TGFI, Volume 560: faith still winning 7–1

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. 7‑to‑1: The striking scientific link between religion and better health (Baughman et al, Christian Post): “In a new review from the Wheatley Institute, we analyzed findings drawn from Oxford University’s three Handbooks of Religion and Health, covering the best existing research in the field. Of 1,069 high-quality studies on 15 physical-health domains, 876 found positive associations between religious involvement and physical health and 124 found negative ones. A roughly 7‑to‑1 ratio. The strongest signals come from exactly the areas that American medicine spends the most time and money on. Among high-quality studies of cigarette smoking, positive findings outnumber negative ones by about 90 to 1. On substance abuse and addiction, 43 to 1. On mortality and longevity, 15 to 1.” 
  2. Bench-Press and Be Baptized (Josh Code, The Free Press): “The morning was for contemplation; the afternoon for competition. At one o’clock, referees appeared, wearing striped black-and-white shirts, to judge a penalty-kick contest, a game of volleyball with a 10-pound ball, a mini-Hyrox race, and a long-range game of cornhole that involved a slingshot. There was a man named Ed wearing a cowboy hat, tabulating scores. The men competed with their weeknight groups, each one marked by shirts displaying team names (Sons of Thunder, Light of Authority, Frontline Men of Faith), but by the beginning of the first event—a three-man carry relay race—many a shirt had already come off.… I had not in recent memory been around this much testosterone and did not anticipate I would again soon. The presence of the Holy Spirit had been hard to discern amid the pyrotechnics. But I did hear that several guys got baptized in big steel tubs at the end of the weekend.”
  3. The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes (Eli Saslow, visuals by Erin Schaff, New York Times): “ ‘I miss the days when it was a grainy video of a shark swimming up the street,’ Farid said one night, as he sat on the back deck of his house with his wife, Emily Cooper. He put down his phone and poured a whiskey. ‘The technology is getting so good. It takes me to a dark place.’ ‘Because you can’t tell just by looking anymore?’ Cooper asked. ‘Because nobody can,’ Farid said. ‘I don’t trust anything. Every image I see, I’m drawing lines for shadows and doing geometry in my head, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s over. Within a year or two, our whole visual system will be utterly useless.’ ‘And then what? You give up? You retire?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said.”
  4. The Antiprophet (Maggie Phillips, Tablet Magazine): “Rather than demanding perfect orthodoxy upfront, Burge argues that churches should make room for doubters, seekers, and partial believers because the act of participation itself carries social and spiritual values. ‘The church actually can serve a dual purpose. It can save souls, but it can also save society,’ he said. His advice for spiritual seekers is similar to his counsel to church leaders: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. ‘Find a church that you don’t hate,’ he said, ‘And just go there. It’s not that hard.’ ” 
  5. Protests Are Not Emotional Support Groups (Dan Storyev and Maria Kuznetsova, Persuasion): “If Americans want to actually enact change, they seriously need to re-think their strategy. Take it from us: we both grew up in Putin’s Russia and saw well-intentioned protests fail to stop an aspiring despot. We know that authoritarians are typically unwilling to respond to the kind of protest No Kings exemplifies: loud, raucous, and ultimately harmless. These ‘festival protests,’ as we call them, are convenient for their participants. They are fun and usually do not require much sacrifice or risk. They also look good on TV and TikTok feeds. But they often achieve next to nothing.… protests in general are becoming less effective. In the 1990s, around 65% of non-violent movements succeeded in overthrowing a dictator. In the late 2010s, that figure was down to 34%. Violent movements are even less effective—their success rate is currently around 8%, down from a peak of more than 40% in the 1970s.”
  6. The Evangelical Business Mindset (Aaron Renn, Substack): “The overwhelming evangelical theological and missional focus is on saving souls. This lends itself to thinking of business as primarily about making money to fund missions, reinforcing the sweaty startup mindset. Business is not seen as culture-shaping in its own right. Then add to this the way that evangelicals approach church as an entrepreneurial endeavor. The very way evangelicals do church can form them into a sweaty startup business mindset. The net result is a lot of evangelical money and success, but not much cultural power.” 
    • I continue to think Renn underestimates the extent of an evangelical elite, but he makes several solid observations in this article.
  7. Youth Group Taught Me Ideas Are Dangerous (Austin Suggs, Substack): “Still, in my experience, most people walk away from youth group with a theology consisting in three main ideas: Jesus loves you, don’t have sex before you get married, and be careful going to college because your professors are going to try to make you an atheist.” 
    • (recommended by a student)

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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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.

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