Author: Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 483

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 Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be (David Brooks, New York Times): “When religion is seen as belief, then the believer lives on a continuum between belief and doubt. But when religion is seen as a longing, then the believer lives on the continuum between intensity and apathy. That’s the continuum I live on these days.” 
    • Highly recommended, unlocked, sent to me by multiple alumni.
  2. Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing an Amulet That May Change the History of Christianity (Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics): “Every other link to reliable evidence of Christian life in the northern Alpine area of the Roman Empire is at least 50 years younger, all coming from the fourth century A.D.…. The scientific study is bolstered by references never found so early, such as mention of Saint Titus, a student of the Apostle Paul, the invocation ‘holy, holy, holy!’ which wasn’t more common until the fourth century A.D., and the phrase ‘bend your knees,’ which is a quote from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.” 
    • Recommended by an alumnus. The title is clickbait, but the article’s content is interesting.
  3. What if Our Democracy Can’t Survive Without Christianity? (David French and Jonathan Rauch, New York Times): “It turns out that Christianity is a load-bearing wall in democracy, and the founders told us that. They didn’t specify that you have to be a Christian, per se, but they said that our liberal, secular Constitution, it’s great, as far as it goes, but it relies on virtues like truthfulness and lawfulness and the equal dignity of every individual. And they understood that those have to come from an outside source. The Constitution won’t furnish them. And the source that they relied on principally was religion to teach those things and to build and transmit those values. And it turns out that for most of our history, Christianity has been pretty good at that.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  4. Study claims all observables in nature can be measured with a single constant: The second (Phys.org): “ ‘In Galilean space-time, you need rulers and clocks to measure all the physical variables. In relativistic space-time, however, clocks are sufficient. This is because in relativity, space and time are so interrelated that a single unit is sufficient to describe all quantities. High-precision clocks, such as the atomic clocks used today, are capable of meeting all measurement needs,’ says Matsas.”
  5. Why are Top Scientists Leaving Harvard? (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “Mina tells an incredible story of what happened during the pandemic. At the time Mina was a faculty member at the Chan School of Public Health, he is extremely active in advising governments on the pandemic, and he brings Harvard millions of dollars a year in funding. But when he tries to hire someone at his lab, the university refuses because there is hiring freeze! Sorry, no hiring for pandemic research during a pandemic.”
  6. When Gen. George Patton Called on God (Alex Kershaw, Wall Street Journal): “Patton instructed his men: ‘Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day.’ He believed the Third Army’s nearly 500 chaplains, representing 32 denominations, were as critical to victory as his tank commanders. ‘He wanted a chaplain to be above average in courage,’ O’Neill recalled. ‘In time of battle, he wanted the chaplains up front, where the men were dying. And that’s where the Third Army chaplains went—up front. We lost more chaplains, proportionately, than any other group.’ ” 
    • This is one of those historical moments that I always marvel at when I read about it.
  7. The Abortion Lobby Endangers Pregnant Women (Rachel Roth Aldhizer, Wall Street Journal): “Reclassifying induction of labor—or, rarely, surgical resolution for PPROM—as abortion care seems to threaten women’s prenatal care nationwide. No abortion legislation in any state restricts emergency procedures to protect the life or health of the mother. Yet this linguistic shift could mislead physicians in states with abortion restrictions into believing that standard treatments for pregnancy complications may be illegal, or at least subject to a higher standard of physician judgment when determining a treatment course.… Only the abortion lobby and the politicians who support it benefit from these linguistic games.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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.

More Last Minute Gift Ideas For The Middle-Aged Man In Your Life

Christmas is one week away, and I’ve been told that men my age are hard to shop for. So if you still need to get a gift for the dad/husband/whatever in your life, I offer this list of affordable purchases that have brought me joy.

Last year I suggested 9 gift ideas for the hard-to-shop-for middle aged guy in your life. Those are all still excellent suggestions, so also look there. 

Here are some things I’ve gotten in the last year that I’ve loved.

  • Get him a tie clip or socks for his fandom from Hero’s Armory — they don’t make licensed products so you have to do a little decoding (“light laser sword” = light saber, “the hero’s sword” = Legend of Zelda master sword, etc), but they’re high quality and I’ve been very pleased with the stuff I’ve received from them. About $30.
  • I bought a double-boiler on Amazon for making candy and I think it’s awesome. Not for every guy, but if he likes candy and enjoys playing around in the kitchen it would be a sweet (heh) gift. About $15 (less if you get a smaller one).
  • I swear by these Gripstic bag clips. They are 9000% better than the clothespin-style that we’re all used to. You’ll probably need to watch a video to understand how they work, but I can’t look back. They’re simply perfect at what they do. About $25 for a 12 pack of assorted sizes. I’ve actually been using these for years, but didn’t include them on last year’s list for some reason.
  • I replaced the light switch in our laundry area with a motion sensor switch . 10/10 recommend if you ever get annoyed trying to turn the light on with your hands full. About $15.
  • Every once in a while I have to mess with electrical stuff and get annoyed at those twist-on wire connectors. These lever nuts from Wago solve the problem a different way and they are great. Not all the guys in your life will need them, but if they ever have to rewire things they’ll find these connectors handy. About $25.
  • They make beanies with built-in headlamps. Guys my age eat this kind of stuff up. Great for when you need to step outside at night to deal with some random chore that will take both your hands. About $20.

I hope at least one of these feels right for the middle-aged man in your life (and that you have time to get it before the big day). Merry Christmas!

Also, after posting last year’s list I had several ladies contact me to say they loved the stuff I shared as well and I shouldn’t limit it to guys. I guess I would say I’m not limiting it to guys — I’m targeting it at guys. We are usually considered much harder to find gifts for than our female counterparts. If you’re a lady and want this stuff, put it on your wish list without shame or any judgment from me!

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 482

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 Christians Oppose Euthanasia (Brad East, Christianity Today): “Unlike many topics in theology and ethics, this is not an issue on which the church has ever been ambiguous. There were no early church councils to debate the taking of innocent life. It didn’t take centuries of conflict to adjudicate. On the contrary, Christians were known from the start for their adamant rejection of pagan disrespect for those unwanted by their families or deemed socially useless—the unborn and newborn, disabled and elderly.”
  2. When Was Jesus Born? Italian Researcher Puts Christ’s Birth in December, 1 BC (Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register): “[Herod was alive when Jesus was born, and we know Herod died after a lunar eclipse.] Ultimately, based on the most accurate analysis possible today of the visibility to the naked eye of the lunar eclipses, the search for one of it really visible in Judea 2,000 years ago, placed in relation to other chronological and historical elements deduced from the writings of Josephus Flavius and Roman history, leads to a single possible solution — namely, a dating of the death of Herod the Great occurring in AD 2–3, compatible with the conventional beginning of the Christian era — i.e., the Nativity occurred at the end of the year 1 BC.”
  3. Science and Religious Dogmatism (Matías Cabello, SSRN): “But why were nonbelievers and other freethinkers particularly creative? Not because of lack of mysticism. Deists, with their mystical belief in some sort of deity, have been as productive in science as outright atheists (if not more). One possible explanation for their joint abnormally high productivity is that freethinking and atheism opened up a whole path of ideas disconnected from the prevailing thought system.… By the same token, however, it follows that, in a world overwhelmingly populated by atheists, the most ingenious ideas should instead come from the few religiously minded (as long as their theology offers a sufficiently stimulating thought system to discover the secrets of nature). A result consistent with this interpretation is the decline of the atheism coefficient among 20th-century born scientists of table 1. By then, atheism had gone from being a dangerous and unconventional worldview to become widespread among the scientific elite.” 
    • An interesting paper. I don’t buy all its conclusions, but I enjoyed reading it. The excerpt is from at the end and is an important point: nonconformity brings some benefits, but nonconformity changes over time. It looks like heresy when orthodoxy reigns, but nonconformity often looks like orthodoxy when heresy has dominance. And we live in an era of heresy. As Tyler Cowen often comments: the important thinkers of the future will be religious.
    • The author is, funnily enough, an economist teaching at a university named after Martin Luther.
  4. Two articles making similar points: our current aversion to involuntary commitment is cruel to some people who would greatly benefit from the help that their mental illness causes them to resist. 
    • Jordan Neely Needed to Be Institutionalized (Josh Barro, Substack): “One through-line in the story is the immense amount of government resources that were thrown at trying to keep Neely out of trouble. Through police, courts, jails, homeless outreach, and treatment facilities, New York’s taxpayers spent lavishly on an effort to keep Neely alive, in mental health care, and not posing a danger to the public or himself. But it didn’t work because he was insane and he was not forced to accept the care he needed — except during a stint he spent in jail on Rikers Island, when he was successfully medicated.… it would behoove progressives with pat takes about how what Neely really needed was housing and care to know that he was offered these things over and over again by an extremely well-funded social services apparatus. If you wanted him to have housing and care, you needed to be prepared to force them upon him; and if you weren’t, then you don’t have a solution to the problems of people like him.”
    • The Tragedy of Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny (Brendan Ruberry, Persuasion): “[Ending involuntary commitment had a perverse effect, because] as it happens, many patients are, in fact, unwilling to submit to treatment, because nothing does more to harm one’s powers of self-awareness, and one’s ability to recognize the necessity of often lengthy protocols, than debilitating mental illness.”
  5. Make Villains Wicked Again (Germán Saucedo, First Things): “The clear images of true evil present in the best fairy tales, ballads, myths, and legends offer both a vision of what is to be avoided at all costs, as well as a vision of virtue. As such, the ‘sympathetic villain’ genre is a symptom of a society that disagrees on what is good and what is evil, or that tries to explain evil away as trauma, psychopathy, or pathology. But to identify and avoid evil, we must first learn to recognize the good. The insistence on subverting villains is a sign we have lost confidence in our belief that we can know what heroism looks like, a heroism that displays the good that would oppose their unrighteousness.”
  6. Insurance companies aren’t the main villain of the U.S. health system (Noah Smith, Substack): “It’s not hard to understand why people hate health insurers. When you interact with the U.S. health care system, the providers — the hospital staff, the doctor, the nurses, the technicians — all just take care of you. The only time they ask you for money during your doctor visit is when you pay your copay at the front desk, and that’s usually not that big — if the bill is big, they’ll send it to you later. So for the most part, your interaction with the providers is just you walking up and asking to be taken care of, and them taking care of you. Your interaction with the health insurer, on the other hand, feels like a struggle against an enemy who wants to destroy you.”
  7. ‘Huge setback’: SF’s massive psychedelic church is leaving the city (Lester Black, SF Gate): “Hodges founded his church in 2019 around the belief that cannabis, magic mushrooms and other psychedelic substances are religious sacraments that give humans spiritual insights. Any adult can join by signing up and paying a $5 membership fee, which gives them access to purchase a wide range of psychedelic products. Last year, the church expanded from its original location in Oakland to a vacant building on Howard Street in San Francisco. The church now counts over 115,000 members.” 
    • Please note that the author is the “Cannabis editor” at SF Gate. Sometimes San Francisco becomes a parody of itself.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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 481

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. Sales of Bibles Are Booming, Fueled by First-Time Buyers and New Versions (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal): “Worries about the economy, conflicts abroad and uncertainty over the election pushed readers toward the publication in droves. Bible sales are up 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. By contrast, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1% in that period.”
  2. Does Politics Belong in the Church? Does the Church Belong in Politics? (Carl S. H. Henry, Juicy Ecumenism): “Does the church belong in politics? Insofar as it owns land and buildings the church clearly has civic obligations and should render to Caesar what is properly Caesar’s. As an institution grounded on a divine disclosure of truth and morality, moreover, the church is mandated to proclaim publicly the revealed principles by which Christ the King of kings will ultimately judge nations and states and does so even now. The church as such must also stimulate members to apply scriptural principles with sound reason and in good conscience to current political concerns, in quest of preferred policies and programs promotive of justice and peace. Since God wills the state as an instrumentality for preserving justice and restraining disorder, the church should urge members to engage in political affairs to their utmost competence and ability, to vote faithfully and intelligently, to engage in the political process at all levels, and to seek and hold public office. The church is not, however, to use the mechanisms of government to legally impose upon society at large her theological commitments. The church must increasingly clarify when obedience to God requires disobedience to the state and, no less, when disobedience to the state constitutes disobedience to God.” 
    • From 1984, a transcription of a speech by a key voice in the emergence of American evangelicalism. This speech, with updates to replace 80’s references, could be given today.
  3. Ryugu asteroid sample rapidly colonized by terrestrial life despite strict contamination control (Justin Jackson, Phys.org): “NASA tries to avoid introducing Earth microbes to Mars by constructing probes and landers in cleanroom environments and has found the task nearly impossible. There have been species of microbes discovered in NASA clean rooms that not only evade disinfection methods but also adapt to using cleaning agents as a food source.” 
    • That last sentence is stunning. This is how British researchers tried (and failed) to prevent contamination of an asteroid sample: “Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room to prevent contamination. Individual particles were picked with sterilized tools and stored under nitrogen in airtight containers. Before analysis, the sample underwent Nano-X-ray computed tomography and was embedded in an epoxy resin block for scanning electron microscopy.”
  4. Deus in machina: Swiss church installs AI-powered Jesus (Ashifa Kassam, The Guardian):“The small, unadorned church… in the Swiss city of Lucerne… installed an artificial intelligence-powered Jesus capable of dialoguing in 100 different languages. After training the AI program in theological texts, visitors were then invited to pose questions to a long-haired image of Jesus beamed through a latticework screen… More than 1,000 people – including Muslims and visiting tourists from as far as China and Vietnam – took up the opportunity to interact with the avatar… two-thirds of them had found it to be a ‘“‘spiritual experience.’” 
    • Recommended by a student who calls the article “harrowing.”
  5. Why housing shortages cause homelessness (Salim Furth, Works in Progress): “…most people at risk of homelessness manage to remain housed by staying with others. The higher rate of homelessness in high-cost areas is mostly explained by the inability of the family and friends of potentially homeless people to afford extra living space.” 
    • Some thoughts in response: https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/1864706992369205381
    • This article matches my experience: plenty of people in Louisiana and Missouri had spare rooms to let people use. Almost no one I know has a spare room in Silicon Valley. People barely even have yards here.
  6. Why Christians Should Care About Oak Flat (Robert P. George, First Things): “For those of us who gather in traditional houses of worship, Apache spiritual practices might feel remote or alien. A patch of Arizona wilderness bears little resemblance to the churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples we regard as sacred space. Yet our tradition of religious freedom, properly understood, has never been about protecting only what is familiar or convenient. Nor has it been a simple live-and-let-live compromise, a fragile truce in which we agree to tolerate one another’s practices for the sake of peace. It is instead a commitment to a fundamental principle that acknowledges our nature as rational beings, bearers of profound, inherent, and equal dignity, capable of ordering our lives toward the good, the true, and the holy.” 
    • Robbie George is, of course, a law prof at Princeton and an outspoken Catholic.
  7. America’s best-known practitioner of youth gender medicine is being sued (Jesse Singal, The Economist): “Ms Breen said she is doing significantly better today—partly, she believes, simply because she ceased taking testosterone. But well before that, she ditched the therapist Dr Olson-Kennedy referred her to, who she said fixated entirely on her gender identity. She switched to a dialectical behavioural therapist whom she described as a godsend, with whom she had her first-ever in-depth conversations about the physical and sexual abuse she endured earlier in life. Ms Breen said she was fairly confident that if she’d had these conversations at age 12, she wouldn’t have pursued medical transition. She has been left with permanent medical consequences: a lower voice than she wants, an Adam’s Apple that distresses her, the prospect of breast reconstruction if she wants to partially regain a female shape, and the possibility that she is infertile due to the years she spent on testosterone.” 

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Defender of the Basic (YouTube, CollegeHumor): five minutes with only one mildly off-color interchange. I agree with this video directionally but happen to have different (but equally basic) aesthetic preferences than many of those highlighted. 
  • NASA Rocket Engine Fireplace (NASA, YouTube): want a nerdy fireplace on your TV during the holidays? NASA’s got you. 8 hours of a rocket in a fireplace in 4k.
  • Who Needs Congress When You Have Cameo? (Joseph Bernstein, New York Times): “He’s available for birthday wishes (‘Any time you hit a zero it’s a big one, but turning 70 is pretty epic’), wedding congratulations (‘Marriage is an amazing institution’) and pep talks (‘Even on tough days, find the good in it, find the pride in the work’) — all starting at $500. Mr. Gaetz is happy to poke fun at his professional setback, contrasting his failed nomination with the success of one of his Cameo customers who just became a partner in a law firm.” 

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 480

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. I Give Thanks in the Bright Darkness (Christina Gonzalez Ho, Christianity Today): “It seems that, historically, Thanksgiving was not meant to be a purely celebratory day, a time to luxuriate in self-satisfaction, but rather a day to hold gratitude in tension with sorrow, suffering, and sin—to acknowledge the brightness and darkness that always exist simultaneously in the world.” 
    • Christina is an alumnus of Chi Alpha.
  2. The Conquest of Canaan Explained in 6 Minutes (Gavin Ortlund, YouTube). Recommended by a student. This is a topic I think I explain pretty well, but Ortlund does it better. Worth your time if the destruction of the Canaanite cultures bothers you.
  3. And They Began to Be Merry (Kevin D. Williamson, The Dispatch): “The miracle at Cana isn’t water becoming wine—any old magician could do that sort of thing. Whatever it was that Jesus was about, it wasn’t stupid party tricks. The miracle is that the Ruler of the Universe cared about such a little thing as the social anxieties of a bunch of nobodies in an obscure little corner of the world of no particular importance, and that He loved them the way a father loves his children—and what kind of father offers just enough at a time like that when he has, at his disposal, the very best?… The supernatural stuff is one thing, but consider the magnificence of that gesture, the sheer audacious style of it. I do not care if you are the most cynical atheist walking the Earth—it is impossible not to admire the panache. He bends reality into a new shape, makes the universe follow new rules, to help out a friend, and He does it cool—nobody even knows what happened except for the waiters.”
  4. What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Motherhood (Daniela J. Lamas, New York Times): “For my generation— and, I’d argue, especially for women in my generation — the decision of whether to have a child has become highly fraught. It’s tied up with our desires for fulfilling careers, our willingness to risk a shift in the identities and lives we have built. It’s tied up in an understanding of all that went into making motherhood a choice that we get to make. With so much at stake, it is so easy to become paralyzed by indecision. But perhaps what I would have wanted to hear when I was dithering was something like this: Having a child has been extraordinary.… And for some reason, I feel almost embarrassed to admit how much I love being a mother. I spent my adult life until now with this idea that I was different from — and maybe even a little superior to — my peers who chose to spend time building their families. I was so worried about what a child would mean for my career. But what I did not anticipate was that what I would want itself would change.”
  5. This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time (Christopher Caldwell, New York Times): “Mr. Streeck has a clear vision of something paradoxical about the neoliberal project: For the global economy to be ‘free,’ it must be constrained. What the proponents of neoliberalism mean by a free market is a deregulated market. But getting to deregulation is trickier than it looks because in free societies, regulations are the result of people’s sovereign right to make their own rules. The more democratic the world’s societies are, the more idiosyncratic they will be, and the more their economic rules will diverge. But that is exactly what businesses cannot tolerate — at least not under globalization. Money and goods must be able to move frictionlessly and efficiently across borders. This requires a uniform set of laws. Somehow, democracy is going to have to give way.” 
    • Caldwell is an interesting thinker, so as soon as I saw his byline I knew I had to read the article. Worth a ponder.
  6. ‘A God Who Continually Surprises Us’: A Q&A With a Theologian Who Changed His Mind About Gay Marriage (Peter Wehner, New York Times): “…I would say that the way I was appealing to the Bible or the way I was interpreting the Bible was too narrowly focused on the few texts in Scripture that do say something explicitly about homosexual relationships. The dictum in Leviticus is that for a man to lie with a man as with a woman is an abomination. And those texts had a certain impact on my opinion. But I think I was I was far too narrow in the way I thought about how the Bible speaks to issues like this. What I came to think over time is that what the Bible shows is not some isolated proof texts or isolated statements of law, but it shows us a much bigger picture of God as a God who continually surprises us, continually surprises his people with the scope of generosity and grace and mercy.” 
    • This is one of many revealing moments in this interview. Hays stopped believing what the Bible actually says in favor of what he takes the deeper message of the Bible to be. It’s as though he subordinates the real text of the Bible to the hypothetical text of the Bible in his head.
    • This article makes me sad. Sharing because it’s a clearer-than-usual presentation of an argument that I often encounter, and its clarity makes the weaknesses of the revisionist position more evident.
  7. How Universities Cracked Down on Pro-Palestinian Activism (Isabelle Taft, New York Times): “Universities have seen just under 950 protest events this semester so far, compared to 3,000 last semester, according to a log at the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard University’s Ash Center. About 50 people have been arrested so far this school year at protests on higher education campuses, according to numbers gathered by The New York Times, compared to over 3,000 last semester. When students have protested this fall, administrators have often enforced — to the letter — new rules created in response to last spring’s unrest. The moves have created scenes that would have been hard to imagine previously, particularly at universities that once celebrated their history of student activism.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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.

The Gratitude of a Preacher

As a preacher I have a lot to be thankful for. First, of course, I have the sorts of things everyone should be thankful for. I’m thankful for puppies and kittens and stars. I’m thankful for my health and for my family. I’m thankful that I live in a peaceful place in this war-torn and violent world.

But there are some additional things that I as a minister ought to be grateful for, and three are on my mind today. I am grateful for those I minister to, I am grateful for those I used to minister to, and I am grateful for those who make it possible. 

First, I am grateful for those I minister to. So often in his letters Paul expresses thanks to God for the people he ministers to:

1 Thess 3:9 may be the most powerful of these verses:

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? (NIV)

I can relate to Paul — the students in Chi Alpha bring me joy. Actual delight. Words fail me at times. And this isn’t a one-off sentiment Paul expresses:

  • 1 Cor 1:4 – “I always thank my God for you”
  • Eph 1:16 – “I have not stopped giving thanks for you”
  • Col 1:3 – “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you”
  • 1 Thess 1:2 – “We always thank God for all of you”
  • 2 Thess 1:3 – “We ought always to thank God for you” (all these are from the NIV)

Paul knew that when you’re a minister, you should realize that the people God has given you are a gift. More fully, you are a gift to them and they are a gift to you. 

Someone like me should be grateful that anyone shows up to hear me preach. I minister to busy Stanford students. These people have been working all week. They’ve got homework to get done. They have textbooks to read. And they’ve got cute people to woo. And they’re gonna take time every Wednesday night to walk across campus and listen to me talk about the Bible? And then they’re going to find me throughout the week to ask me questions about God and how to follow Him more fully and wisely? That’s wild!

I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to God for them. My students are amazing and I love them so much.

Second, I am grateful for those I ministered to years ago.

In 3 John 1:4 the apostle tells us

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (NIV)

Paula and I recently took a trip to DC, New York, and Boston to visit some of our alumni. It was so exciting to catch up with everyone, but one of the things that made the biggest impression on me was meeting children who only exist because God called Paula and me to minister at Stanford over two decades ago. Their parents met in Chi Alpha, and likely would not have begun to date had we not provided the environment in which their relationship grew. And now there are kids. Actual adorable humans of infinite worth who exist as a direct result of our ministry. It’s wonderful.

Seeing our alumni filled me with inexpressible joy, especially when I spoke to so many of them about the churches they attend and how their faith has grown through the years.

Our alumni are extraordinary people and I am always touched when they have time to meet with their old college pastor, and even more when they have kind words to share and fond memories to reminisce over.

Third, I am grateful for those who make it possible. 

In Philippians 1:3–5, Paul says

3 Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. 4 Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, 5 for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. (NLT)

Paul is so thankful for the Philippians that he thanks God for them every time he prays because they are his “partners in spreading the Good News about Christ.” What that means is unclear until you come to the end of the letter. In Philippians 4:15–16 he explains

15 As you know, you Philippians were the only ones who gave me financial help when I first brought you the Good News and then traveled on from Macedonia. No other church did this. 16 Even when I was in Thessalonica you sent help more than once.(NLT)

The Philippians partnered with Paul by sending him money to help him do ministry. And Paul was grateful.

So am I. Our ministry is only possible because of a whole lot of people like the Philippians. They give us financial help and Paula and I are so very thankful.

So I’m grateful. And if you’re a student in Chi Alpha now, or if you were a student in Chi Alpha years ago, or if you are one of our financial partners, know this: I am especially grateful for you this Thanksgiving. May you be blessed.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 479

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. How the Ivy League Broke America (David Brooks, The Atlantic): “Students who got into higher-ranking colleges, which demand high secondary-school GPAs, are not substantially more effective after they graduate. In one study of 28,000 young students, those attending higher-ranking universities did only slightly better on consulting projects than those attending lower-ranked universities. Grant notes that this would mean, for instance, that a Yale student would have been only about 1.9 percent more proficient than a student from Cleveland State when measured by the quality of their work. The Yale student would also have been more likely to be a jerk: The researchers found that students from higher-ranking colleges and universities, while nominally more effective than other students, were more likely to pay ‘insufficient attention to interpersonal relationships,’ and in some instances to be ‘less friendly,’ ‘more prone to conflict,’ and ‘less likely to identify with their team.’ ” 
    • Interesting throughout. I liked this line — “If we could get to the point where being snobby about going to Stanford seems as ridiculous as being snobby about your great-grandmother’s membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, this would transform not just college admissions but American childhood.”
    • Somewhat related: We Asked for It (Michael W. Clune, The Chronicle of Higher Education): “The costs of explicitly tying the academic enterprise to partisan politics in a democracy were eminently foreseeable and are now coming into sharp focus.… In return for their tuition, students are given the faculty’s high-class political opinions as a form of cultural capital. Thus the public perceives these opinions — on defunding the police, or viewing biological sex as a social construction, or Israel as absolute evil — as markers in a status game. Far from advancing their opinions, professors in fact function to invalidate these views for the majority of Americans who never had the opportunity to attend elite institutions but who are constantly stigmatized for their low-class opinions by the lucky graduates. Far from representing a powerful avant-garde leading the way to political change, the politicized class of professors is a serious political liability to any party that it supports.” 
      • The author is an English professor at Case Western. He throws a lot of strong punches.
  2. Jordan Peterson Loves God’s Word. But What About God? (Brad East, Christianity Today): “the power of Peterson’s style is his marriage of existential urgency with hermeneutical creativity. He expects the Word to show him wonders. He wrestles with the text—a mystery and a stranger—until he secures a blessing from it. He takes for granted that its depths are bottomless. Do pastors model this posture in the pulpit? Do teachers in the classroom? Do scholars on the page?Christian readers should learn from Peterson’s boldness, his disposition of awe and docility before the sacred page. He opens the scroll with the same spirit as the psalmist: ‘Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law’ (119:18).”
    • Recommended by a colleague. This is one of the best Christian engagements with Jordan Peterson I’ve seen.
  3. In the Era of the Judges (Stiven Peter, Mere Orthodoxy): “The holders of cultural capital have not simply substituted Christian values with an alternative set but promote the very loss of order itself. The only values are no values. That is, our culture promotes libertinism, everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. Sociologically, Hunter calls this the process of dissolution: ‘By dissolution, I refer to the deconstruction of the most basic assumptions about reality.’ Our culture doesn’t enforce any guide to who or what we are, nor what we should do. Instead, what is promoted is turning inside ourselves and determining our own values. This process results in the fracturing of society alongside tribes/enclaves of people with similar values.” 
    • This is a review of Aaron Renn’s book, and Renn says: “This review is a think piece in its own right. Peter takes my ideas and restates them through his own lens — improving them in the process.”
  4. Rich Inner Death (Samuel D. James, Substack): “Our mental health crisis is usually cast as either a failure of therapeutic techniques—we just haven’t unlocked our trauma well enough yet—or else an unavoidable consequence of climate anxiety, polarization, or bad media. But [perhaps the crisis stems from how we are trained to view the world]. There is a way of living your life as a kind of constant retreat into both the safety and the chaos of your own imagination, and nearly everything about how we learn, communicate, and work as modern people helps us condition for this. We are taught early and often to direct our gaze inward.” 
    • Several substantive insights in this article.
  5. Why the Federalist Society Has Been a Great Success (Ed Whelan, Substack): “The Federalist Society’s success has led many on the Left—and, more recently, some envious folks on the Right—to revile and demonize it. But its critics routinely display that they do not understand how it operates and how it has succeeded.… It does not submit amicus briefs. It does not undertake to enlist the public in political undertakings. And it has never done any of these things. And therein lies one of the great keys to its success.”
  6. AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably (Brian Porter & Edouard Machery, Scientific Reports [Nature]): “We collected 5 poems each from 10 well-known English-language poets, spanning much of the history of English poetry: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400), William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Samuel Butler (1613–1680), Lord Byron (1788–1824), Walt Whitman (1819–1892), Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), and Dorothea Lasky (1978- ). Using ChatGPT 3.5, we generated 5 poems ‘in the style of’ each poet. We used a ‘human out of the loop’ paradigm: we used the first 5 poems generated, and did not select the ‘best’ out of a group of poems or provide any feedback or instructions to the model beyond ‘Write a short poem in the style of <poet> ‘. In the first experiment, 1,634 participants were randomly assigned to one of the 10 poets, and presented with 10 poems in random order: 5 poems written by that poet, and 5 generated by AI ‘in the style of’ that poet. For each poem, participants were asked whether they thought the poem was generated by AI or written by a human poet.… Contrary to what earlier studies reported, people now appear unable to reliably distinguish human-out-of-the-loop AI-generated poetry from human-authored poetry written by well-known poets.… Furthermore, people prefer AI-generated poetry to human-authored poetry, consistently rating AI-generated poems more highly than the poems of well-known poets across a variety of qualitative factors.” 
    • The authors are at the University of Pittsburgh.
  7. Why Progressives Should Question Their Favorite Scientific Findings (Paul Bloom, The Chronicle of Higher Education): “You may have heard of the study published in 2020 concluding that Black newborns have higher survival rates when Black doctors attend to them. It got a huge amount of coverage in the popular press. It was even cited by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent last year on the court’s ruling against racial preferences in college admissions. The research, Jackson claimed, shows the benefits of diversity. ‘It saves lives,’ she wrote. The same journal just published a re-analysis of the data. It turns out that the ‘effect is substantially weakened, and often becomes statistically insignificant,’ once you take into account that Black doctors are less likely to see the higher-risk population of newborns with low birth weight. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the re-analysis because I didn’t believe the original finding.… It’s like what someone once said about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire: They’re both going through all the same moves, but Ginger Rogers is doing them backward and in high heels. A published finding that clashes with the political prejudices of reviewers and editors is a Ginger Rogers finding. It had to be twice as good.” 
    • The author is a psychology professor (emeritus at Yale, currently at U Toronto).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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 478

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. When a Stanford Bible Study Led to an AI Startup (Emily Belz, Christianity Today): “Hadassah Betapudi and Elijah Kim met at a Christian fellowship at Stanford in 2022 and got to know each other by leading a Bible study together. Soon the duo—with their backgrounds in data organizing and computer science—was building an artificial intelligence startup.” 
    • The article never names Chi Alpha, but they are both leaders in our ministry. Super cool! Their startup is Esslo, which helps students with their college application essays.
  2. I Believe in Miracles. Just Not All of Them. (David French, New York Times): “As the surgery date approached, I got a call from a dear friend, Ruth Okediji. Ruth was the leader of my law school Christian fellowship, and she’s now a professor at Harvard Law School. I’ll never forget her first words. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘The Lord has healed you.’ My initial reaction was frustration. I was resigned to the surgery, and I wanted encouragement, not false hope. As a Christian, I believe that God is real and works miracles. But I didn’t consider that he would work a miracle on me. My prayers were of the conventional kind that I grew up with — prayers that doctors would have wisdom and that I’d have the courage to face the challenge of the surgery. But Ruth’s prayer was different. She asked God for healing, and she said that God had granted her prayer. I woke up the next morning without any pain at all. I had no pain the entire day. The next day was pain-free as well, and so was the next. The doctors reintroduced bland, solid food to my diet, and I consumed it voraciously. By Thanksgiving, I’d gained most of my weight back, and a colonoscopy later showed no evidence of the disease at all. My doctor was surprised. I was surprised (and overjoyed). I knew that ulcerative colitis could have remission periods, but this one stuck. And in the 29 years since, I’ve never had a recurrence.”
  3. The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed (Zvi Mowshowitz, Substack): “When sports gambling was legalized in America, I was hopeful it too could prove a net positive force, far superior to the previous obnoxious wave of daily fantasy sports. It brings me no pleasure to conclude that this was not the case. The results are in. Legalized mobile gambling on sports, let alone casino games, has proven to be a huge mistake. The societal impacts are far worse than I expected.… The impacts include a 28% overall increase in bankruptcies (!).… When the home team suffers an upset loss while sports betting is legal, domestic violence that day goes up by 9% for the day, with lingering effects.”
  4. Artificial Intelligence and Relationships: 1 in 4 Young Adults Believe AI Partners Could Replace Real-life Romance (Wendy Wang and Michael Toscano, Institute for Family Studies): “Young men are more likely than young women to believe that AI has the potential to replace real-life romantic relationships (28% vs. 22%). As shown earlier, young men are generally more open to AI friendships than young women, which parallels the gender difference in their views of AI’s potential for romance.… Among single young adults, those who watch porn online at least once a day are twice as likely as those who rarely, if ever watch porn to say they are open to an AI romance.”
  5. The Right Without Wrong (Dustin Guastella, Jacobin): “For secular liberals who have made ‘believing science’ their own kind of religion, the possible waning of Christian conservatism may seem like a blessing long overdue. What if it isn’t?… In the Christian story, we are all equally fallen. Our original sin unites us in a kind of negative equilibrium. By recasting Christianity as a unique perversion, a cancerous growth that destroyed the glorious Roman Empire from within (or a virus introduced by Jews, that ancient enemy of the Right, from without), reactionaries can freely reject our primordial equality to instead embrace the supposedly natural hierarchies evident in the outcome of market competition, the body-obsessed ‘vitalism’ that privileges physical strength over the effete idealism of the Enlightenment, and also, seemingly without fail, an aggressive, unashamed form of scientific racism.” 
    • Jacobin is a socialist magazine — fascinating to see how one of their authors feels about the rise of the post-religious right.
  6. We Need to Fix Voting in America Now (Wilfred Reilly, National Review): “Simply put, there is no way to know the real rate of voter fraud in America, so long as the U.S.A. does not require citizens to vote in person or show an ID when they vote.… Recall that a competently done scan-and-purge of the rolls in Iowa alone turned up almost two orders of magnitude more registered noncitizens than the number that The Experts™ discovered nationwide — fully 0.5 percent–1 percent of the state’s electorate in some off-year races. Saying that these folks do not exist because they have never been jailed is like saying that there cannot really be 1 million-plus daily users of The Pirate Bay and similar sites, because there are so few annual prosecutions for internet crimes.” 
    • The author is a political science professor. He presents data I’ve never heard before.
  7. A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives (Musa al-Gharbi, Substack): “According to Forbes, more than 50 other billionaires also threw their weight behind Trump. So far so good for the preferred narrative. But here’s the twist: even more billionaires — 83 to be precise — supported the Democratic nominee. Kamala had 60 percent more billionaire backers than Donald Trump did. And billionaires like Oprah and Mark Cuban hit the campaign trail serving as surrogates for Harris in much the same way as Musk supported Trump. If we want to look at who ‘big money’ tried to push into office this cycle, the answer is disconcerting.… Overall, this cycle, Democrats raised roughly twice as much money as their opponents. In the months after Joe Biden dropped out, Democrats raised more than $1 billion – more than three times as much as Republicans brought in over the same period – largely thanks to enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris within Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Big Law.”

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 477

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. Some post-election analysis, with the reminder that I do not endorse everything I share. I share them because they made me think. 
    • Amazing quote from the Stanford Review: It’s Time For Stanford to Accept President Donald Trump (Again) (Editorial, Stanford Review): “Stanford students often forget to consider that the world around them votes too—and that the world does not have the same concerns. As one peer remarked, ‘I found out some of the dining hall staff voted for Trump and lowkey forgot they got to vote too.’ ”
    • 10 Reasons You Didn’t See This Coming (Konstantin Kisin, Substack): “Americans are extremely practical people. They care about what works, not what sounds good. In Europe, we produce great writers and intellectuals. In America they produce (and attract) great engineers, businessmen and investors. Because of this, they care less about Trump’s rhetoric than you do and more about his policies than you do.” 
      • Kisin is a Russian-born immigrant to Britain. Interesting to see how at least one foreigner perceives the results US election.
    • Donald Trump Is the President for Post-Christian America (Aaron Renn, Substack): “It’s hard to complain that he’s crude when we live in a crude society and people like that way — except when it comes to him. In fact, compared to the rest of the country, Trump is a retro model of rectitude when it comes to not drinking or doing drugs, having a relentless work ethic, wearing suits, etc.”
    • Democrats Picked the Wrong Women’s Rights Issue (Madeleine Kearns, The Free Press): “Democrats bet big on ‘reproductive rights’ this election cycle, even offering free abortions at their national convention. But the strategy didn’t pay off. Not only was abortion a flop with the electorate, it was Republicans—not Democrats—who pushed the winning women’s‑rights issue: fighting the encroachment of biological men into women’s spaces and sports.”
    • How a Latino wave carried Trump to victory (Daniel McCarthy, The Spectator): “The fact is that left-wing cultural attitudes in America, and in the West as a whole, are themselves very ‘European’ and seem often irrelevant or repugnant to people of other cultures and racial backgrounds. White progressive Americans think of their views as being universal, but they are really very specific to their own group. White liberals believe, for example, that masculinity is ‘toxic’ and the world needs more female leaders. They also believe that ‘anti-racism’ requires ‘affirmative action’ or racial quotes to give blacks in particular more representation in positions of power and prestige. White liberalism is the reason Kamala Harris was named as Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020. She wasn’t a popular politician – and as this election proved, she still isn’t. But she was the right sex and colour to satisfy the requirements of white liberals. Latinos are not white liberals.”
    • How Different Groups Voted in the 2024 Election (Brian McGill, Anthony DeBarros and Caitlin Ostroff, Wall Street Journal): “Here are the results of a survey of over 120,000 registered voters, compiled by the Associated Press, which offer a look at voting patterns and trends among various groups in the electorate and what issues were the most important to voters heading into Election Day. Numbers will update as responses are added and the survey’s weighting adjusts.” 
      • A LOT of graphs. One detail fascinating detail: people who voted for Trump were MORE concerned that Kamala Harris would lead America in an authoritarian direction than the people who voted for Harris were concerned about Trump doing the same. It was tight, but the greater fear was of a Harris administration.
    • How Could Trump and Abortion Rights Both Win? (Jill Filipovic, New York Times): “How could significant numbers of voters cast their ballots for legal abortion and also for the man who helped make it possible to criminalize abortion in the first place? Mr. Trump boasted about overturning Roe v. Wade and being the most pro-life president in American history, while Kamala Harris pledged to use her presidential power to protect and expand a broad range of reproductive freedoms. Yet, according to the vote tallies released so far, in every state where abortion was up for a vote, more voters cast those ballots for abortion rights than for Ms. Harris.” 
      • Recommended by a student.
    • Prediction Markets for the Win (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “The prediction markets predicted the election outcome more accurately and more quickly than polls or other forecasting methods, just as expected from decades of research.”
    • Congrats To Polymarket, But I Still Think They Were Mispriced (Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten): “Why [do I think the market was mispriced]? In order for an American to use Polymarket, you have to get a VPN, a Coinbase account, and a Metamask wallet, use the VPN, get crypto on the Coinbase account, transfer it to the Metamask wallet, connect the Metamask wallet to Polymarket, and buy the shares you want. Ability to do this rules out 99% of the US population.… I think prediction markets are among our single best sources of truth, but that (as with every source of truth) we need to think critically about them and notice the rare times when they fail. If you can’t think critically, you’re going to have a hard time, but in that case I would still trust prediction markets over any other source (except Metaculus, which is so similar to a prediction market that it belongs in the same category anyway).” 
      • Interesting contrarian take on the prediction market’s success in the election.
  2. Why Women Use Pornography and How the Church Can Help (Helen Thorne-Allenson, The Gospel Coalition): “The biggest driver of pornography use among the women I’ve met with is anxiety. Life feels overwhelming at times; pornography brings some relief… Maybe unsurprisingly, another big driver among the women I’ve walked alongside (particularly younger women) is a desire to know what sex is like.… The driver we probably miss most often in the church is that of managing pain.”
  3. Be Perfect (Ross Byrd, Mere Orthodoxy): “In the Bible, the word ‘perfect’ doesn’t mean what we tend to mean by it today. For the writers of Scripture, perfection has more to do with finished-ness than flawlessness. A thing is called ‘perfect’ when it is brought to its full maturity, when it becomes everything it is meant to be. Now, if we apply this definition to the Garden of Eden, we are forced to conclude that Eden was not, in fact, perfect. Eden was good, as Genesis tells us over and over. He created this and that, and it was good. He created human beings, and it was very good. But it doesn’t say perfect. In a very important sense, it was not yet perfect, because it was not yet complete. Eden was the beginning. The garden was, among other things, a place of potential.” 
    • Emphasis in original. I like the core insight in this essay a lot.
  4. Why We’re Still Atheists (Katja Hoyer, Plough): “I, on the other hand, often wondered even as a child what the point of life was if all you did is grow up, work, die, and be erased. When I lost relatives, friends, and pets, I knew I had lost them forever, while others held out for some form of reunion in another life or at least the idea that souls continued to exist somewhere. On an abstract level, I began to understand why most of humanity finds comfort, surety, and purpose in religion. But by the time I worked this out, it was entirely an intellectual mind game to me. I had grown up in a world that made sense without God and nothing could change that now.” 
    • A very interesting essay about why East Germany is so atheist, written by an atheist reflecting on it.
  5. Are Religious People More Fearful? (Ryan Burge, Substack): “I am really surprised at how few of these factors actually ‘pop’ in this analysis. That was true for things like income, age, marital status, view of the Bible, and religious importance. None of those had a measurable impact on the fear index. Also, I didn’t find a single factor that clearly led to higher levels of expressed fear. However, there were four variables in this analysis that predicted a lower score on the fear index. They were: being white, being male, having a higher level of education, and increased church attendance.” 
    • Emphasis removed for readability.
  6. St. Junipero Serra: An Unjustly Controversial Figure (Brian Gabriel, The European Conservative): “In present-day discourse, the actions of the missionaries and the Spanish soldiers are often conflated, but the missionaries’ paternalistic attitude toward the tribes actually often led them to protect the tribes from the more rapacious and unsavory behavior of the soldiers. It’s true enough that the tribes were sometimes forced to labor in the fields, and their freedom of movement was restricted once they converted to Catholicism. The missions themselves were often built in part, at least, by the tribesmen, sometimes under duress. But the harsh treatment, while striking the modern observer as cruel and tortuous, was seen by the missionaries as essential to the natives’ spiritual salvation. Today, many of their descendants remain Catholic. The value of the missionaries’ actions can never be recognized by a modern world that doesn’t allow for spiritual effects.” 
    • I have long believed, even as a very Protestant person, that Junipero Serra has gotten a bum rap in California (and at Stanford).
  7. Rodney Alcala Didn’t Kill Me. Forty Years Later, I Asked Him Why (Alice Feiring, New York Magazine): “Four-decades-plus later, I learned his real name when it flashed across a television screen beneath his familiar face and orange jumpsuit: ‘Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Serial Killer, Sentenced to Death.’ It couldn’t be the same man, I’d thought to myself. But after hours of Googling I had to accept the truth: Jon Burger was an alias; he was the winning bachelor on The Dating Game nine years after I met him; and he is believed to have been one of the most prolific of serial killers, officially responsible for at least seven murders with authorities estimating his real body count at about 130.” 
    • Recommended by a student who says, “Very well written, chilling story. The author is lucky to be alive.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • How to Do Action Comedy (Every Frame a Painting, YouTube): nine minutes about what makes Jackie Chan so great, and why his foreign films are better than his American films in important ways.
  • Harvey Epstein for New York City Council (Saturday Night Live, YouTube): two and a half minutes I found absolutely hilarious. What’s even funnier is that it’s about a real politician.
  • Vote (Texts From Superheroes)
  • Diet (Pearls Before Swine) — actually, though

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 476



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.

This is a shorter-than-normal edition because I’ve had a busy week and haven’t read as much as I normally do.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. There’s more herding in swing state polls than at a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands (Nate Silver, Substack): “How many [recent polls] showed the race in either direction within 2.5 percentage points, close enough that you could basically call it a tie? Well, 193 of them did, or 78 percent. That’s way more than you should get in theory — even if the candidates are actually exactly tied in all seven states, which they almost certainly aren’t.… Based on a binomial distribution — which assumes that all polls are independent of one another, which theoretically they should be — it’s realllllllllllllly unlikely. Specifically, the odds are 1 in 9.5 trillion against at least this many polls showing such a close margin.”
  2. Christianity Today’s podcast The Bulletin ran interviews with three Christians voting different ways. Presented in the order in which they aired: 
    • Voting Third Party (Matt Martens): “He’s a trial lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, a seminary graduate, a legal ethics professor, and an award-winning author. Martens’s writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other outlets, and he has spoken at numerous universities across the country.”
    • Voting Democrat (David French): “He’s a columnist for The New York Times and a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.”
    • Voting Republican (Eric Teetsel): “Teetsel was vice president of government relations at The Heritage Foundation, was chief of staff to US senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, and served as president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas.”
  3. What economists don’t know (Scott Sumner, Substack): “I am not impressed when someone tells me that a small homogeneous country has less inequality than the US. I am impressed by the fact that almost every single ethnic group in America is more successful than the equivalent ethnic group in their home country.… Right now, the US economy is the envy of the world. Before we replace free markets with an industrial policy, we might wish to compare upside and downside risks from interventionism. Given that our living standards are currently the highest in the world (at least for countries of more than 10 million), in which direction are the risks the greatest?” 
    • The author is an econ professor at Bentley.
  4. How Many Continents Are There? You May Not Like the Answers. (Matt Kaplan, New York Times): “The dispute arises in part because there are really two types of continents: Those recognized by cultures around the world, and those recognized by geologists. Cultures can define a continent any way they want, while geologists have to use a definition. And geological research in recent years has made defining continental boundaries less simple than it might have once seemed as researchers find evidence of unexpected continental material.”

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.