Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 74

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. Men Are More Like­ly to Be Sex­u­al­ly Attract­ed to Their Oppo­site-Sex Friends (Drake Baer, Sci­ence of Us): “the study found that guys are more like­ly to define a female friend as ‘a mem­ber of the oppo­site sex to whom I am attract­ed and would pur­sue giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty’ and ladies to define their oppo­site-sex friends as sim­ply ‘a friend of the oppo­site sex.’” For an amus­ing take on this idea, see this three-minute video (it’s got over 9 mil­lion views).
2. The New Evan­gel­i­cal Moral Minor­i­ty (Kele­fa San­neh, New York­er): this is a well-writ­ten essay focus­ing on the South­ern Bap­tist ethi­cist Rus­sell Moore, of whom I am a huge fan and with whom I usu­al­ly agree. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed, although the author’s snark shows through occa­sion­al­ly. The author, inci­den­tal­ly, is the son of famed Chris­t­ian mis­si­ol­o­gist Lamin San­neh.
3. In Love and Mar­riage, Prac­tice Doesn’t Make Per­fect (Scott Stan­ley, Psy­chol­o­gy Today):  “We found that hav­ing more sex­u­al and cohab­it­ing part­ners before mar­riage is asso­ci­at­ed with low­er rela­tion­ship qual­i­ty once mar­ried. In par­tic­u­lar, hav­ing only ever lived with or had sex with one’s spouse was asso­ci­at­ed with high­er mar­i­tal qual­i­ty.” The author is a research pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver. The research upon which this arti­cle was based is avail­able here.
4. Pos­i­tive Par­ent­ing is Ide­al, But Many Chil­dren Need Time-Outs, Too (Robert Larzelere, Insti­tute For Fam­i­ly Stud­ies): “Yes, the worst out­comes were for the type of author­i­tar­i­an par­ent­ing that Dr. Coul­son oppos­es, which can be defined as strict enforce­ment with­out love. But the sec­ond-worst 10-year out­comes were for over­ly per­mis­sive par­ents…” When we sing that God is a good, good Father we should should remem­ber we are cel­e­brat­ing the fact that he both encour­ages and dis­ci­plines. 
5. North Kore­a’s War On Chris­tian­i­ty: The Globe’s Num­ber One Reli­gious Per­se­cu­tor (Doug Bandow, Forbes): “[Chris­t­ian Sol­i­dar­i­ty World­wide] reports doc­u­ment­ed cas­es of believ­ers being ‘hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steam­roller, herd­ed off bridges, and tram­pled under­foot.’”
6. The Case Against Democ­ra­cy (Caleb Craine, The New York­er): I’m a monar­chist, truth be told. In the King­dom I call home we don’t get a vote, but we wel­come any­one who wish­es to immi­grate. Join us! #king­je­sus  

Things Glen Found Amusing

• Bad Email­ers (Dil­bert)
• Video: I Can Bal­ance A Ban­knote On My Nose (Would I Lie To You?)
• Video: Foot­ball To The Face (The Slow Mo Guys)
• Video: Mutants Of Dance (Peo­ple Are Awe­some): you might find this one dis­turb­ing. Also, I’m not sure dance is the right word to describe what they’re doing.

Why Do You Send This Email?

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. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.