TGFI, Volume 523: religion makes you happy and war is terrifying

You’ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Inter­est­ing

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues like­ly to be of inter­est to Chris­tians in col­lege. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom. I wel­come your sug­ges­tions, so if you read some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

1. Reli­gious Peo­ple Are Hap­pi­er Than Non-Reli­gious Peo­ple (Ryan Burge, Sub­stack): “To go back to where I start­ed — let me just say the one true thing again. High­ly active reli­gious peo­ple are hap­pi­er than non-reli­gious peo­ple. There’s no oth­er way to spin this data than this sim­ple con­clu­sion.”
   • Empha­sis in orig­i­nal. The author is a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in St. Louis.
2. I’ve Seen the Future of War. Europe Isn’t Ready for It. (Niall Fer­gu­son, The Free Press): : “Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine is now in its fourth year—or its 12th, if you date it from the annex­a­tion of Crimea in 2014. Since Feb­ru­ary 2022, the coun­try has cycled through three wars. First it was a tank war, in which columns of Russ­ian tanks fought a bun­gled blitzkrieg. Then it became an artillery war, in which the two sides trad­ed fire from entrenched posi­tions. Now, how­ev­er, it’s almost entire­ly a drone war, with a sup­port­ing role for small and high­ly vul­ner­a­ble infantry units. The ques­tion is how well Euro­peans under­stand this. The peo­ple of Poland, Roma­nia, Esto­nia, and (per­haps) Den­mark all now know that Russ­ian drones are capa­ble of enter­ing their air­space. But have they tru­ly grasped what that implies?”
   • The author is a senior fel­low at Stan­ford’s Hoover Insti­tu­tion. I am told he is a fair­ly recent con­vert to Chris­tian­i­ty, although I have nev­er met him per­son­al­ly and only know of his faith through pub­lic sources.
3. What Women Wish They’d Known Before Try­ing to Get Preg­nant (Olga Khaz­an, The Atlantic): “When Anna De Souza was in her ear­ly 30s, she asked her ob-gyn when she should start think­ing about hav­ing kids. ‘When you were 26,’ she remem­bers the doc­tor say­ing. She was sur­prised. She’d had some sense that fer­til­i­ty decreas­es with age but didn’t know how sig­nif­i­cant the drop-off was. No doc­tor had ever told her, and she cer­tain­ly didn’t learn about it in school.”
   • Unlocked. This is a drum I will keep beat­ing — most of you should plan to have kids ear­li­er than your peers!
4. Some thoughts on free speech:
   • The Cen­sor­ship You Prac­tice Today Will Be Used Against You Tomor­row (Greg Lukianoff, New York Times): “I don’t like hav­ing to make a case for human rights such as free­dom of speech by appeal­ing to self-inter­est; these are sup­posed to be rights whose impor­tance tran­scends one’s per­son­al needs. But for polit­i­cal par­ti­sans, it’s often the only argu­ment that cuts through. So here’s my prac­ti­cal warn­ing: The weapon that you reach for today will be used against you tomor­row. Using your oppo­nents’ nas­ti­est tools doesn’t per­suade them to dis­arm; it inspires retal­i­a­tion. Tit for tat, for­ev­er and ever.”
   • How not to lim­it free speech (Ed Fes­er, per­son­al blog): “There is a pre­sump­tion, then, in favor of free expres­sion, pre­cise­ly because it facil­i­tates the nat­ur­al end of our ratio­nal pow­ers. How­ev­er, not all forms of expres­sion are pro­tect­ed by this pre­sump­tion, because not all forms of expres­sion have any­thing to do with our ratio­nal pow­ers. For exam­ple, pornog­ra­phy does not appeal to our ratio­nal­i­ty and in no way con­tributes to dis­cov­er­ing truth or to debate by which we might root out error.… pornog­ra­phy is in no way pro­tect­ed by the nat­ur­al right to free speech.”
     • The author is a devout Catholic who is also a phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor. This is a help­ful essay that cov­ers a lot of ground.
5. How My Dad Helped Me Mas­ter My Autism (Leland Vit­tert, The Free Press): “Today, most par­ents would prob­a­bly send a kid like me to ther­a­py. Even back then, a diag­no­sis might have got­ten me sig­nif­i­cant spe­cial treat­ment. But my dad knew that there wasn’t a teacher or ther­a­pist who could step in and sud­den­ly make me fit in. The world wasn’t going to adapt to me, and he wasn’t going to try to make it. There would be no ther­a­pists or accom­mo­da­tions. If I was going to suc­ceed, he would have to adapt me to the world.”
6. I vis­it­ed Gaza. The food aid sur­prised me. (Ken Isaacs, Wash­ing­ton Post): “The main provider of food assis­tance in the Gaza Strip today arguably is the Gaza Human­i­tar­i­an Foun­da­tion, an orga­ni­za­tion backed by the Unit­ed States and Israel. GHF has faced harsh crit­i­cism for its work in Gaza, with Unit­ed Nations agen­cies and non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions pub­lish­ing a let­ter in July urg­ing donors and coun­tries not to fund the foundation’s work and to instead revert to a sole­ly U.N.-led response. I arrived in Gaza a skep­tic of GHF but left an advo­cate. Sim­ply put, the com­mon por­tray­al of this orga­ni­za­tion rad­i­cal­ly dis­torts real­i­ty.”
   • The author works for Samar­i­tan’s Purse, a Chris­t­ian relief agency.
7. Two viral clips from the same event (Char­lie Kirk’s memo­r­i­al ser­vice).
   • Eri­ka Kirk on Hus­band’s Assas­sin: “I for­give him.” (C‑SPAN, YouTube): two min­utes
   • “I hate my oppo­nent and I don’t want the best for them.” (C‑SPAN, YouTube): five min­utes (the famous bit is at about the one minute mark)
   • Watch them both before you read the arti­cles that com­ment on them. Hav­ing watched them, I think some com­men­ta­tors are sub­tly dis­tort­ing them. Watch for your­self, and then mull the respons­es.
   • Why MAGA Evan­gel­i­cals Can Cheer Love and Hate at the Same Time (David French, New York Times): “Many peo­ple who saw or read about the ral­ly were puz­zled by what they per­ceived as a con­tra­dic­tion. How can you cheer love and hate at the same time? How can you wor­ship Jesus and cheer such a base and gross descrip­tion of oth­er human beings, peo­ple who are cre­at­ed in the image of God? My reac­tion was dif­fer­ent. Final­ly, I thought, curi­ous Amer­i­cans who tuned in got to see MAGA the­ol­o­gy more com­plete­ly — and what they wit­nessed was the best and worst of MAGA Chris­tian­i­ty.”
   • The Biggest Tent (The Dis­patch): “The funer­al was what I thought it would be. Until Eri­ka Kirk spoke, and then it was some­thing else.… The last place you would look for grace in Amer­i­can pub­lic life in 2025 is at a Repub­li­can polit­i­cal ral­ly, espe­cial­ly one where the usu­al lust for ruth­less­ness has been juiced by wrath and grief. For Mrs. Kirk to muster it in this set­ting, at this moment, despite the sin­gu­lar anguish with which she’s been bur­dened, felt almost mirac­u­lous even to a non-believ­er like me.… I’ve heard of polit­i­cal ‘big tents,’ but I’ve nev­er heard of one big enough to accom­mo­date two moral sys­tems that aren’t just con­tra­dic­to­ry but irrec­on­cil­able. ‘Christ’s mes­sage, fol­lowed by its very antithe­sis,’ phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor Edward Fes­er wrote of the con­trast between Kirk’s and Trump’s remarks. ‘It’s almost as if the audi­ence is being put to a test.’ ”
   • Eri­ka Kirk and America’s Reli­gious Revival (Maya Sulkin, The Free Press): “By dawn, the lines to get into State Farm Sta­di­um stretched for blocks. Peo­ple camped out overnight to secure a place.… By mid-morn­ing, the 73,000-seat sta­di­um was full. Orga­niz­ers opened the are­na next door for over­flow, but even that quick­ly reached capac­i­ty. In total, an esti­mat­ed 200,000 peo­ple turned out—more than Mar­tin Luther King Jr.’s funer­al in 1968.”
   • Is Eri­ka Kirk the Future of MAGA? (Matthew Con­tinet­ti, The Free Press): “Nev­er had I seen some­one upstage Pres­i­dent Trump. It hap­pened Sun­day. Trump spoke for longer than Eri­ka. But she had already brought down the house. Her for­give­ness and hope moved the nation. Clear­ly Trump was mulling over her eulo­gy. When he sly­ly con­trast­ed his style with Charlie’s, Trump kid­ding­ly apol­o­gized. ‘I hate my oppo­nent and don’t want the best for them,’ he said. ‘Sor­ry, Eri­ka.’ When was the last time Trump apol­o­gized? Then he added, ‘Eri­ka, you can talk to me and the whole group, but maybe they can con­vince me that that’s not right, but I can’t stand my oppo­nent.’ Even the pres­i­dent can learn from Eri­ka Kirk.”
   • ‘I Hate My Oppo­nen­t’: Trump’s Remarks at Kirk Memo­r­i­al Dis­till His Pol­i­tics (Nick Catog­gio, New York Times): “When asked about the diver­gent mes­sages from the pres­i­dent and Mrs. Kirk, Karo­line Leav­itt, the White House press sec­re­tary, said on Mon­day that the pres­i­dent was ‘authen­ti­cal­ly himself.‘” 

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

• Meet the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize win­ners (Jen­nifer Ouel­lette, Ars Tech­ni­ca): “Diet sodas and oth­er zero-calo­rie drinks are a main­stay of the mod­ern diet, thanks to the devel­op­ment of arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers whose mol­e­cules can’t be metab­o­lized by the human body. The authors of this paper are intrigued by the notion of zero-calo­rie foods, which they believe could be achieved by increas­ing the sat­is­fy­ing vol­ume and mass of food with­out increas­ing the calo­ries. And they have just the addi­tive for that pur­pose: poly­te­tra­flu­o­roeth­yl­ene (PTFE), more com­mon­ly known as Teflon. Yes, the stuff they use on non­stick cook­ware. They insist that Teflon is inert, heat-resis­tant, imper­vi­ous to stom­ach acid, taste­less, cost-effec­tive, and avail­able in handy pow­der form for easy mix­ing into food. They rec­om­mend a ratio of three parts food to one part Teflon pow­der.”
  • I lowkey wan­na eat a teflon-stuffed meal now.
• Sheep (SMBC)
• ‘Very mean squir­rel’ seek­ing food has sent at least 2 peo­ple to the ER in a Cal­i­for­nia city (AP News)
• Sin­ful, Rebel­lious Home­school­er Stays Up Past 9:30 To Read Chron­i­cles Of Nar­nia (Baby­lon Bee)

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.