteria developed in the natural law tradition, preventive war cannot be.”
     • Feser is a Catholic philosopher.
   • Why I Changed My Mind on Bible Prophecy and Politics (Russell Moore, Christianity Today): “My doctoral dissertation was about how viewpoints on last things shaped evangelical Christian attitudes toward social and political engagement.… The kingdom of God—present already but not yet fulfilled—tells us what to care about (justice, peace, the poor, the vulnerable) while also shielding us from the disillusionment or bloodthirstiness that can come with expecting to have to bring the fullness of that kingdom on our own. As embodied in Jesus, the kingdom concerns us not just with outcomes but with ways and means, even as it prompts humility on how to get to those common goals. I have no idea what will happen in Iran. I have no idea what will happen in the modern state of Israel. I have no idea whether we have 5 more minutes or 45 million more years before the Apocalypse. Jesus said, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority’ (Acts 1:7). Who needs a prophecy chart when we already have the Way?”
5. Some thoughts on a Texas politician:
   • James Talarico Is a Christian X‑Ray (David French, New York Times): “For too long we’ve evaluated Christians in politics primarily through their policy positions. Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Do you support same-sex marriage? What’s your position on immigration enforcement? Yet this is exactly backward. If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy. But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ Absent from that list is a single theological or ideological proposition. That’s not to say that theology or ideology are unimportant. It does really matter whether a politician is pro-life or pro-choice, but there is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.”
     • FYI, this one has been super-divisive on social media. Some have said it is evidence of French’s apostasy and others have said it is self-evidently true. Judge for yourself.
   • The Christianism Of The Left (Andrew Sullivan, Substack): “…the fusion of Christianity and politics isn’t exclusively right-wing. You can invoke God to defend anything, after all. And a new left-Christianism has emerged in the 21st century that is a mirror image of the right’s. Left-Christians have come to adorn their churches with transqueer and BLM flags, treat NPR as the Holy Office, adopt language — ‘white supremacy,’ ‘cis-heterosexism,’ ‘patriarchy’ — directly from critical theory, and interpret Scripture to mandate higher taxes, DEI, abortion on demand, and open borders. I find that Christianism just as toxic to faith and politics. Which brings me to James Talarico, the Christianist running for Senate in Texas.”
6. China’s Long-Promised Consumer Boom Is a Mirage (Anne Stevenson-Yang, New York Times): “China’s people, perhaps more than at any time in the last few decades, are in no mood to go out and splurge. Many have been airing growing anxiety online about falling incomes and scarce jobs. The average income was just over $500 a month in 2025. Unemployment is high.… China’s people, perhaps more than at any time in the last few decades, are in no mood to go out and splurge. Many have been airing growing anxiety online about falling incomes and scarce jobs. The average income was just over $500 a month in 2025. Unemployment is high.… These are hardly the foundations of a vibrant consumer economy, and the future looks no better.” — I have been a consistent skeptic of China’s economy ever since I first heard about ghost cities over a decade ago. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Google it. Do some digging and you’ll be surprised.
7. This A.I. Experiment Reopened an Ancient Argument About Vice (Dan Kagan-Kans, New York Times): “[A] paper published in Nature in January demonstrates that in machines corruption can metastasize — that in them, something imprudent or a bit bad, like writing insecure code, is not so different from something wicked like praising Hitler. This doesn’t prove virtue ethicists right about humanity’s moral nature. But it suggests they’re onto something, and that the ancients weren’t as naïve or strangely ideological as they can sometimes seem.”
   • One of the more fascinating things I’ve read in a while.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

• What Christian denominations/traditions sound like to normal people on X (Twitter): “Trad Catholic: ‘Clearly you haven’t read the Summa Thomisticæ of St. Vittorio Jose Canseco Maria Dominguez Palato Nuñez or you would know that…‘
  Orthodox: ‘This was already settled by that Holy Council of Epiphistos in 853 when they accepted the reply of Metropolitan Hierarch St. Χαρκουδεις Σοφροκουδες невежественный when he said…‘
  Scottish Presbyterians: ‘If you read “The Christian’s Sure Defense Against the Stank of Antichrist by Robert MacSmellie, you’d see that..“ ‘
• How would the Church of England deal with the statement that “The cat sat on the mat” if it appeared in the Bible? (Twitter): I found this very funny, but your mileage may vary.
• Billions Dead As Doomsday Clock Springs Forward For Daylight Saving Time — (Babylon Bee)

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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). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. 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. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.