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
- I Might Owe My Students an Apology About Josephus (John Dickson, The Gospel Coalition): “Flavius Josephus was a Jewish aristocrat (AD 37–100) who witnessed firsthand the great Jewish war with Rome.… I’ve taught about Josephus’s life and works for more than 20 years—first in secular settings like Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, and now at Wheaton College. But Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T. C. Schmidt, associate professor of religious studies at Fairfield University, has forced me to rewrite my lectures—and it might just have changed my mind. It seems that a controversial passage about Jesus’s resurrection might be original after all.”
- A donor has sponsored free PDF downloads of the book the above review is about. You can get your copy at https://josephusandjesus.com/purchase-page/ (follow the link on the page to a free download, it will take you to the OUP book website where you’ll need to click the PDF link above the abstract and save it to your computer after it opens in your browser tab). This is a great deal — the book retails for $130!
- My hope for all is that the scholarship in the book gives you even greater confidence that your hope in Christ is firmly grounded.
- Dying to Give (Justin Powell, Substack): “Money doesn’t carry the same power in every decade. Most families give it at the stage of life when it accomplishes the least. A dollar at 25 can change a destiny. A dollar at 55 barely moves the needle.… The families who steward wealth well think longer, plan earlier, and talk more openly. They treat resources as something to be shepherded across generations, not hidden behind emotional walls or released only after the funeral. And because of that clarity, their children make wiser decisions, earlier, with better outcomes.”
- a gen z guide to fixing your doom-pilled brain (Steph Stiner, Substack): “whenever i hear a young person confidently assert that humanity is cooked, my first instinct is to ask for their screen time report. because, yes, if you spend more time scrolling than you do participating in real life, it’s actually quite reasonable to conclude that we’re hanging on by a thread.”
- Lack of capitalization in original. The author appears to be 0% Christian, but offers some very practical wisdom.
- I appreciate the above article so much that I looked for some of her other content and this one was also solid. a gen z guide to enjoying dating (Steph Stiner, Substack): “a wise woman once said never to go grocery shopping while you’re hungry, or you’ll end up with a cart full of junk food. or maybe i made that up? who’s to say. regardless, the principle still stands: don’t date while you’re desperate for someone else to fulfill you, or you’ll end up with nothing but high cortisol.”
- Morally judging famous and semi-famous people (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “I know some reasonable number of famous people, and I just do not trust the media accounts of their failings and flaws. I trust even less the barbs I read on the internet. I am not claiming to know the truth about them (most of them, at least), but I can tell when the people writing about them know even less.… If by any chance you are wondering how to make yourself smarter, learn how to appreciate almost everybody, and keep on cultivating that skill.”
- Wikipedia Editors Are Helping Iran Rewrite History (Ashley Rindsberg, The Free Press): “An investigation into Wikipedia editing patterns reveals a yearslong, coordinated campaign to sanitize the Islamic Republic’s human rights record. According to a 2024 Times investigation, entries have been systematically edited to downgrade Iranian atrocities.”
- Wikipedia is a case study in nerd naivete, and I speak as one of the previously-naive nerds. If you create something influential, people will seek to co-opt that influence. That means that whatever rules you create will be gamed. Wikipedia is still useful, but you have to know that it is rife with agenda-driven editors. Virtually everything religiously, politically, or morally charged is being edited so as to give you a biased perspective.
- Schrödinger’s cat just got bigger: quantum physicists create largest ever ‘superposition’ (Elizabeth Gibney, Nature): “A team based at the University of Vienna put individual clusters of around 7,000 atoms of sodium metal some 8 nanometres wide into a superposition of different locations, each spaced 133 nanometres apart. Rather than shoot through the experimental set up like a billiard ball, each chunky cluster behaved like a wave, spreading out into a superposition of spatially distinct paths and then interfering to form a pattern researchers could detect.”
- The lure of Rome (Emma Freire, World): “When young Protestants move to Washington, it’s usually not long before they start meeting smart, influential conservatives who believe Rome is the one true church. Like many of her peers, Smith began to ask herself: Should I swim the Tiber? Roman Catholics exiting their church are disproportionately driving declining rates of Christianity in America. And far more Catholics convert to Protestant denominations than vice versa. But you wouldn’t know it if you looked only at places like Washington and some influential university campuses. A small but vocal group of Protestants is converting to Catholicism—and in even smaller numbers to Eastern Orthodoxy. They tend to be ambitious, highly educated, and well connected.”
- I believe I have mentioned this before, but I intend to write a defense of low-church Protestantism for XA sometime. It may wait until I finish my doctoral studies, though.
Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen
- ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Helped a Missionary Talk About Jesus (Jennifer Park, Christianity Today): “The Korean and Korean American Christians CT interviewed appreciate how KPop Demon Hunters’ widespread acclaim has enabled them to share the gospel more effectively.… Introducing Christ to people in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian country has also felt easier thanks to increasing interest in Korean culture, Park said. Once, his church held a summer event in its courtyard where a short-term missions team from South Korea taught local youth simple K‑pop dance moves and how to cook Korean dishes.”
- Lorem Ipsum Finally Translated, And It Is Shockingly Problematic (Stanford Flipside)
- Pentecostal Church Doesn’t Notice Riot Is Occurring (Babylon Bee): “Church membership at Golgotha Holy Fire Victory Pentecostal was reportedly overjoyed at the influx of visitors who joined them to speak in strange tongues, shove each other, and roll all over the floor. Church leadership called it the most successful service they’d ever had.”
- As a Pentecostal this made me laugh. Normally with the Bee I just read the headlines. The text of this one has got some zing as well.
- President Trump’s Chosen Artist? A Christian Speed Painter. (Zachary Small, New York Times): “The painter, Vanessa Horabuena, spent the next 10 minutes making an image inspired by the Shroud of Turin, contouring Jesus’s eyebrows and nose from a yellow cross that she initially painted at the center of her black canvas. The president returned to the stage, promised to sign the artwork himself, and the painting was quickly auctioned for $2.75 million to a couple who promised to split their donation between St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the local sheriff’s department. The artwork’s sale easily set a new benchmark for speed painting, a once-obscure competitive art form that has gained popularity over the last decade in Southern beauty pageants, Midwest corporate events, basketball halftime shows and church gatherings.”
- If you’ve never seen someone do this live, it’s actually quite stunning.
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.