Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 13

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

1. From the provoca­tive-but-not-ful­ly-explained depart­ment: Maris­sa John­son, Part of a New, Dis­rup­tive Gen­er­a­tion of Activists (Nina Shapiro, Seat­tle Times): turns out that Maris­sa John­son (the Black Lives Mat­ter activist famous for dis­rupt­ing a Bernie Sanders speech) attends an evan­gel­i­cal church and stud­ied the­ol­o­gy in col­lege. Fas­ci­nat­ing pro­file, although it leaves me with many ques­tions.
2. From the friends-in-high-places depart­ment: The Late, Great Stephen Col­bert (Joel Lovell, GQ): Col­bert has deep faith, and it real­ly comes out in this inter­view. It’s long, so if you just want the faith bit search for the phrase “He lift­ed his arms as if to take in the office” and start read­ing there.
3. From the spir­i­tu­al insight depart­ment:
   • Faith­ful­ness in Col­lege Is “Life-Wide” (Stephen Lutz, Gospel Coali­tion): what good does it prof­it a per­son to get a 4.0 and lose their soul? This one comes rec­om­mend­ed by an alum­nus.
   • Keep Your Enthu­si­asm In Check (George Wood, per­son­al blog): very short but help­ful. The author is the leader of the Assem­blies of God, the group which spon­sors Chi Alpha (and which I am ordained by).
4. From the peo­ple-of-this-world-are-shrewd depart­ment: Effec­tive Altru­ism: Where Char­i­ty and Ratio­nal­i­ty Meet (Tyler Cowen, NY Times): there is noth­ing overt­ly Chris­t­ian about this piece, but the sub­ject should be of great inter­est to Chris­tians. We are called to give to spread the gospel and help the poor — and the Church can do bet­ter at both.
5. From the pol­i­tics-and-the-pul­pit depart­ment: Ten Things To Remem­ber As the Pres­i­den­tial Cam­paign Sea­son Gets Into Full Swing (Kevin DeY­oung, per­son­al blog): DeY­oung is a well-known pas­tor and author. Points 6, 7, and 8 are espe­cial­ly good.
6. From the unex­pect­ed bed­fel­lows depart­ment: Scalia Gets It Pret­ty Much Right (Stan­ley Fish, Huff­in­g­ton Post): I share this most­ly because famed post­mod­ern (or anti-foun­da­tion­al­ist) the­o­rist Stan­ley Fish is one of the most unlike­ly defend­ers of the famed orig­i­nal­ist Jus­tice Scalia I can imag­ine. The world is an odd place. Be sure to read the fol­low-up Respond To The Col­umn That Was Actu­al­ly Writ­ten.

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.