Author: Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 194

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Related to the mosque attack in New Zealand:
    • Mass murderers crave publicity. Maybe giving them less would be helpful. (Megan McArdle, Washington Post): “Many commentators, wondering why mass shootings became so common in the late 20th century, have pointed to various cultural and economic developments. They might better have pointed to cable news, which ensured that disaffected losers with hypertrophied egos and shriveled souls became the nonstop talk of the nation — in every nation, and most of the world’s 6,500 languages. The wall‐to‐wall coverage teaches men who may not be able to get a job or a girlfriend that, nonetheless, in something under an hour, they can become Genghis Khan.”
    • The New Zealand Attack and the Global Challenge of Far‐Right Extremism (Seth Jones, Center for Strategic and International Studies): “Based on the globalization of far‐right extremism, the Christchurch attack—and the attacker—needs to be understood as part of a growing international trend that requires more attention and greater investment from governments and the private sector.”
    • White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots (Adam Serwer, The Atlantic): “A popular myth of American history is that racism is the exclusive province of the South. The truth is that much of the nativist energy in the U.S. came from old‐money elites in the Northeast, and was also fueled by labor struggles in the Pacific Northwest, which had stirred a wave of bigotry that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.” (this is not directly related to the shooting but is timely)
  2. An MIT Professor Meets the Author of All Knowledge (Rosalind Picard, Christianity Today): “I once thought I was too smart to believe in God. Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos—the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know. Today I walk humbly, having received the most undeserved grace. I walk with joy, alongside the most amazing Companion anyone could ask for, filled with desire to keep learning and exploring.”
  3. The Industrial Revolution of Shame (Salvatore Scibona, New York Times): “We are undergoing an industrial revolution in shame. New technologies have radically expanded our ability to make and distribute a product. The product is our judgment of one another. As in past industrial revolutions, the mass manufacture and use of a product previously available to just a few or in small amounts has given us the power to do harm at a previously unthinkable scale.”
  4. The Supreme Court Is Quietly Changing the Status of Religion in American Life (Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker): “What the conservatives are doing, in effect, is reading the establishment clause out of the Constitution, and turning almost every issue into a free‐exercise case. In this reading, any denial of government benefits to a church can be seen as discrimination which amounts to a denial of free exercise—and the conservatives are making the same move with respect to individuals.”
    • Related: The Court and the Cross (Linda Greenhouse, New York Times): “The appetite of the two newest justices, Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Gorsuch, for cases that would enlarge the constitutional playing field for religion appears nearly boundless.”
  5. If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will (David Frum, The Atlantic): “Demagogues don’t rise by talking about irrelevant issues. Demagogues rise by talking about issues that matter to people, and that more conventional leaders appear unwilling or unable to address: unemployment in the 1930s, crime in the 1960s, mass immigration now. Voters get to decide what the country’s problems are. Political elites have to devise solutions to those problems. If difficult issues go unaddressed by responsible leaders, they will be exploited by irresponsible ones.” I highlighted a piece by Frum with a similar theme back in issue 175. This is a very thoughtful article.
  6. The Scandalous Academy: Social Science in Service of Identity Politics (Scott Yenor, Public Discourse): “Let us not ignore the most disturbing finding: that men who have sex with men are expected to live twelve years less than those who do not. This mirrors other studies conducted in British Columbia (which see an eight‐ to twenty‐year difference) and Denmark (which sees a smaller difference of four to twelve years). M. Ryan Baker’s ‘Gay and Lesbian Health Disparities: Evidence and Recommendations’ in a 2008 issue of the Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice yielded similar results. To put that in perspective, smoking decreases life expectancy only ten years.” The author is a professor of political science at Boise State and the article is focused on biases and blind spots in the social sciences more than on the specific issue highlighted in the excerpt.
  7. No Hate Left Behind (Thomas Edsall, New York Times): “Just over 42 percent of the people in each party view the opposition as ‘downright evil.’ In real numbers, this suggests that 48.8 million voters out of the 136.7 million who cast ballots in 2016 believe that members of opposition party are in league with the devil.”
    • Related: Partisan Hate Is Becoming a National Crisis (David French, National Review): “I wonder where [partisan hatred] would be if our nation hadn’t been extraordinarily lucky in the last two years. Yes, lucky. Imagine our national culture if the congressional baseball shooter hadn’t been immediately confronted by two brave Capitol Police officers. Imagine a nation where the Charlottesville terrorist kept plowing through the ranks of protesters, or where the Trump superfan bomber actually succeeded in making functioning explosives.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Does The Bible Support Slavery? (a lecture given by the warden of Tyndale House at Cambridge University, the link is to the video with notes) and Does God Condone Slavery In The Bible? (Part One – Old Testament) and also Part Two – New Testament (longer pieces from Glenn Miller at Christian Thinktank). All three are quite helpful. (first shared in volume 76)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 193

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Genesis of the Tech Industry, and Vice Versa (Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion): “In the Book of Genesis, the underlying model of economics is a pretty optimistic one, and that is another way in which Western history draws upon its Judeo‐Christian roots.” Fascinating.
  2. Marc Edwards Is a Sad Victim of Our Modern Political Era (Kevin Drum, Mother Jones): “…just as he had honestly exposed Flint’s problems in the first place, he also continued to honestly report the results of the intervention. When the water was once again safe, he said so—and that turned him from a hero into a pariah.” How have I not heard this? I was talking with a friend last week about how shocking it is that the water in Flint is still unsafe.
  3. Why Did Evangelicals Flock to Trump? Existential Fear. (AJ Nolte, The Bulwark): “Donald Trump appeared at a time during which many evangelicals’ rising expectations had turned, rather rapidly, into existential fear. Trump was uniquely positioned to exploit that moment and win over evangelicals. Yet while that support is very real, I also think it is shallower and more conditional than it appears.” Dr. Nolte is a political science professor at Regent University.
    • Very much related: The Indecent‐American Community (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): “Remind me again why Christians vote for Trump, despite his personal corruption? You think it might have something to do with the fact that we know what the Democrats have planned for us?”
    • Related to the above, but not so much to the initial link: When being a Christian isn’t “decent” anymore (Denny Burk, personal blog): “…it appears as a matter of course that it is open season on Christians who dare to affirm what the Bible teaches about sexual ethics. This is the new reality for Christians who hold the line on biblical sexual ethics, and I don’t see any signs of things letting up. On the contrary, this kind of open animus only seems to be spreading.”
  4. “Gay” vs “Same‐Sex Attraction”: A Dialogue (Greg Coles & Rachel Gilson, The Center For Faith, Sexuality, and Gender): “Both Greg and Rachel believe in a historically Christian view of marriage and sexual relationships. Rachel does not identify as gay or lesbian, even though she experiences same‐sex attraction. Greg does identify as gay, preferring the term over ‘same‐sex attracted.’” This is an introductory article that links to a seven‐part series. It is shorter than it sounds (the second‐to‐last article is fairly long, however). Recommended.
    • Related: The Christian Debate Over Sexual Identity (Sam Allberry, Desiring God): “As a Christian, one of the key things for me is realizing that identity as Christians is not something that we discover in ourselves, nor is it something we create. It’s something we receive and are given by the only person who can know our actual identity, which is the God who made us. So my identity as a Christian comes from the fact that I’ve been created by God and redeemed by him through the saving work of Jesus.” This is a bit older.
  5. I’m a Journalist. Apparently, I’m Also One of America’s “Top Doctors.” (Marshall Allen, ProPublica): “I don’t have a medical degree, and I’m not a physician. But I am an investigative journalist who specializes in health care. So I leaned forward in my seat with some anticipation when I returned the call last year. I spoke to a cheerful saleswoman named Anne at a company on New York’s Long Island that hands out the Top Doctor Awards. For some reason, she believed I was a physician and, even better, worthy of one of their awards. Puzzled and amused, I took notes.”
  6. Trans Men Erase Women (Charlotte Allen, First Things): “Male‐to‐female transgender athletes are vanishingly few in number (like male‐to‐female trans people in general), but as the above examples indicate, when they compete, they pose a crushing existential threat to women’s sports. That is because the very existence of women’s sports is predicated, as Martina Navratilova recognized, on the now‐highly politically incorrect observation that the two sexes are radically different physically.”
  7. The Pell Affair: Australia Is Now On Trial (George Weigel, First Things): “If it is not reversed on appeal, that false verdict will constitute a new indictment: the indictment of a legal system that could not bring itself to render justice in the face of public hysteria, political vendetta, and media aggression.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have The world will only get weirder (Steven Coast, personal blog): “We fixed all the main reasons aircraft crash a long time ago. Sometimes a long, long time ago. So, we are left with the less and less probable events.” The piece is a few years old so the examples are dated, but it remains very intriguing. (first shared in volume 67)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 192

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Bible Says Jesus Was Real. What Other Proof Exists? (Christopher Klein, History.com): “Within a few decades of his lifetime, Jesus was mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians in passages that corroborate portions of the New Testament that describe the life and death of Jesus.”
  2. Jesus, Mary, and Joe Jonas (Jonathan Parks‐Ramage, Medium): “How, in famously liberal Hollywood and among statistically progressive millennials, had good old‐fashioned evangelism [sic] gained popularity? In this context, a church like Reality L.A. seemed like something that could never work. But that evening, as I reflected on the troubled actress and the psychic brutalities inflicted by the entertainment industry, it occurred to me that I had underestimated Hollywood’s biggest product: lost souls.”
    • Highly recommended. Stories like this are catnip for me. The author is gay, a fact which weighs heavily in his reporting. A friend passed this my way, and I remind you that I always welcome such suggestions.
  3. Conservative Christians Just Retook the United Methodist Church (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “In the final hours of the conference on Tuesday, the debate turned acrimonious: One delegate alleged, without clear evidence, that people at the conference were bribing others for votes. Another speaker’s mic was silenced when he threatened to filibuster any vote before the end of the day. And the debate came to an abrupt halt: Delegates had to clear out of the conference hall so that it could be turned over for a monster‐truck rally.”
    • That final sentence, while factual, feels like a metaphor for something.
    • I predict the victorious traditionalists in the UMC will be far more magnanimous toward churches that wish to leave than the revisionists in other denominations have been to their vanquished (I’m looking at you, Episcopal Church).
  4. The Trauma Floor (Casey Newton, The Verge): “One [Facebook content moderator] walks the floor promoting the idea that the Earth is flat. A former employee told me he has begun to question certain aspects of the Holocaust. Another former employee, who told me he has mapped every escape route out of his house and sleeps with a gun at his side, said: ‘I no longer believe 9/11 was a terrorist attack.’”
  5. Black men are less religious than black women, but more religious than white women and men (Kiana Cox and Jeff Diamant, Pew Research Center): “About seven‐in‐ten (69%) black men say religion is very important to them, compared with 80% of black women. But black men place more importance on religion than white women (55%) and Hispanic women (65%), according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study.”
    • I doubt many antireligious people think of themselves as racist, so they should realize that their attempts to erase religion from the public square disproportionately harm black people.
  6. ‘Every day was about survival’ : Inside the graduate student affordability crisis (Charlie Curnin, Stanford Daily): “…when Shalev Marom wakes up with only $18 in her bank account, she finds it hard to be excited about her financial situation. Shalev Marom, who relies on picking produce from campus trees to sustain herself, eats just one full meal a day…. At Stanford, Shalev Marom lives in the cheapest housing option open to her — and as an international student on a J‐1 visa, she is subject to strict federal laws that regulate any additional income she could receive from further employment. In each pay period — roughly two‐weeks long — she says she currently receives around $200 to $300 from her research assistantship, after the deduction of housing costs and University fees.”
    • This is heartbreaking. If you know a Stanford student who can’t afford to eat, let me know. We can help.
  7. Mainstream Media Blacks Out The Democrats’ Infanticide Vote (David Harsyani, The Federalist): “So I was going to have a little fun at the expense of CNN this morning, contrasting the news site’s headline for the Democrats’ gun restriction bill—’House to vote on guns background check bill with bipartisan support’—which has garnered exactly four Republican co‐sponsors, with its headline for the Sen. Ben Sasse’s anti‐infanticide bill, which I was certain would be solely about the “GOP” despite having four Democrat senators voting to move the bill forward. Turns out, it was even better. There was nothing to contrast because, as far as I can tell, CNN doesn’t feature a single story on their website regarding the Democratic Party blocking of Sasse’s Born‐Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have saved newborn babies who survive abortion attempts from negligent homicide.”
    • A survey of the results of a Google News search confirms that this bill received almost no reporting coverage — almost all of the hits are opinion pieces.
    • Related: Ben Sasse Heightens the Contradictions (Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy): “The days in which “safe, legal, and rare,” could appeal to a wide swathe of Americans are over. For pro‐lifers, abortion is the taking of innocent life, a thing which simply should not be legal or should only be legal in the most extreme cases. For ‘reproductive justice’ advocates, the right to legal abortion is about protecting the autonomy of human persons, of preserving the unencumbered choice of women whose choice would otherwise be naturally encumbered in ways that a man’s is not simply because of their ability to bear children.”
    • Related: The Abortion Debate Needs Moral Lament (Michael Wear, The Atlantic): “After decades of earnest attempts to find some common ground on this most tender and personal issue—think of Senators Ted Kennedy and Sam Brownback’s work on a Down Syndrome registry, bipartisan support for the Hyde Amendment, and President Obama’s first‐term appeal for efforts to reduce the number of women seeking abortions—that impulse has been virtually eradicated among elected officials.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have How Can I Learn To Receive – And Give – Criticism In Light Of The Cross? (Justin Taylor, Gospel Coalition): “A believer is one who identifies with all that God affirms and condemns in Christ’s crucifixion. In other words, in Christ’s cross I agree with God’s judgment of me; and in Christ’s cross I agree with God’s justification of me. Both have a radical impact on how we take and give criticism.” This is based on a longer article (4 page PDF). (first shared in volume 63)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 191

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Why Hollywood megachurches like Hillsong hide their true teachings (Drew Goins, Washington Post): “Celebrity megachurches have every incentive to obscure where they stand on LGBTQ people. One of the contemporary entertainment industry’s strongest claims to social relevance is stars’ participation in the fight for LGBT equality.”
    • David French fired back: Will Woke Progressives Allow Celebrities to Be Christian? (David French, National Review): “Here is the distinction that makes no sense. An orthodox Christian and (to take an example) a married secular gay employee work side by side. They disagree with each other about matters absolutely fundamental to their lives and identities. The secular gay employee believes the Christian’s worldview is false. The Christian employee believes the secular gay employee’s worldview is false. Why is it uniquely intolerable or even injurious for the gay employee to have to share the workplace (much less the industry) with the Christian? Do they not have the same obligations to set aside their differences and treat each other with dignity and respect?”
    • A Stanford illustration: Stanford Live partners with alleged anti‐LGBTQ promoter for Frost (Caroline Ghisolfi, Stanford Daily)- “The report alleged that the Anschutz Foundation funded several conservative anti‐LGBTQ organizations between 2011 and 2013, including the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian activist group which has ‘repeatedly advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality, both in the U.S. and internationally.’ ” This is an unusual way to describe ADF, which is a prominent legal organization with an enviable 9–0 record at the Supreme Court. David French, who wrote the article in the previous bullet point, is former senior counsel for ADF.
  2. Regarding Jussie Smollett:
    • What The Jussie Smollett Story Reveals (John McWhorter, The Atlantic(: “Smollett doesn’t need the money he would get from a court settlement, and he isn’t trying to deny someone higher office. So why in the world would he fake something like that attack—if he did indeed fake it? The reason might be that he has come of age in an era when nothing he could have done or said would have made him look more interesting than being attacked on the basis of his color and sexual orientation.” — the most insightful take I’ve seen
    • This is fascinating: Fake Hate Crimes Database — the quantity of these hoaxes strengthen’s McWhorter’s point in the previous article
    • Politicians use Jussie Smollett, while a 1‐year‐old boy shot in the head is set aside (John Cass, Chicago Tribune):- “A few weeks ago, after Smollett began telling his tale — in which he’s the hero fighting oppression and hatred — a 1‐year‐old child was shot in the head.It looked like a street gang may have been targeting his mother. She’s been shot before. The child, Dejon Irving, is on life support.I don’t think there were two dozen detectives assigned to Dejon Irving’s case. But he’s not a star to be used by politicians in pursuit of power. He’s not a symbol.Politicians don’t tweet his name. He’s just a little boy from Chicago, shot in the head.” Ouch.
    • People Fake Cancer, Too (Freddie deBoer, personal blog): “I don’t withhold sympathy until I ‘get all the facts’ and I don’t begin from a position of total neutrality. I begin from a position of sympathy and listening regardless of the fact that some people fake cancer.”
  3. The Risk Of Progressives Talking Over Marginalized Communities (Jesse Singal, personal blog): “…if you’re a progressive who is calling for the Washington football team to change its name, or for Ralph Northam to resign, because of the harm that football team name and that governor did to marginalized people, it should feel very weird that the actual groups most affected mostly disagree with you, no? Or if it doesn’t feel weird, why doesn’t it feel weird?” — this is an important point I rarely see discussed.
  4. White supremacist Coast Guard officer stockpiled firearms and hit list of Democrats for mass terror attack (Haley Britzky, Task & Purpose):“A search of Hasson’s home revealed 15 firearms and over 1,000 rounds of ammo along with a hit list of targets that included including prominent Democratic politicians — including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelsoi [sic], Democratic newcomer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio‐Cortez — and media personalities like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Chris Hayes.” 👀
  5. Why Join A Fraternity (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): recommending this one for the update at the bottom of the post: “There is so much wrongheadedness in the way universities attempt to regulate fraternities, which has led to dire outcomes, and it is only going to get worse.”
  6. Dear Gay Catholic Priests (Jennifer Fitz, Patheos): “I’ve been reading about your plight in the New York Times. So let’s go ahead and clear something up right now: Most Catholics don’t give a rip who it is you’re not having sex with. We know that abstinence is hard.”
  7. Christianity Today Appoints Timothy Dalrymple as New President and CEO (Mark Galli, Christianity Today): “He took his passions for ministry, learning, and athletic achievement with him to Stanford University. When his gymnastics career ended in a broken neck, he plunged into campus ministry and overseas missions trips. He became president of Stanford’s Campus Crusade (Cru) chapter. It was also at Stanford where he met his wife, Joyce. Both helped to lead a Christian unity movement on campus that brought together students from all the university’s Christian fellowships to worship God with one another.” #nerdnation

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Every Place Has Detractors. Consider Where They’re Coming From. (Megan McArdle, Bloomberg View): “There is grave danger in judging a neighborhood, or a culture, by the accounts of those who chose to leave it. Those people are least likely to appreciate the good things about where they came from, and the most likely to dwell on its less attractive qualities.” Bear this in mind when listening to conversion testimonies (both secular and religious). (first shared in volume 62)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 190

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Inside the Secret Facebook War For Mormon Hearts and Minds (Kevin Poulson, The Daily Beast): “We may be resigned to faceless corporations buying their way into our thoughts, but are we ready for a world where our neighbors and in‐laws can do the same?” Genius and super‐interesting.
  2. The scandal of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches:
    • Part One: Abuse of Faith (Robert Downen, Lise Olsen, and John Tedesco, Houston Chronicle): “In all, since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, the newspapers found. That includes those who were convicted, credibly accused and successfully sued, and those who confessed or resigned. More of them worked in Texas than in any other state. They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches, left to themselves to rebuild their lives. Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions. About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending.”
    • Part Two: Offend, then repeat (Robert Downen, Lise Olsen, and John Tedesco, Houston Chronicle): ”No religion is immune to sexual misconduct in its ranks. But unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which is wrestling with its own sex‐abuse scandal, Baptists don’t answer to a pope or bishop. Local church autonomy is a bedrock foundation of Baptist faith. There’s no diocese that assigns priests to a parish. Instead, each church is responsible for ordaining and hiring its own ministers.”
    • Part Three: Preying On Teens (Robert Downen, Lise Olsen, and John Tedesco, Houston Chronicle): “More than 100 Southern Baptists described as former youth pastors or youth ministers are now in prison, are registered as sex offenders or have been charged with sex crimes, the newspapers found. Their most common targets were teenage girls and boys, though smaller children also were molested, sometimes in pastors’ studies and Sunday school rooms.”
    • Southern Baptists and the Scandal of Church Sexual Abuse (Russell Moore, personal blog): “Jesus does not cover up sin within the temple of his presence. He brings everything hidden to light. We should too. When we downplay or cover over what has happened in the name of Jesus to those he loves we are not “protecting” Jesus’ reputation. We are instead fighting Jesus himself. No church should be frustrated by the Houston Chronicle’s reporting, but should thank God for it. The Judgment Seat of Christ will be far less reticent than a newspaper series to uncover what should never have been hidden.” — he also wrote an op‐ed for the New York Times a few days after this: Southern Baptists Face Their #MeToo Moment (Russell Moore, New York Times).
    • The Reality of Sexual Abuse Hits Home: What Happened? What Do We Do Now? (Al Mohler, personal blog): “Southern Baptists, by instinct, have practiced a form of moralism that views sexual misbehavior as an isolated event—deal with it and move on. This simplistic moralism reduces sexual abuse and glosses over the severity of the crime. Sexual abuse is not an isolated act of misbehavior; it leaves in its wake scarred victims as well as malicious victimizers. Abuse of this nature snowballs.” This article has some insightful commentary on the unique challenges facing the Southern Baptists because of their structure.
    • Evangelical Apocalypse (Dale M. Coulter, First Things): “As one denominational leader pointed out to me, ministers brought up on charges and dismissed from one denomination have simply gone to another for credentials. It’s not just laity who take advantage of evangelicalism’s big tent to move around. These open networks for ministerial movement from one part of evangelicalism to another allow sexual abusers to escape judgment and start over. We don’t need a database of sexual abusers for the Southern Baptist Convention, we need it for evangelicalism as a whole.” I don’t know how feasible that specific suggestion is, but I do know Coulter is pointing out a real and very hard‐to‐address problem.
    • In a different neck of the woods: Why Does the Catholic Church Keep Failing on Sexual Abuse? (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “O’Malley’s career, with all of its successes and frustrations, illuminates why the sex‐abuse crisis has once again subsumed the Catholic Church—and why this institution, one of the world’s great moral authorities, has been incapable of solving one of the most morally straightforward problems of our time.”
  3. Bill Gates tweeted out a chart and sparked a huge debate about global poverty (Dylan Matthews, Vox): “Hickel argues that focusing on data showing declines in global poverty does political work on behalf of global capitalism, defending an inherently unjust global system that has failed residents of rich and poor nations alike. Pinker agrees that the data supports the idea that capitalism is working for the world’s poorest, and says that’s a decisive rebuttal of Hickel’s narrative of enduring persecution.”
  4. An African‐American Woman Reflects on the Transgender Movement (Nuriddeen Knight, Public Discourse): “Paradoxically, the more our society tries to free itself from gender stereotypes, the more it becomes enslaved to them. By saying that people can be born in a body of the wrong gender, transgender activists are saying there is a set of feelings that are only allocated to women and another set for men. Therefore, they believe, those who feel things that do not conform to their sex’s acceptable set of feelings must outwardly change their gender to match their mind.”
  5. Trevor Noah on Liam Neeson’s Racist Confession (YouTube): much more thoughtful than anything else I have come across.
  6. A (Not So) Secular Saint (James K.A. Smith, Los Angeles Review of Books): “Mill’s legacy was effectively ‘edited’ by his philosophical and political disciples, excising any hint of religious life. One would never know from the canon in our philosophy departments, for example, that Mill wrote an appreciative essay on ‘Theism.’”
    • I am pretty sure I shared a similar link before, but I can’t find it searching my archives. Maybe I cut it at the last minute one week. Fascinating regardless.
  7. Science Is The Evangelical Trophy Wife (David Heddle, personal blog): “In many evangelical circles, science has become a trophy wife. Put her front and center, and show her beauty in, say, the form of Hubble nebulae photographs, with the requisite Psalm 19:1 caption, but do not ever let her speak, for she is likely to embarrass you. Her theological utility is only in the pleasant optics, not in the substance.” Beautiful title.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis [pdf link] (Carol Hill, Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith): “Joseph and Joshua were each recorded as dying at age 110—a number considered ‘perfect’ by the Egyptians. In ancient Egyptian doctrine, the phrase ‘he died aged 110’ was actually an epitaph commemorating a life that had been lived selflessly and had resulted in outstanding social and moral benefit for others. And so for both Joseph and Joshua, who came out of the Egyptian culture, quoting this age was actually a tribute to their character. But, to be described as ‘dying at age 110’ bore no necessary relationship to the actual time of an individual’s life span.” You will not agree with everything in this article, but it is full of fascinating insights. (first shared in volume 51)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 189

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Biohackers Encoded Malware In A Strand Of DNA (Andy Greenberg, Wired): “…a group of researchers from the University of Washington has shown for the first time that it’s possible to encode malicious software into physical strands of DNA, so that when a gene sequencer analyzes it the resulting data becomes a program that corrupts gene‐sequencing software and takes control of the underlying computer.”
    • WHOA. Also, the term “biohacker” is much cooler than “hacker.”
  2. The Nature of Sex (Andrew Sullivan, NY Magazine): “It’s no accident that some of the most homophobic societies, like Iran, for example, are big proponents of sex‐reassignment surgery for gender‐nonconforming kids and adults (the government even pays for it) while being homosexual warrants the death penalty…. If you abandon biology in the matter of sex and gender altogether, you may help trans people live fuller, less conflicted lives; but you also undermine the very meaning of homosexuality.”
  3. How A Demon‐Slaying Pentecostal Billionaire Is Ushering In A Post‐Catholic Brazil (Alexander Zaitchik and Christopher Lord, The New Republic): “When Macedo completed his $249 million headquarters in 2014, his point of comparison wasn’t John Hagee’s megachurch or Pat Robertson’s TV studio. It was the Christ the Redeemer statue atop Mount Corcovado, overlooking Rio de Janeiro, the symbol of Catholic dominance since 1921. In interviews, Macedo made sure to note that his Solomonic church was nearly twice as tall.”
  4. E Pluribus Unum? (Stacey Abrams, Foreign Policy): “…minorities and the marginalized have little choice but to fight against the particular methods of discrimination employed against them. The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.”
    • I don’t see many straightforward defenses of identity politics. Worth reading.  This is a rebuttal to an article by Francis Fukuyama. Further down the page a few others respond as well, and then he offers a rejoinder.
    • Abrams is a Democratic politician, currently out of office. She was the one chosen to give the Democratic response to Trump’s State of the Union address.
    • A  vaguely related article by one of my students: Failed and Racist: Why Stanford Should Ditch Affirmative Action (Annika Nordquist and Jose Antonio Avalos, Stanford Review): “African American and Hispanic representation at elite universities is actually lower than it was 35 years ago, and the minority students who attend appear to be primarily upper class…. Elite universities are able to pat themselves on the back and pad their promotional materials with pictures of a diverse student body, while leaving minority students genuinely trapped in cycles of poverty almost untouched.”
    • Confession: it’s not really all that related, but I try to limit myself to 7 main bullet points. I also have a commitment to posting stuff that my students get published. This is my best compromise. 🙂  Also, if you’re in Chi Alpha and get something published be sure that I know about it.
  5. The Philosopher Redefining Equality (Nathan Heller, New Yorker): “When she was three, her mother asked, ‘Why do you allow your brother to talk for you?’—why didn’t she speak for herself? ‘Until now, it simply was not necessary,’ Elizabeth said. It was the first full sentence that she had ever uttered.” I think that’s the best first sentence I’ve ever heard of. A tad long, but recommended.
  6. This Black History Month, don’t pretend racism has disappeared from the church (Jemar Tisby, Washington Post): “Many people, including Christians, like to believe that if they were alive during the 1960s, they would have participated in the civil rights movement. If Christians refuse to acknowledge racism and fight against it today, then it is clear where they would have stood half a century ago, too.”
    • Tisby is a Ph.D. candidate in history and graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary.
    • Related: a thoughtful review of Tisby’s book by George P. Wood, an acquaintance of mine.
    • Related: To All The White Friends I Couldn’t Keep (Andre Henry, personal blog): “I thought that if you heard from a black person you trusted—me—that racism is alive and well in our times, that you would come to understand that what happened to Mr. Castile, to Mr. Martin, Ms. Bland, Ms. Boyd, Mr. Sterling, Mr. Brown, Mr. Garner, Mr Grey, Ms. Shirley, Ms. Gaines, and so many others were not unique, isolated incidents but parts of a pattern.”
  7. The State of American Fact‐Checking Is Completely Useless (David Harsanyi, The Federalist): “There are plenty of legitimately misleading statements worthy of fact‐checkers’ attention. Yet, with a veneer of impartiality, fact‐checkers often engage in a uniquely dishonest style of partisanship.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have The Weight of Glory (C.S. Lewis): It was originally preached as a sermon and then printed in a theology magazine. Related: see the C. S. Lewis Doodle YouTube channel – it’s really good! (first shared in volume 36)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 188

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Assessing Betsy DeVos’s Proposed Rules on Title IX and Sexual Assault (Jeannie Suk Gerson, New Yorker): “The truth is that there is much to criticize in DeVos’s proposal but also much that would help to make schools’ processes for handling sexual misconduct fairer to all parties.” Gerson, a Harvard law prof, consistently offers insightful perspective on issues surrounding campus sexual assault.
  2. Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Lionel Shriver, Harpers): “The contemporary impulse to rebuke disgraced creators by vanishing their work from the cultural marketplace exhibits a mean‐­spiritedness, a vengefulness even, as well as an illogic. Why, if you catch someone doing something bad, would you necessarily rub out what they’ve done that’s good? If you’re convicted of breaking and entering, the judge won’t send bailiffs around to tear down the tree house you built for your daughter and to pour bleach on your homemade pie.”
  3. How I Knew the #CovingtonBoys Video Was Clickbait (Clair Potter, Public Seminar): “I think the most underreported story about #CovingtonBoys is how it got to us in the first place. It originated with a piece of clickbait that was chosen and edited, by persons unknown, to produce outrage on the right and the left. Originating in a fake account, and proliferated by other fake accounts, it was part of a professional social media campaign intended to disrupt.”
    • Related: Bad, Press (Charles Cooke, National Review): “For a neat illustration of how farcical things have become, take a look at the Washington Post’s most recent ‘fact check,’ which helpfully informs its readers that the claimed ‘one thousand burgers’ President Trump bought for the Clemson football team were not, in fact, ‘piled up a mile high’ because, ‘at two inches each, a thousand burgers would not reach one mile high.’ Democracy dies in darkness, indeed.”
  4. Imagine Nations Were Selfless—It’s No Paradise (Brad Littlejohn, Providence): “We hear often today about how we live in “a global society” and have to take up the responsibilities of “global citizenship.” But what these exhortations miss is that the exponential growth in human knowledge over the past century has not been matched by nearly as rapid growth in human agency. It is now possible for a housewife in Tennessee to be aware of a rape in Bangladesh within hours or minutes, but she is only marginally more able to do anything about it now than she was 100 years ago.” The article as a whole is not great, but it makes a very interesting argument: patriotism is a necessary way to make our empathy productive.
  5. In polarized Washington, a Democrat anchors bipartisan friendships in faith (Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service): “A bridge builder with Republicans, Coons is known for helping create rare flickers of bipartisan agreement. Part of his secret, it seems, is religion…. Coons, who grew up attending Red Clay Creek Presbyterian Church in Hockessin, Del., explained that his faith has not only provided grounding for his own life but has also emerged as a point of connection with Republicans, with whom he has forged lasting relationships — and legislation.”
  6. What The Establishment Right Doesn’t Get (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): this essay, a large part of which is actually commentary from a reader, is like a flamethrower. “…those who preach the bourgeois virtues can’t get a hearing if there is no stable employment for people who do the right thing. And, if those who do the right thing (by which I mean play by the rules: live lives of hard work, fair play, and self‐discipline) can find everything kicked out from under them all of a sudden, it destabilizes the entire society.”
    • The follow‐up, Liberty, Equality — But Where’s The Fraternity? is also stimulating.
    • Reading the latter one brought to my attention a very short essay by G.K. Chesterton. I highly recommend it. “The English people as a body went blind, as the saying is, for interpreting democracy entirely in terms of liberty. They said in substance that if they had more and more liberty it did not matter whether they had any equality or any fraternity. But this was violating the sacred trinity of true politics; they confounded the persons and they divided the substance.”
  7. 4 Facts Every American Should Know About Third‐Trimester Abortions (Joe Carter, Gospel Coalition): “As I noted in an article last week, Democratic legislators in places like New York and Virginia are moving to codify abortion rights in state law to prepare for the day when Roe and Doe are overturned. When the Supreme Court throws the abortion issue back to the individual states, third‐trimester abortions will still be protected in states that reiterate Doe’s standards for ‘viability’ or ‘health.’”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have No Food Is Healthy. Not Even Kale. (Michael Ruhlman, Washington Post): People can be healthy. Food can be nutritious. This is a wonderful essay about how we misuse language to our detriment. If you’re surprised I included this, I believe that our culture has a quasi‐religious relationship to health and to food, and I also believe that the use of language is profoundly moral and that our culture is a linguistic mess (to which I know of no finer guide than The Underground Grammarian). (first shared in volume 33)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 187

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Emotions Make Terrible Gods (Greg Morse, Desiring God): “We live in an emoji world where self‐expression and ‘being the true you’ hold highest priority — no one can tell us how to feel…. In all, the assumption stands: you are your emotions — for better or worse. To repress them is to repress yourself.”
  2. ‘I Was a TSA Agent, and You Fed Me’ (Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today): “But churches, as they join in prayer for a legislative solution, have also stepped up to support community members affected by the budgeting stalemate. Here are 10 places where Christians are reaching out to love their furloughed and unpaid neighbors…” This is an inspiring list. I am struck by both the geographic and the denominational diversity. The extent to which churches bless their communities is difficult to overstate.
  3. Is Big Tech Merging With Big Brother? Kinda Looks Like It (David Samuels, Wired): “A national or global surveillance network that uses beneficent algorithms to reshape human thoughts and actions in ways that elites believe to be just or beneficial to all mankind is hardly the road to a new Eden. It’s the road to a prison camp.”
  4. Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far? (Christopher de Bellaigue, Guardian): “Altogether, well over a quarter of all deaths in 2017 in the Netherlands were induced.… suicide leaves scars on friends and family that may never heal. But suicide is an individual act, self‐motivated and self‐administered, and its force field is contained. Euthanasia, by contrast, is the product of society. When it goes wrong, it goes wrong for everyone.” In case you’re reading quickly, read that first sentence again. Over 25%!
  5. The Gay Church (Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine): “A church that, since 2005, bans priests with ‘deep‐seated homosexual tendencies’ and officially teaches that gay men are ‘objectively disordered’ and inherently disposed toward ‘intrinsic moral evil’ is actually composed, in ways very few other institutions are, of gay men.” I find his lack of engagement with Scripture and focus on church history striking and very Catholic.
  6. A lot of articles about the dustup at the March for Life. I find polarizing situations like this fascinating and frequently revealing.
    • The Media Botched the Covington Catholic Story (Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic): “Among other things, journalistic ethics held that if you didn’t have the reporting to support a story, and if that story had the potential to hurt its subjects, and if those subjects were private citizens, and if they were moreover minors, you didn’t run the story. You kept reporting it; you let yourself get scooped; and you accepted that speed is not the highest value. Otherwise, you were the trash press.” This piece is brutal. If you only read one of the articles in this section, make it this one.
    • For an example of a harsher perspective: Why do the Covington Catholic kids get the benefit of the doubt? (Laura Turner, Religion News Service): “There’s no virtue in rushing to get in a hot take! But neither is there in ignoring clear evidence of racism and cruelty. As new accounts and new videos of the incident emerged, more stayed the same than changed: Sandmann’s simpering expression remained, as did his immovable opposition to Phillips. (In his ‘Today’ show interview, Sandmann says he now wishes he ‘could’ve walked away and avoided the whole thing.’ The use of ‘could’ve’ is doing a lot of work there — he always could have chosen to walk away. He chose not to.)”
    • The Covington Scissor (Ross Douthat, NY Times): “To understand what makes this incident so brilliant in its divisiveness, you need to see the tapestry in full, how each constituent element (abortion, race, MAGA, white boys, Catholicism, Native American ritual) automatically confirms priors on both sides of our divide. And you also need to see how the video itself, far from being a means to achieving consensus, is an amazing accelerant of controversy…” Douthat’s op‐ed is inspired by the short story Sort By Controversial (Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex). It’s an easy read and I recommend it.
    • Another perspective less sympathetic to the boys: The real politics behind the Covington Catholic controversy, explained (Zack Beauchamp, Vox): “The argument here is not that it’s wrong to care about the Covington students per se. Rather, it’s a kind of disgust at the hypocrisy on display: Conservatives and the mainstream media don’t, in the left‐liberal view, ever display the same levels of concern for minority kids accused of actual crimes. All the sympathy being extended to these kids, all the benefit of the doubt, reflects the ability of the privileged to command a level of sympathy that the less privileged lack.”
    • Covington isn’t about facts, but about identity politics. Nick Sandmann committed ‘facecrime’ (Tucker Carlson, Fox News): “People’s views evolve over time. Political divisions can heal and often do. But fights over identity do not; they are different. Identity does not change. It can’t be moderated or controlled. It’s inherent. We’re born that way. When we go to war over who we are, it’s a permanent battle. It is a disaster that lasts for generations. Identity politics will destroy this country faster than a foreign invasion.”
    • The Abyss of Hate Versus Hate (Andrew Sullivan, NY Magazine): “To put it bluntly: They were 16‐year‐olds subjected to verbal racist assault by grown men; and then the kids were accused of being bigots. It just beggars belief that the same liberals who fret about ‘micro‐aggressions’ for 20‐somethings were able to see 16‐year‐olds absorbing the worst racist garbage from religious bigots … and then express the desire to punch the kids in the face…. this is what will inevitably happen once you’ve redefined racism or sexism to mean prejudice plus power. ”
  7. US missionary who engaged with reclusive Brazilian tribe could be charged with genocide (Phoebe Loomes, NZ Herald): “Campbell has claimed that he made the expedition to the remote region at the request of the Jamamadi people, who he is in contact with, as they wanted to learn to use GPS navigators. During this expedition he encountered the isolated Hi‐Merimã tribe. For this, Brazilian officials say Campbell could be charged with a slew of offences, including genocide.“
    • Genocide seems much too strong a term for a situation in which no one is known to have died or even so much as sneezed. Maybe the word translated as genocide is broader in Portuguese?
    • Helpful context: Brazil Investigates If US Missionary Encroached on Isolated Amazon Tribe (Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today): “Ribeiro shared concerns about indigenous people receiving assistance from groups appointed by the government, since they rarely stay in a community long enough to build relationships and learn the language. Meanwhile, she says field missionaries often bring high levels of technical training—from anthropology to nursing—while committing to serve for an extended amount of time.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have This Is What Makes Republicans and Democrats So Different (Vox, Ezra Klein): the title made me skeptical, but there are some good insights in this article (first shared in volume 32 back in 2016).

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 186

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. America in one tweet:“We are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.” (Clay Routledge, Twitter)
  2. Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China (John Garnaut, Sinocism): “In classical Chinese statecraft there are two tools for gaining and maintaining control over “the mountains and the rivers”: The first is wu (weapons, violence — 武) and the second is wen (language, culture — 文). Chinese leaders have always believed that power derives from controlling both the physical battlefield and the cultural domain. You can’t sustain physical power without discursive power. Wu and wen go hand‐in‐hand.”
  3. A Strange Argument for the Commonplace (Cato Unbound, Agnes Callard): “We should not equalize the rich and poor, but rather endeavor to make the poor of tomorrow wealthier than the rich of today.” I’m including this link mostly because of that quote. Also because it has some commentary on Peter Singer which dovetails with a conversation I had earlier this week.
  4. Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church as Young Adults (Aaron Earls, Lifeway Research ): “Almost half (47 percent) of those who dropped out and attended college say moving to college played a role in their no longer attending church for at least a year…. Among all those who dropped out, 29 percent say they planned on taking a break from church once they graduated high school. Seven in 10 (71 percent) say their leaving wasn’t an intentional decision.”
    • The title is a bit misleading. Yes, a majority of young adults who previously attended church do stop attending church for at least one year between the ages of 18–22, but if you look at their underlying research about 70% eventually start attending again. Also, it doesn’t seem to ask whether any of these people were involved in an activity that they might not characterize as church (like Chi Alpha or Intervarsity). I know some of my Chi Alpha students are not currently worshiping with a Sunday morning congregation, but it would be wrong to infer that their faith has been put on pause.
  5. Have Aliens Found Us? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua (Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker): “Last year, I wrote a paper about cosmology where there was an unusual result, which showed that perhaps the gas in the universe was much colder than we expected. And so we postulated that maybe dark matter has some property that makes the gas cooler. And nobody cares, nobody is worried about it, no one says it is not science. Everyone says that is mainstream—to consider dark matter, a substance we have never seen. That’s completely fine. It doesn’t bother anyone. But when you mention the possibility that there could be equipment out there that is coming from another civilization—which, to my mind, is much less speculative, because we have already sent things into space—then that is regarded as unscientific.”
    • I am skeptical, but I find the conversation fascinating. Related: an article on the Fermi paradox I shared back in volume 159 and an article on government investigation of UFO reports from volume 132.
  6. The marvel of the human dad (Anna Machin, Aeon): “But crucially, dad has not evolved to be the mirror to mum, a male mother, so to speak. Evolution hates redundancy and will not select for roles that duplicate each other if one type of individual can fulfil the role alone. Rather, dad’s role has evolved to complement mum’s.” Dr. Machin is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford.
  7. The Virtue Signalers Won’t Change the World (John McWhorter, The Atlantic): “Just as the first and second waves of both feminism and antiracism transformed social structures, third‐wave antiracism may seem parallel to third‐wave feminism in moving on to a different form of abuse, psychological rather than institutional. But this focus on the psychological has morphed, of late, from a pragmatic mission to change minds into a witch hunt driven by the personal benefits of virtue signaling, obsessed with unconscious and subconscious bias. As noble as this culture of shaming genuinely seems to many, it’s a dead end.”
    • A useful, detailed follow‐up: The Perils of a Psychological Approach to Anti‐racism (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic): “If the phenomenon McWhorter described is real, we should be able to find leftists who intend to fight bias by calling out psychological harms, only to fall into ‘hypersensitivity, oversimplification, and even a degree of performance’ as participants signal virtue in ways that help no one.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Inside Graduate Admissions (Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschick): if you plan to apply to grad school, read this. There is one revealing anecdote about how an admissions committee treated an application from a Christian college student. My takeaway: the professors tried to be fair but found it hard to do, and their stated concerns were mostly about the quality of the institution rather than the faith of the applicant. Troubling nonetheless. (first shared in volume 32)

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 185

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

In case you’re wondering: I just don’t find stories about the Russia investigation or the government shutdown interesting. I think they’re important, but few people are writing things about them that catch my attention. Recommendations are welcome.

Also, one of you mentioned that you sometimes can’t open the links. If you, being a broke college student, ever can’t access an article because of a paywall, try putting http://outline.com/ in front of the link. I did it for the first article as an example. Having said that, please support journalism once you are able.

  1. Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think? (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker): “The authors assumed that alcohol use among students would be a predictor of violent behavior, and that marijuana use would predict the opposite. In fact, those who used only marijuana were three times more likely to be physically aggressive than abstainers were; those who used only alcohol were 2.7 times more likely to be aggressive. Observational studies like these don’t establish causation. But they invite the sort of research that could.”
    • This Reporter Took a Deep Look Into the Science of Smoking Pot. What He Found Is Scary. (Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones): “I smoked plenty of weed in high school and so did all my friends, and none of us jumped off a balcony or killed anyone—we could barely get off the couch. But the marijuana sold today is not what we smoked, which at 1 percent to 2 percent THC was the equivalent of smoking oregano. Today’s weed is insanely more potent, as are products like “wax” and “shatter”—forms of butane hash oil designed to be vaped or dabbed that come pretty close to 100 percent THC. And these high‐potency products usually contain very little CBD oil, the ingredient in cannabis that’s supposed to account for many of its supposed health benefits.”
  2. Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? (Rowan Jacobsen, Outside): “People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in African Americans. On the rare occasion when African Americans do get melanoma, it’s particularly lethal—but it’s mostly a kind that occurs on the palms, soles, or under the nails and is not caused by sun exposure. At the same time, African Americans suffer high rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, internal cancers, and other diseases that seem to improve in the presence of sunlight, of which they may well not be getting enough. Because of their genetically higher levels of melanin, they require more sun exposure to produce compounds like vitamin D, and they are less able to store that vitamin for darker days. They have much to gain from the sun and little to fear.”
  3. Leaving Religion at Home: Engaging Religious Thought and Action in American Society (Nathalie Kiersznowski, Stanford Politics): “People’s beliefs about the world will inevitably influence their positions on issues like morality, politics, dress, gender, sex and more. Similarly, politicians will naturally support legislation in accordance with their values, religious or not. Many politicians, like Vice President Mike Pence, have faced criticism for allowing religion to shape their political decisions. It would be unwarranted, though, to expect Pence to act ‘un‐Christian’ or ‘non‐religious’ exclusively at his place of work. The notion of having both a ‘secular public self’ and a ‘religious private self’ is impossible: any private value system will influence decisions throughout all areas of life.”
  4. The case for going to bed at 2:30 am (Kate Shellnut, Vox): “My faith doused our cultural preference for early birds with biblical backing, too, making me feel even guiltier. Within American evangelicalism, many expect faithful Christians to dedicate the ‘first fruits’ of each day to ‘quiet time’ with the Lord (prayers, devotional reading, Bible study). Researchers even found people to be more ‘spiritually aware’ early in the mornings. Faced with these expectations, I really did question whether my habits were sinful: Was I being selfish by staying up late? Was I putting productivity over the natural patterns of work and rest?”
  5. China’s Gulag for Muslims (Mustafa Akyol, New York Times): “…Russia’s gulags are long gone, as is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that operated them. But now another dictatorship, ruled by another Communist Party, is operating a new chain of prisons that evoke memory of the gulags — more modern, more high‐tech, but no less enslaving.”
    • Where Did the One Million Figure for Detentions in Xinjiang’s Camps Come From? (Jessica Batke, ChinaFile): “Two key studies independently arrived around the one million mark, by using limited data samples to estimate what percentage of the ethnic minority Muslim population is detained. Both studies arrive at a detention rate of 10 percent —at least in some areas of Xinjiang—suggesting that just over one million of the region’s 11 million ethnic Uighur population could be in the camps.”
  6. Conquerors of the Courts (David Montgomery, Washington Post): “The society itself lobbies for no policies; it never signs amicus briefs or represents clients in cases. No one at Federalist Society headquarters in Washington dictated Barnett’s moves or told him how to advocate for what positions. It’s just that at a few gatherings made possible by the Federalist Society that Barnett happened to attend, synapses fired, a corner of the hive mind engaged, and Barnett took it from there. Multiply that chemistry tens of thousands of times over the past 36 years and you have the Federalist Society’s true source of power.”
  7. Elected leaders who weaponize religion are playing a dangerous game (Tulsi Gabbard, The Hill): “While I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith‐based, service organization in order to hold public office.” Gabbard is a Democratic congresswoman representing Hawaii.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have the unfortunately date‐specific Reading The Whole Bible in 2016: A FAQ (Gospel Coalition, Justin Taylor): “There are about 775,000 words in the Bible. Divided by 365, that’s 2,123 words a day. The average person reads 200 to 250 words per minute. So 2,123 words/day divided by 225 words/minute equals 9.4 minutes a day.” This article is full of good advice for what could be the best commitment you make all year. Do it! (first shared in volume 31 — useful for any year)

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.