Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 30

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

With­out fur­ther ado, I give you the inter­est­ing things:

  1. A Carved Stone Block Upends Assump­tions About Ancient Judaism (NY Times, Isabel Kir­sh­n­er): I find the title amus­ing (the find­ing lines up per­fect­ly with my assump­tions about Judaism before the destruc­tion of the tem­ple).
  2. Jesus’ Left­ward Bias (Pacif­ic Stan­dard, Tom Jacobs): warn­ing — this is not about what you think it prob­a­bly is. It is based on the study Did Bud­dha Turn The Oth­er Cheek Too? A Com­par­i­son of Pos­ing Bias­es Between Jesus and Bud­dha and weaves togeth­er art, self­ies, and the role of emo­tions in Chris­tian­i­ty. Real­ly.
  3. Shut­ting Down Con­ver­sa­tions About Rape at Har­vard Law (New York­er, Jean­nie Suk): a Har­vard Law prof com­ments on how cam­pus­es should han­dle rape accu­sa­tions, and points out that a rigid “believe the accuser” stance will result in great injus­tice against black men.
  4. Amer­i­can Chris­tians Could Take A Les­son From Angela Merkel (Reli­gion News Ser­vice, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsim­mons): I did not know Merkel (Ger­man Chan­cel­lor and Time Per­son of the Year) was pious. See the com­ments for clar­i­fi­ca­tion about what tribe of Chris­tian­i­ty she belongs to. As always, take claims about the faith of pub­lic fig­ures with a grain of salt, espe­cial­ly when they are from anoth­er cul­ture. I was also inter­est­ed by Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Is A Sham, Says Angela Merkel (Wash­ing­ton Post, Rick Noack)
  5. Beyond Fight or Flight: $1 Mil­lion Reveals How Chris­tians Cope with Per­se­cu­tion in 30 Coun­tries (Chris­tian­i­ty Today, Sarah Zyl­stra): Fas­ci­nat­ing research on what Chris­tians actu­al­ly do when they face intense per­se­cu­tion. Relat­ed: Glob­al­ly, Reli­gious Per­se­cu­tion is Chris­t­ian Per­se­cu­tion (Crux, John Allen): I appre­ci­at­ed the selec­tion of sto­ries in this arti­cle. They avoid­ed the crazy, gory sto­ries that make you put this into a spe­cial place in your brain and chose much sim­pler anec­dotes that make you see what this is a like on a day-to-day basis in cer­tain parts of the world. See also, The Biggest Apol­o­gy For Chris­t­ian Per­se­cu­tion of Oth­er Chris­tians Ever. (Chris­tian­i­ty Today, Sarah Zyl­stra).
  6. Quick Links

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.

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.

Leave a Reply