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
- ‘The Idea of the Beautiful Is a Signature of God’: A Q&A With Marilynne Robinson (Peter Wehner, New York Times): “Calvin says there is not a blade of grass that God created that was not meant to ravish us with its beauty. The idea of the beautiful is a signature of God, I think for Calvin and Jonathan Edwards and many other people. This distillation of the joy, the sensory joy, of being among things in the world. I think the loss of beauty is a loss of an intellectual discipline, which science never lost because scientists always have the right to say a formula is beautiful. We in the outside world, we’ve abandoned the word and the concept. It’s suggestive that the scientists use it.”
- Performing Gender, Left and Right (Richard Hanania, Substack): “How each side behaves is a metaphor for its strengths and weaknesses as a movement. Conservatives fundamentally get human nature and are more in tune with it, but tend to indulge in their instincts and act like idiots. Liberals are thoughtful and polite but place a high priority on emotional safety and avoiding dangerous or uncomfortable situations.… These personality and aesthetic differences are central to political divides. So much of politics is who you know, and it’s difficult to go somewhere in a movement if you don’t get along with the people in it. Elites therefore sort according to personality in addition to ideology.”
- Why Evangelicalism Is Built for TikTok (River Page, The Free Press): “Of course evangelicals went viral on TikTok. The medium is perfect for the message; but also, the message is perfect for the medium. Catholics have art and ancient rituals. Evangelicals have rhetoric and emotion—the kind of stuff that travels far and wide on a platform where you have 15 seconds to grab people’s attention.”
- Craft Is the Antidote to Slop. (Will Manidis, Substack): “From Genesis, man enters not a paradise without labor but a world of intentional creation. The LORD God places man in the Garden of Eden ‘to dress it and to keep it’ (Genesis 2:15) establishing labor not as punishment but as sacred vocation. This original calling invites us to co-create the Kingdom, tending and developing the world with intention and care. Our fundamental purpose is not consumption but participation in the ongoing work of creation. The serpent’s temptation represents the first shortcut in human history.… Humanity’s first sin was, in part, choosing the easy shortcut over the meaningful process – preferring effortless gain to the demanding but fulfilling work of tending the garden.”
- Realizing a desired family size: when should couples start? (Habbema et al, Human Reproduction): “Without IVF, couples should start no later than age 32 years for a [90% chance of a] one-child family, at 27 years for a two-child family, and at 23 years for three children. When couples accept 75% or lower chances of family completion, they can start 4–11 years later.”
- An alumnus passed this along to me and I found it fascinating.
- He’s Christian. In Nigeria, That Meant Torture and Prison. (Josh Code, The Free Press): “What came to my mind when I was in detention was that death could be the final result. I knew the consequences of helping Muslims who have converted to Christianity—and also the fact that the police were looking for them. So death was what was on my mind.… From the point of my detention to the point where I was released, I was constantly praying and fasting. Because of the way I was praying, the other men detained with me thought I was a pastor and were even calling me ‘reverend’ and asking me to remember them in my prayers, so that the Lord would also deliver them from captivity. Mind you, they were Muslims, not Christians—their detention was not on account of their faith.”
- There Are Only Two Gametes (Carol Hooven, Tablet): “We call animals that produce sperm ‘male’ and those that produce eggs ‘female.’ That’s about it. The bottom line is that there are two gamete types and thus two sexes. There are no other sexes, no other reproductive categories. Among mainstream evolutionary biologists, there is simply no disagreement on these basic points: The ‘gametic view’ is the established orthodoxy of our field. It applies across sexually reproducing animals and accommodates all the complexity and variation within the sexes. It holds in nonreproductively viable animals—like postmenopausal me—that don’t produce gametes; it holds in male seahorses that get pregnant; in clownfish who change from male to female (first producing sperm and then eggs); in females who identify as male (trans men) and take male levels of testosterone and have a deep voice and a thick, bushy beard.”
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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.