Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 257

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom. I wel­come your sug­ges­tions. If you read some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. Stop Fir­ing the Inno­cent (Yascha Mounk, The Atlantic): “Caf­fer­ty was pun­ished for an offense he insists he did not com­mit. Shor was pun­ished for doing some­thing that most wouldn’t even con­sid­er objec­tion­able. Wadi was pun­ished for the sins of his daugh­ter. What all of these rather dif­fer­ent cas­es have in com­mon is that none of the peo­ple who were deprived of a liveli­hood in the name of fight­ing racism appear to have been guilty of actu­al­ly per­pet­u­at­ing racism.” The author is a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Johns Hop­kins. 
   • This is an essen­tial fol­low-up: pun­ish­ing the inno­cent (Alan Jacobs, per­son­al blog): “…for those who want to effect social change by expo­sure and sham­ing, pun­ish­ing the inno­cent is a fea­ture of their sys­tem, not a bug. It increas­es fear, which increas­es dis­ci­pline, not only of one­self but of oth­ers. And every employ­er who fires an employ­ee because they’re afraid of a social-media mob draws us clos­er to a ful­ly Panop­tic soci­ety, a social tyran­ny with an effi­cien­cy beyond the dreams of total­i­tar­i­an soci­eties of the past.” This reminds me of the clas­sic post Plan­et of Cops by Fred­dy deBoer.
2. The Min­neapo­lis street cor­ner where George Floyd was killed has become a Chris­t­ian revival­ist site. (Ruth Gra­ham, Slate): “‘I would describe this as revival and awak­en­ing,’ said Joshua Giles, a local pas­tor who has been com­ing to the site to pray and preach for sev­er­al weeks. Giles, who is Black, said he has tak­en part in con­ver­sions and spon­ta­neous bap­tisms there, and that at least one woman had been mirac­u­lous­ly healed of per­sis­tent pain in her arm.”
   • I found the way Gra­ham framed one min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism of the Black Lives Mat­ter orga­ni­za­tion inter­est­ing. I don’t think it’s an unusu­al per­spec­tive — it was pre­sent­ed on Tues­day by sports anchor (and Colum­bia grad) Mar­cel­lus Wiley: https://twitter.com/SFY/status/1278064470435090438 (three minute video)
   • It’s also inter­est­ing to com­pare Wor­ship­pers Con­tin­ue ‘Uni­ty Revival’ at George Floyd Memo­r­i­al Despite Push­back (Tay­lor Berglund, Charis­ma News). The reports large­ly align, I’m just fas­ci­nat­ed by how reporters’ inter­ests and con­texts shape the ques­tions they ask and the answers they empha­size. I am pret­ty sure both reporters are Chris­t­ian, although I sus­pect they grav­i­tate to dif­fer­ent church­es.
3. Is Tim Scott the Most Influ­en­tial Leg­is­la­tor in Con­gress? (Declan Gar­vey, The Dis­patch): “To Scott, his black­ness and his par­ti­san affil­i­a­tion makes per­fect sense: He’s lived the Amer­i­can dream, ris­ing from pover­ty to build a series of suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es. He’s a devout Chris­t­ian com­mit­ted to the preser­va­tion of reli­gious lib­er­ty. But to inter­lop­ers pro­ject­ing their own expe­ri­ences and beliefs onto him, two of his three core iden­ti­ties are in direct con­tra­dic­tion with one anoth­er. Lean­ing too hard into one elic­its accu­sa­tions of being trai­tor­ous to the oth­er.’” Utter­ly fas­ci­nat­ing.
4. How a Great Pow­er Falls Apart (Charles King, For­eign Affairs): “Faced with a series of exter­nal shocks and inter­nal crises, and pur­sued by more dynam­ic and adapt­able com­peti­tors abroad, his coun­try had far less life in it than any­one at the time could see. All coun­tries end. Every soci­ety has its own rock bot­tom, obscured by dark­ness until impact is immi­nent. Already in the sixth cen­tu­ry, Amal­rik wrote, goats were graz­ing in the Roman Forum.” The author is an inter­na­tion­al rela­tions Pro­fes­sor at George­town. Rel­e­vant for both Amer­i­ca and Chi­na.
5. Pas­tors on Social Media (Jonathan Lee­man, 9 Marks): “… you are wrestling against prin­ci­pal­i­ties and pow­ers, and those pow­ers have keen eyes for your desire for a big­ger audi­ence and your church mem­bers’ affin­i­ty for oth­er forms of social rein­force­ment. They want you to believe that oth­er forms of wis­dom are more reli­able than God’s Word, oth­er audi­ences more impor­tant than your hum­ble con­gre­ga­tion, oth­er plat­forms more pow­er­ful for speak­ing, oth­er kinds of impact you can make more last­ing and sig­nif­i­cant. The sec­ond you begin to believe these things you have begun to com­pro­mise your call­ing as a pas­tor.” This is a fire hydrant of wis­dom, and most of it is rel­e­vant to every­one.
6. On Behalf Of Envi­ron­men­tal­ists, I Apol­o­gize For The Cli­mate Scare (Mike Shel­len­berg­er, Quil­lette): “Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal prob­lem. I may seem like a strange per­son to be say­ing all of this. I have been a cli­mate activist for 20 years and an envi­ron­men­tal­ist for 30.”
   • The author’s book is cur­rent­ly the #1 best sell­er in envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence on Ama­zon. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on Forbes (where he is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor) but they took it down in the ensu­ing con­tro­ver­sy. Unde­ni­ably inter­est­ing. I don’t have exper­tise in this area, so if he’s wrong please point me to any bet­ter pieces you know of.
7. The Ghost of Woodrow Wil­son (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “…unless the endgame of New Haven’s removal of Colum­bus is the expro­pri­a­tion of white prop­er­ty (Yale’s prop­er­ty, I sup­pose, espe­cial­ly) and its redis­tri­b­u­tion to the Pequots and Mohe­gans, then a con­sis­tent rejec­tion of Columbus’s lega­cy isn’t what my city is embrac­ing. Instead, it’s just doing the same thing as Prince­ton: keep­ing the inher­i­tance, but repu­di­at­ing the bene­fac­tor. Keep­ing the gains, but mak­ing a big show of pro­nounc­ing them ill got­ten.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

• There are 16 cir­cles in this image. Real­ly. (red­dit)
• Chris­t­ian Briefly Con­sid­ers Plac­ing Hope In God After Supreme Court Lets Him Down Again (Baby­lon Bee)
• ‘We Can’t Just Over­turn Prece­dent,’ Says Supreme Court Jus­tice Of Nation Where Slav­ery Was Once Legal (Baby­lon Bee)
• A Mom Sto­ry (Pearls Before Swine)
• Social Media (SMBC)
• Par­ty Game For Lin­guists (SMBC)
• Amer­i­cans Excit­ed To Cel­e­brate Their Lib­er­ty While Con­fined To Their Homes By The Gov­ern­ment (Baby­lon Bee)

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll high­light an old­er link still worth your con­sid­er­a­tion. This week we have Are Satanists of the MS-13 gang an under-covered sto­ry on the reli­gion beat? (Julia Duin, GetRe­li­gion): this is a fas­ci­nat­ing bit of news com­men­tary. My favorite bit: “How does one get out of MS-13? An opin­ion piece in the New York Times this past April gives a sur­pris­ing response: Go to a Pen­te­costal church.” High­ly rec­om­mend­ed. First shared in vol­ume 158.

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). And to the extent you can dis­cern my opin­ions, please under­stand that they are my own and not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of Chi Alpha or any oth­er orga­ni­za­tion I may be per­ceived to rep­re­sent. 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. If this was for­ward­ed to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.