Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 15

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 help­ing-you-get-bet­ter-grades depart­ment: Here’s The Best Way To Guess Cor­rect­ly On A Mul­ti­ple-Choice Test (Justin Couch­man, Quartz): the author, a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, describes a tech­nique you can use to tell whether to trust your first instinct or revise the answer. You’re wel­come.
2. From the kim-davis-no-rela­tion depart­ment:
   • Ken­tucky Clerk Didn’t Fol­low Chris­tian­i­ty Before Con­vert­ing To It (Mol­lie Hem­ing­way, The Fed­er­al­ist): this is the most fas­ci­nat­ing of all the arti­cles to me. If you only read one, make it this one.
   • Kim Davis Uproar Shows That Break­ing The Law Is Only Okay When Pro­gres­sives Do It (Sean Davis, The Fed­er­al­ist): inter­est­ing con­trast with the way Gavin New­som was treat­ed for a sur­pris­ing­ly sym­met­ri­cal vio­la­tion. This is not a par­ti­san issue: Davis and New­som are both Democ­rats serv­ing in elect­ed office.
   • Wash­ing­ton Post Looks At Ken­tucky Same-Sex Mar­riage Wars, Sees Only Two Armies (Ter­ry Mat­ting­ly, GetRe­li­gion): this piece gives some infor­ma­tion that I’m not see­ing many oth­er places, ampli­fied slight­ly in a fol­low-up Slut-Sham­ing The Chris­t­ian Con­vert in Ken­tucky Who Is Open To Com­pro­mise?
   • Law For Thee But Not For Me (Rod Dreher, The Amer­i­can Con­ser­v­a­tive): Rod and I grad­u­at­ed from the same high school, although he is old­er than me and we nev­er met.
3. From the with-this-ring-I-thee-wed depart­ment:
   • What God Has Joined Togeth­er: Reli­gion And The Risk of Divorce (Bradley Wright, Insti­tute of Fam­i­ly Stud­ies): the author is a sol­id believ­er and also a soci­ol­o­gy prof at U Conn.
   • What’s Dri­ving The Mar­riage Divide? (Rachel Sheffield, The Pub­lic Dis­course):  a use­ful intro­duc­tion to an ongo­ing debate. The left and right both tend to view the unrav­el­ing of mar­riages and pover­ty as relat­ed social prob­lems, but argue about which is the cause and which is the effect. The author comes from the right and argues that the unrav­el­ing of mar­riages caus­es pover­ty.
   • Hookup Cul­ture Isn’t The Real Prob­lem Fac­ing Sin­gles Today: It’s Math (Jon Birg­er, Wash­ing­ton Post): I’m includ­ing this one part­ly so Eyosias can say, “Stop.”
4. From the rag­ing-debates-which-enrage-peo­ple depart­ment: Hun­gry For Souls: Was Junipero Ser­ra A Saint? (Gre­go­ry Orfalea, Com­mon­weal): this is a help­ful sum­ma­ry of the case for Junipero Ser­ra. I’m not sure — is it J‑Ro that is named after him, Ser­ra, or both?

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.