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
- You Can’t Outwork Your Fork (Mike Glenn, Substack): “More and more people are recognizing we’re living in Babylon. How do we live in Babylon? By taking responsibility for our spiritual nutrition. Remember what Daniel did in the first chapter of his book? He refused to eat from the king’s table. Remember, he was a captive. He had no control over his life and yet, he took responsibility for what he ate. Likewise, as Christ followers, we have to take control over the things that enter our minds and hearts. We have to be responsible for our spiritual nutrition. We have to be intentional about what we read, what we watch, what we talk about and what we think about.… You’re in control of your mind and your heart. Feed them well. After all, you can’t outwork your fork.”
- Olympic thoughts:
- Alysa Liu completes incredible comeback to win gold in figure skating (Les Carpenter, Washington Post): “Later, as she stood in a room beneath the stands, Liu recounted her wait through Sakamoto and Nakai’s performances, telling how much she enjoys watching them skate and was hoping they would skate really well before the world. She was asked if she wanted the gold at that point. ‘I don’t need this,’ she said, looking down at the medal around her neck, which matched the new gold dress she ordered for the Olympic free skate. ‘What I needed was the stage, and I got that, so I was all good. No matter what happened, you would have been fine. If that was a problem, if I fell on every jump, I would still be wearing this dress.’ .…it was hard to know whether the reality would ever hit her. It might not matter. She was thrilled she had skated well; she was thrilled she had two new dresses for the Olympics and a third for Saturday night’s Olympic gala; she was thrilled her family got to watch her skate.… Winning an Olympic gold medal seemed very far down the list of what was important to her at that point.”
- Wholesome, commendable, and encouraging. Plus look at the sheer joy on her face in the second photo of the piece (the top-down one).
- What Eileen Gu Has Done is Totally Ordinary, Usually Invites Zero Controversy, and Has Routinely Benefitted the United States (Freddie deBoer, Substack): “What’s striking is how selective the concern is. When foreign-born athletes become Americans in time to compete for Team USA, we don’t suddenly become textual literalists about nationality statutes, we just celebrate the medal haul. Only when affiliation flows the other way do we discover a newfound reverence for purity in citizenship law. The practice of athletes competing for countries other than their birthplace isn’t a scandal; it’s a cornerstone of modern Olympic sports!”
- Alysa Liu completes incredible comeback to win gold in figure skating (Les Carpenter, Washington Post): “Later, as she stood in a room beneath the stands, Liu recounted her wait through Sakamoto and Nakai’s performances, telling how much she enjoys watching them skate and was hoping they would skate really well before the world. She was asked if she wanted the gold at that point. ‘I don’t need this,’ she said, looking down at the medal around her neck, which matched the new gold dress she ordered for the Olympic free skate. ‘What I needed was the stage, and I got that, so I was all good. No matter what happened, you would have been fine. If that was a problem, if I fell on every jump, I would still be wearing this dress.’ .…it was hard to know whether the reality would ever hit her. It might not matter. She was thrilled she had skated well; she was thrilled she had two new dresses for the Olympics and a third for Saturday night’s Olympic gala; she was thrilled her family got to watch her skate.… Winning an Olympic gold medal seemed very far down the list of what was important to her at that point.”
- A Chinese official’s use of ChatGPT accidentally revealed a global intimidation operation (Sean Lyngaas, CNN): “The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident’s social media account taken down.”
- “Help! All the Kids are Becoming Catholic/Orthodox” (Austin Suggs, Substack): “Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy don’t just offer a way of _seeing_ the world, they offer a _culture to immerse yourself in_ that so many people feel devoid of. I take it as no coincidence that the rise of interest in traditional Christianity coincided with the rise of interest in sites like ancestry.com or growing nationalism—both of which, in their own way, are trying to offer people a sense of shared, communal identity rooted in the past. To focus on doctrine to the exclusion of communal identity when investigating why people convert would be folly. Protestants must have an answer to this if they want to keep people.”
- Against witchcraft (Aria Schrecker, Substack): “Overall, using your intuition is massively overrated in romance. You’ve been trained on a lot of bad data and it’s made you go haywire. You’re better off courting like you’re arranging your own marriage, not like you’re starring in a rom com.”
- Much sensible (albeit non-Christian) wisdom in this article. Although the first four paragraphs are kinda unhinged.
- I decided to look up the other entries in this series. AMAZING. 9/10 recommend with the exception of her second article which I skipped for being less relevant to likely readers of this sentence.
- How to find a husband (and why you should want one) (Aria Schrecker, Substack): “So I got married recently. I’ve decided to take his name, so this blog is going to be now under the name Aria Schrecker.… Finding a spouse should be the number one priority in your life. The right partner will make every other goal in your life easier to achieve. If your priority is your career, you will probably be more successful with a well-chosen spouse. In some cases this will be a partner in a similar field and you guys can pass each other networks and gossip. In some cases you may prefer someone who is willing to put their career on the backburner and support you by taking care of everything else in your life. If you’re aiming for success in politics, or the arts, or you work tirelessly for a really important altruistic cause, then marrying someone with a steady income will make you able to take the risks you need to.”
- The wall is real but not for the reasons you think (Aria Schrecker, Substack): “Every day that passes, eligible bachelors in your age range start dating the women they are going to marry. Men get spit back out onto the apps for three main reasons. (1) There’s something wrong with him/ (2) There’s something wrong with her. (3) Bad luck. As you get older the men who are attractive, want to get married, and don’t have ruinous personality problems get snapped up. What’s left are the men who can’t get girlfriends, aren’t interested in serious dating, and/or have been serially rejected by women after getting into relationships with them. Obviously lots of single older men are still marriage-worthy. Maybe they’ve had a bit of a glow up, matured over the years, or just had some unfortunate sources of incompatibility. But the more time passes, the less likely this becomes.”
- It’s Not His Fault He Used the N‑Word (Kat Rosenfield, The Free Press): “As controversies go, this one was immaculate. Unlike previous incidents of this type, there was no risk that the alleged hate speech would turn out to be an accidental malapropism, or an outright fabrication, or, as in one memorable case from 2021, a man who was misheard while trying to get the attention of the mascot for the Colorado Rockies, a purple polka-dotted triceratops named Dinger. This was an actual utterance of the actual no-no word, caught on actual camera and broadcast on the actual BBC. If ever there was an ironclad case for cancellation—! Ah, but wait: Remember, John Davidson has Tourette’s syndrome, which also makes this an actual case of the phenomenon colloquially known as the Oppression Olympics.”
- The twist at the end is stunning. I won’t spoil it. In a tweet about it, the author said, “When I learned why Davidson was in the audience my soul left my body.”
- On a personal note: one of my good friends in college had Tourette’s like this. I can attest that bro did highly offensive stuff on the regular that I guarantee he had absolutely zero control over nor any poor intention behind.
- Bigger is not always better (Will Gibbs, Stanford Daily): “She lived an ordinary life. Had kids, divorced, worked, retired, babysat and eventually passed away. But, her impact was anything but ordinary. She ran one of the few preschools in my hometown for twenty years. She delivered donations every Monday of the month to the local food pantry. She traveled with my church’s youth group to rehouse roofs and build ADA accessible housing for less fortunate people in our area.… When she passed away, my pastor started getting stopped in the streets. Everybody everywhere — even people he had walked by for years without a conversation — wanted to personally give their sympathies and express how big of an impact she had on them.”
- Recommended by a student.
Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen
- 10 Amazing Perks Of Becoming A Protestant (Babylon Bee)
- 10 Amazing Perks Of Becoming A Catholic (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.