Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 10

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, 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. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

1. From the cur­rent events depart­ment: the church been opposed to abor­tion from our ear­li­est days for many rea­sons. One of them is that John the Bap­tist, while still in the womb, rejoiced when he was close to Jesus (Luke 1:39–44).
   • How The Planned Par­ent­hood Videos Set Off A Renewed Wave Of Activism On Abor­tion (Sarah Pul­liam Bai­ley, Wash­ing­ton Post)
   • Look­ing Away From Abor­tion (Ross Douthat, New York Times)
2. From the same-mouth-as-bless­ings depart­ment: How Dare You Say That! The Evo­lu­tion of Pro­fan­i­ty (John McWhort­er, Wall Street Jour­nal): culture’s moral val­ues change over time, and what we con­sid­er unspeak­able is a big clue to what those val­ues are. The same author has anoth­er piece that came out around the same time: America’s Flawed New Reli­gion — Antiracism (John McWhort­er, The Dai­ly Beast). The lat­ter is a flawed piece — but it made me think.
3. From the stand­ing-with-our-fam­i­ly depart­ment: US Wants Answers on Evan­gel­i­cal Persecution–In Mex­i­co (Mor­gan Lee, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): Chris­tian­i­ty is the most per­se­cut­ed reli­gion in the world — even in places you wouldn’t expect.
4. • Dying For Chris­tian­i­ty (Har­ri­et Sher­wood, The Guardian): this arti­cle from a sec­u­lar source puts the pre­vi­ous arti­cle into a broad­er con­text.
5. From the things-are-always-com­pli­cat­ed depart­ment:
   • Why The Islam­ic State Leaves Tech Com­pa­nies Torn Between Free Speech and Secu­ri­ty (Scott High­am and Ellen Nakashima, Wash­ing­ton Post)
   • When A Child Goes To War (Mal­colm Har­ris, Aeon)
   • Does Fair Trade Help Poor Work­ers? (Alex Tabar­rok, blog): the author is an eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor.

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.