Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 470

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.

This is vol­ume 470, a rel­a­tive­ly unin­ter­est­ing num­ber. There are few­er links than usu­al this week owing to some trav­el. I did­n’t have much time to read and I’m exhaust­ed today.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. Can AI Help a Stu­dent Get Into Stan­ford or Yale? (Lau­ren Cof­fey, Inside High­er Ed): “Lee is among hun­dreds of stu­dents try­ing out Esslo—whose name is a mashup of the words ‘essay’ and ‘Elo,’ a rank­ing sys­tem used in chess and esports. The pro­gram is the brain­child of two Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents look­ing to tack­le what they believe is one of the most stress­ful parts of col­lege appli­ca­tions: the admis­sions essay.”
   • The two Stan­ford stu­dents in ques­tion are part of Chi Alpha. Way to go, guys! The web­site: https://www.esslo.org/ — if you know any high school seniors, pass the link their way.
2. Evan­ge­lize Like You’re a Sin­ner (Claude Atcho, Gospel Coali­tion): “The Samar­i­tan woman’s bold wit­ness teach­es us a truth some­times deemed too sim­plis­tic: the key to apolo­get­ics isn’t pithy answers or irrefutable argu­ments but a sense of awe in Jesus that can’t be silenced.”
   • Rec­om­mend­ed by a stu­dent.
3. As a Sin­gle Man, I Felt Lit­tle Pres­sure to Get Mar­ried. I Wish I Had. (Brett McCrack­en, The Gospel Coali­tion): “Sin­gle­ness and mar­riage can both be good when they’re done for God’s glo­ry and take a cru­ci­form shape. And when cho­sen for self­ish rea­sons or lived out in unhealthy ways, both sin­gle­ness and mar­riage can also be bad. I’m not mak­ing an argu­ment for one being uni­ver­sal­ly bet­ter than the oth­er. I’m sim­ply observ­ing that in our cul­tur­al moment, and per­haps in cer­tain cul­tur­al con­texts (like mine in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia), argu­ments for the good of mar­riage need to be sound­ed more urgent­ly.”
4. How Stan­ford and Its West Coast Brethren Planned for Long Road Trips in Con­fer­ence Realign­ment (Pat Forde, Sports Illus­trat­ed): “The Car­di­nal are mak­ing their Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence debut on Sept. 20, at Syra­cuse. The fol­low­ing week, Stan­ford will vis­it Clem­son. Of all the hands realign­ing schools have been dealt, this is the sin­gle worst one in foot­ball. None of the oth­er Pac-12 diaspora—in the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12—will play league road games on con­sec­u­tive weeks. And these are three-time-zone sojourns of 5,000 miles or more round trip.”

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.