Volume 491: a philosopher converts, a Christian cyborg, and a comedian riffs on pastors who scam

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. How a Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian (Larry Sanger, personal blog): “When I really sought to understand it, I found the Bible far more interesting and—to my shock and consternation—coherent than I was expecting. I looked up answers to all my critical questions, thinking that perhaps others had not thought of issues I saw. I was wrong. Not only had they thought of all the issues, and more that I had not thought of, they had well-worked-out positions about them. I did not believe their answers, which sometimes struck me as contrived or unlikely. But often, they were shockingly plausible. The Bible could sustain interrogation; who knew? It slowly dawned on me that I was acquainting myself with the two-thousand-year-old tradition of theology. I found myself positively ashamed to realize that, despite having a Ph.D. in philosophy, I had never really understood what theology even is. Theology is, I found, an attempt to systematize, harmonize, explicate, and to a certain extent justify the many, many ideas contained in the Bible. It is what rational people do when they try to come to grips with the Bible in all its richness. The notion that the Bible might actually be able to interestingly and plausibly sustain such treatment is a proposition that had never entered my head.” 
    • Sanger, of course, is the co-founder of Wikipedia. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
    • Vaguely related with a wonderful title is this review of Douthat’s new book Believe: The Erotic Case for God (Audrey Pollnow, Compact Magazine): “If you are being chased by a tiger down a corridor, and reach a T, one side of which you believe leads to more tigers and the other leads to safety (but you don’t know which is which), you had better guess and run. The alternative is to stay still and get eaten by the first tiger. I’m not suggesting that we should choose a love, faith, career or anything else on the basis of frantic anxiety, just that the promise of ‘safety’ offered by disbelief, by staying aloof, by refusing to act, is illusory. Psychologically comforting, perhaps, but not a real form of safety in any sense.”
  2. Meet the Christian Cyborg Who Named His Brain Chip Eve (Maaike E. Harmsen interviewing Noland Arbaugh, Christianity Today): “In this field, I don’t expect to see a lot of religious people—in the tech field, the medical side of things. But then we started meeting people face-to-face, and they met with me and my mom. My mom is very open with everyone about her faith, so it very quickly became known who we were. And I was blown away by the number of people who shared our beliefs. I think about everyone that I met on the medical side; the vast majority of them were Christians. We very quickly connected with all of them on a very personal level. And it became more of an open discussion. When I went in to do my surgery, the last thing I did before they put me under anesthesia was ask if I could pray over the room. And so I prayed over all the surgeons and the nurses and everyone that was a part of this. My prayer was put on the hospital intercom, and even Elon was listening in by phone.” 
    • Extremely interesting. Unlocked.
  3. The Assemblies of God: A Denomination That May Be Growing (Ryan Burge, Substack): “I wanted to end this by pointing to a reason that I believe that the AG has recorded long term growth while most other larger denominations have been going the other direction — the AG has continued to move in the direction of racial diversification. In 2001, the Assemblies of God’s records indicate that 71% of their rank and file membership was white and another 16% were Hispanic. African Americans were just 6% of members and Asians were only 3%. For reference, the Southern Baptist Convention is currently 71% white, 3% Hispanic, and 20% Black. However, the pews of the average AG church today look a whole lot different. Now, only 55% of those members are white, down 16 points in just 22 years. Meanwhile, the Black share has nearly doubled to 11% and the Hispanic portion has risen to 23%. That’s pretty impressive given the inability of many other denominations to become less white to reflect the changing demographics of the country.” 
    • Being an Assemblies of God minister I liked this article a lot, and I even commented on it to help explain some of the stats. Click through for details.
  4. Are Atheists Right? Is “Free Will” An Unnecessary, Unimportant Illusion? (J. Werner Wallace, blog): “In 2008, researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of British Columbia conducted experiments highlighting the relationship between a belief in Determinism and immoral behavior. They found students who were exposed to deterministic literature prior to taking a test were more likely to cheat on the test than students who were not exposed to literature advocating Determinism. The researchers concluded those who deny free will are more inclined to believe their efforts to act morally are futile and are, therefore, less likely to do so. In addition, a study conducted by researchers from Florida State University and Kentucky University found participants who were exposed to deterministic literature were more likely to act aggressively and less likely to be helpful toward others. Even determinist Michael Gazzaniga concedes: ‘It seems that not only do we believe we control our actions, but it is good for everyone to believe it.’ The existence of free will is a common characteristic of our experience, and when we deny we have this sort of free agency, there are detrimental consequences.” 
  5. Don’t waste a perfectly good decade (Suzanne Venker, Substack): “The message these sons and daughters receive is simple: Do not prioritize love. Get your career in order, and do not make sacrifices for anyone. Life (i.e. marriage and family) will fall into place later. And if you have to go into debt to achieve this goal, have at it. You can easily pay it off later.  This is spectacularly bad advice.” 
    • Shared with me by a friend of the ministry (I think in response to the article I shared last week).
    • Related in a nonobvious way: Why So Blue: Liberal Women are Less Happy, More Lonely. But Why? (Grant Bailey & Brad Wilcox, Institute for Family Studies): “Taken together, our analysis leads us to three conclusions. First, the ideological divide in emotional well-being between young liberal and conservative women endures. Second, this ideological divide does not appear to be just a consequence of negative thinking; it also seems to flow from the fact that liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions—specifically marriage and religion—that lend meaning, direction, and a sense of solidarity to women’s lives. Third, lower levels of marriage and churchgoing among liberal women may also have a hand in their elevated reports of loneliness, which, in turn, diminishes their odds of being happy.”
  6. The paradox of Trump’s first weeks (Matt Yglesias, Substack): “I think there’s a sense in some quarters that Trump has accomplished more in three weeks than Biden did in three years, but this is just not true. I do think it’s true that Biden achieved less durable policy change than you’d expect relative to the sums of money appropriated due to Democrats’ over-reliance on temporary programs. But they still made substantive changes in absolute terms on the areas they prioritized, including prescription drug affordability for senior citizens and clean energy deployment. Much of that seems likely to be kept in place by the new GOP trifecta.  Republicans, meanwhile, are making very little forward progress on their legislative agenda.” 
    • A fair analysis of the last few weeks. Pay less attention to people claiming triumph or proclaiming doom — politics is complicated and few moments have as much long-term significance as they seem to while they are dominating the headlines.
    • Related: The Strategy Behind Trump’s Defiance of the Law (Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker): “…what is playing out through a veneer of chaos is a deliberate and organized tactical program to undertake actions that provoke a raft of lawsuits, some of which could become good vehicles for establishing a constitutional vision in which the President has sole authority over the entire executive branch. That vision is not new: it’s known as the unitary executive theory and has a long pedigree, dating back to the founding. Based on where the Supreme Court has been heading in its executive-power cases for some time—even before Trump appointed three Justices—it is likely that the Court will, to some extent, affirm that vision. Trump has a pretty good track record of judicial vindication after engaging in conduct alleged to be unlawful.”
    • Non-alarmist takes like this are much more persuasive than the freakouts I see online. As Gersen notes later, “The first Trump Administration did not flout judicial orders, though some people worried about it.”
  7. Marketing Jesus: The Promise and Peril of ‘He Gets Us’ (Samuel D. James, The Gospel Coalition): “There’s a danger here of context collapse, where an idea that’s true and correct in one particular context loses its truthfulness by being broadcast in a way that disregards that context. For example, ‘Jesus gets us’ is a message best used for people who have already accepted their need for a Savior and desire assurance that nothing they’ve done can cause Jesus to cast them out (John 6:37). In terms of a mass audience whose cultural religion is most likely expressive individualism, however, ‘he gets us’ sounds like a mantra that reinforces the primacy of the self. This mentality keeps my personal psychology at the center, so the question that matters isn’t ‘What must I do to be saved’ but ‘What must you do to affirm me?’ ” 
    • Recommended by an alumnus.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Atheist Accepts Multiverse Theory Of Every Possible Universe Except Biblical One (Babylon Bee) — an oldie but a goodie. 
  • Pastors are Scamming Believers out of Millions (Josh Johnson, YouTube): seventeen minutes, mostly respectful and insightfully humorous. The final story doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere but it actually is and is worth the payoff.
  • Argentina canal turns bright red, alarming residents (Nathan Williams, BBC): “A canal in a suburb of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires turned bright red on Thursday, alarming local residents. Pictures and videos show the intensely coloured water flowing into an estuary, the Rio de la Plata, which borders an ecological reserve.” 
    • Want to envision one of the ten plagues? Check this out.
  • Possibly Kaitlyn Schiess’ spiciest take yet. — I don’t know a lot about the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows, but assuming this description is accurate you can put me on team Kaitlyn.
  • A Genesis Series Inspired By Anime (J. D. Peabody interviewing Jason Moody, Christianity Today): “It’s for both Christians and general audiences. Think about the painting The Last Supper. Lots of people are moved by it. It has caused millions of people to reflect on their faith. But da Vinci wasn’t necessarily a ‘Christian painter’—he was just a painter. And you don’t have to have faith to appreciate his work. The Last Supper isn’t ‘Christian’ art—it’s just art. We want what we’re creating to prompt questions, because that’s what good art does.” 

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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.

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