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
- God’s Spooks: Religion, Spying, and the Cold War (Matthew Avery Sutton, Church Life Journal): “Since its inception, the CIA has used missionaries and other religious activists for intelligence and espionage work; it has used religion as an effective propaganda tool, and its agents have even posed as clergy. CIA agents and religious activists managed to keep their partnerships mostly hidden until the 1970s. But in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, numerous journalists and then Congress began scrutinizing the agency more closely. They revealed to the world that the CIA had been employing missionaries to further its agenda and that some religious activists were receiving substantial rewards for their work on the government’s behalf. In fact, the CIA and religious activists have long collaborated to achieve numerous policy goals.”
- Super fascinating. My denomination receives specific mention: “The Assemblies of God, which had a large and active missionary outreach, quietly instructed workers to avoid CIA collaboration. However, church leaders did not want to go on record publicly against the CIA.”
- Report: More than 388 million Christians worldwide face ‘high levels’ of persecution (Gina Christian, OSV News): “More than 388 million Christians — or 1 in 7 believers worldwide — face ‘high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,’ according to a new report.… Specifically, Open Doors focuses on collecting data on Christian persecution in six key areas: restrictions or dangers on practicing faith in private, family, community, national and church life, as well as the levels of violence — mental, physical and sexual — Christians face in the 150 nations Open Doors monitors. Each area is scored, with each country then receiving an overall score out of 100 for the severity of Christian persecution, with scores of 81–100 designated as ‘extreme,’ 61–80 ‘very high’ and 41–60 ‘high.’”
- Not So Secular Sweden (Joel Halldorf, Comment): “In highly secular societies, zoomers tend to be more religious than their boomer parents. Nowhere, the study concluded, was that pattern clearer than in Sweden, once the poster child of secularism.… Sweden once set the global benchmark for secular rationality, and everybody expected the world to follow our path. Now the quiet stirrings of faith here in the north—more confirmations, new memberships, conversations once unthinkable—show that history has a way of humbling even the most confident narratives. Ironclad sociological theories often insist that the current moment is our inevitable future. But history seldom follows straight lines.”
- Christians, Let’s Stop Abusing Romans 13 (Russell Moore, Christianity Today): “Moreover, the use of Romans 13 as a refusal to question the morality of a use of force is, ironically enough, a violation of the passage. We might well ask, what would Paul have written if Romans 13 were addressed to the authorities rather than to those under their rule? Well, we actually know the answer, because the same Spirit who breathed out Romans 13 also breathed out John the Baptist’s instructions to tax collectors and soldiers. John told them not to extort money from anyone, implying that they would be held responsible for the misuse of their power (Luke 3:12–14). The same Spirit also favorably portrayed Paul’s interaction with the police who told him and Silas, on behalf of the magistrates, to leave quietly, to which Paul replied, ‘They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out’ (Acts 16:37).”
- Chinese Universities Surge in Global Rankings as U.S. Schools Slip (Mark Arsenault, New York Times): “The issue at top American universities is not falling production. Six prominent American schools that would have been in the top 10 in the first decade of the 2000s — the University of Michigan, the University of California, Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins, the University of Washington-Seattle, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University — are producing more research than they did two decades ago, according to the Leiden tallies. But production by the Chinese schools has risen far more.… [However,] a study has suggested that Chinese researchers have been boosting their citation rankings by citing one another more often than western researchers tend to cite other westerners.”
- How to stop the chaos of college sports (John Calipari, Washington Post): “There is no sustainable path in college athletics that doesn’t address these three things: First, student-athletes should have their opportunities for scholarships protected and get to compete against players who are their age. Second, transfer rules, which now allow players to leave one school for another as often as they’d like, need stability. This will help education remain the heart of colleges and universities. Third, protect the free market and rights of young people to fairly earn what their local markets can offer, which will require more revenue from teams.”
- Some reflections on ICE in Minnesota. There are many more floating around the web, and if you find one with good insights or a provocative perspective please let me know about it.
- I Joined Ice Watch (Olivia Reingold, The Free Press): “In the last six weeks, Minneapolis has become the site of the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history. Thousands of city residents have responded by joining various Signal groups whose main purpose is to find and disrupt ICE.… These individuals came from all walks of life. I counted at least five public school teachers, a divorce lawyer, two medical professionals, a former ballerina, and even one Minneapolis City Council member: Aurin Chowdhury, a progressive who was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America in 2023. One local nonprofit leader whose organization resettles refugees told me that the average participants in these Signal groups are church members, retirees, and parents.”
- Minneapolis Isn’t a Movie (Kat Rosenfield, The Free Press): “Around the same time that Renee Good was shot, a video circulated on TikTok of another confrontation between a group of agents who appear to be U.S. Marshals and an activist with a camera. The activist is a young- to middle-aged woman, as is one of the agents—and when the first woman mentions that her 6‑year-old child is in her car, the agent looks like she’s been electrocuted. ‘You have a child in your car?’ she says, her voice pitching sharply upward, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Get your child off the scene! This is an active police scene!’ It could not be clearer, in this moment, that these women inhabit two different realities. One understands herself to be in a dangerous, high-stakes situation; the other thinks it’s all a sort of game.”
- The Goon Squad (Nick Cattogio, The Dispatch): “Why on earth is the administration announcing its operations before they happen?… It makes no sense as a strategy for effective law enforcement—but lots of sense as a pageant of domineering law-and-order assertiveness. The Trump administration wants confrontation. Its top priority isn’t to unobtrusively detain and remove the most dangerous immigrants, as the deportation numbers prove. Its priority is to intimidate its cultural enemies with heavy-handed displays of authority and promises of official impunity for those who carry them out. That’s why ICE wears masks, a privilege even U.S. combat troops don’t enjoy, and why some agents are kitted out in camouflage despite the fact that they’re not trying to ‘blend in’ to their urban surroundings. (There’s nothing stealthy about ICE.) They’re not enforcing the law, they’re going into battle. And their anonymity signals, to you and to them, that no one will hold them accountable for what happens during that battle if you make trouble.”
- One State, Two Very Different Views of Minneapolis (Sheila M. Eldred, Elizabeth A. Stawicki, Ann Hinga Klein and Kurt Streeter, New York Times): “Ms. Good’s death was tragic, they said. Horrific. But they also said that she had asked for trouble. ‘You obey the law officer,’ a man in a veteran’s ball cap said, ‘and question it later.’ This is the divide, in a single sentence. In Minneapolis, protesters saw an innocent woman killed by a federal agent and took to the streets. At ‘the Pickle,’ the regulars saw a woman who should have complied.”
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.