Author: Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 12

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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. From the too-close-to-home depart­ment: The Cod­dling of The Amer­i­can Mind (Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic): the the­sis of this essay is that a “cam­pus cul­ture devot­ed to polic­ing speech and pun­ish­ing speak­ers is like­ly to engen­der pat­terns of thought that are sur­pris­ing­ly sim­i­lar to those long iden­ti­fied by cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­pists as caus­es of depres­sion and anx­i­ety.” This is a long piece but is worth read­ing even if you sus­pect it will infu­ri­ate you. There is some insight­ful com­men­tary on Red­dit argu­ing that it’s not stu­dents who have changed but admin­is­tra­tors.
  2. From the race-and-reli­gion depart­ment: A Year After Fer­gu­son, Have White Chris­tians Learned Any­thing? (Rus­sell Moore, Wash­ing­ton Post)
  3. From the con­tem­po­rary events depart­ment:
  4. From the ISIS depart­ment:
  5. From the eat-your-wheaties depart­ment: Want ‘Sus­tained Hap­pi­ness’? Get Reli­gion, Study Sug­gests (Sarah Pul­liam Bai­ley, Wash­ing­ton Post): if you have the desire, check out the orig­i­nal study in the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Epi­demi­ol­o­gy.

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 11

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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. I am at a con­fer­ence in Flori­da with spot­ty inter­net ser­vice, so there will be few­er items than nor­mal this week (large­ly items from pre­vi­ous weeks I’ve been hold­ing in reserve). Here are three quick insights from the con­fer­ence that have stood out to me:
    • Poor lead­ers seek atten­tion, great lead­ers pay atten­tion,
    • You need both the pow­er of God and the pres­ence of God in your life. The pow­er of God appears in a moment, but the pres­ence of God is some­thing we con­stant­ly pur­sue. We freak out when we are in an area with no cell phone cov­er­age. We should be at least that des­per­ate for the pres­ence of God.
    • Don’t hunt for green­er grass — it’s prob­a­bly just a sep­tic leak any­way.
  2. From the east­ern affairs depart­ment:
  3. From the every-tribe-tongue-and-nation depart­ment:

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 10

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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. From the cur­rent events depart­ment: the church been opposed to abor­tion from our ear­li­est days for many rea­sons. One of them is that John the Bap­tist, while still in the womb, rejoiced when he was close to Jesus (Luke 1:39–44).
  2. From the same-mouth-as-bless­ings depart­ment: How Dare You Say That! The Evo­lu­tion of Pro­fan­i­ty (John McWhort­er, Wall Street Jour­nal): culture’s moral val­ues change over time, and what we con­sid­er unspeak­able is a big clue to what those val­ues are. The same author has anoth­er piece that came out around the same time: America’s Flawed New Reli­gion — Antiracism (John McWhort­er, The Dai­ly Beast). The lat­ter is a flawed piece — but it made me think.
  3. From the stand­ing-with-our-fam­i­ly depart­ment: US Wants Answers on Evan­gel­i­cal Persecution–In Mex­i­co (Mor­gan Lee, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): Chris­tian­i­ty is the most per­se­cut­ed reli­gion in the world — even in places you wouldn’t expect.
    • Dying For Chris­tian­i­ty (Har­ri­et Sher­wood, The Guardian): this arti­cle from a sec­u­lar source puts the pre­vi­ous arti­cle into a broad­er con­text.
  5. From the things-are-always-com­pli­cat­ed depart­ment:

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 9

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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. From the par­ty-with-puri­tans depart­ment: Our Puri­tan Her­itage (Democ­ra­cy, Jim Sleep­er): the author, a polit­i­cal sci­ence lec­tur­er at Yale, is not a Chris­t­ian. I think parts of his argu­ment are wrong, but I found the whole thing stim­u­lat­ing (the com­ments are worth read­ing as well). For some­thing more prac­ti­cal­ly help­ful, see Puri­tan Resources For Bib­li­cal Coun­sel­ing (Jour­nal of Bib­li­cal Coun­sel­ing, Tim Keller): good stuff about how to grow spir­i­tu­al­ly.
  2. From the sis­ter-in-Christ-doing-good depart­ment: Griev­ing Gov. Nik­ki Haley For­ev­er Changed By Church Mas­sacre (Post and Couri­er, Jen­nifer Berry Hawes): Nik­ki Haley, the gov­er­nor of South Car­oli­na, is an adult con­vert to Chris­tian­i­ty. There’s a 2012 inter­view about her faith at Chris­tian­i­ty Today.
  3. From the still-work­ing-to-show-the-world-that-we-are-one depart­ment: Dear Pas­tor, Can I Come To Your Church? (Chris­tian­i­ty Today, Bradley Wright): an inter­est­ing study on implic­it racial bias in wel­com­ing new­com­ers to church. It may be behind a pay­wall — I was able to access the whole thing but some­one else told me they only got a snip­pet. The author, a soci­ol­o­gist at U Conn, gives ref­er­ences on his web­site (the Chris­tian­i­ty Today arti­cle is a pop­u­lar­iza­tion of a forth­com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle).
  4. From the it-sounds-clever-the-first-time-you-hear-it-depart­ment: Why Pri­va­tiz­ing Mar­riage Would Be A Dis­as­ter (The Week, Shikha Dalmia): I’ve heard some Chris­tians sug­gest that we erect a wall of sep­a­ra­tion between mar­riage and state. This arti­cle sug­gests that is a fool­ish idea. For a Chris­t­ian take (the author of the pre­vi­ous arti­cle is agnos­tic) that comes to sim­i­lar con­clu­sion, read Dou­glas Wilson’s In Which First Things Does Some Fourth Things (Doug Wil­son is a fas­ci­nat­ing and polar­iz­ing fig­ure: read The Con­tro­ver­sial­ist from Chris­tian­i­ty Today to learn more about him).
  5. From the mak­ing-a-dif­fer­ence-is-hard depart­ment: The Myth of the Eth­i­cal Shop­per (Huff­in­g­ton Post, Michael Hobbes): I post­ed a sim­i­lar piece a few weeks ago. You have less con­trol as a con­sumer than you think because com­pa­nies have less con­trol than you think.
  6. From the in-our-back­yard depart­ment: Spir­i­tu­al Oppor­tu­ni­ty in Sil­i­con Val­ley (Lead­er­ship Jour­nal, Daniel Dar­ling): an inter­view with the author of a forth­com­ing book about Chris­tian­i­ty in Sil­i­con Val­ley. The book looks inter­est­ing. The author blogs at http://findinggodinsiliconvalley.com/

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 8

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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. From the unex­pect­ed con­se­quences depart­ment The Col­lege Majors Most Like­ly To Mar­ry Each Oth­er (Wonkblog, Ana Swan­son): pre­sent­ed with­out com­ment as a pub­lic ser­vice.
  2. From the pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment depart­ment:
  3. From the cel­e­brat­ing-our-fam­i­ly depart­ment: Under­stand­ing the roles of faith-based health-care providers in Africa: review of the evi­dence with a focus on mag­ni­tude, reach, cost, and sat­is­fac­tion (sev­er­al authors, The Lancet): Michelle Park’s fiance Har­ri­son Hines is a coau­thor. The jour­nal has sev­er­al relat­ed arti­cles in their faith-based health care series. If you pub­lish some­thing, let me know.
  4. From the rec­om­mend­ed-by-a-stu­dent depart­ment: How Wide the Divide: Sex­u­al­i­ty at the Fore­front, Cul­ture at the Cross­roads (Ravi Zacharias blog): a reflec­tion on the dif­fer­ences that make us dif­fer. This one was drawn to my atten­tion by one of you. If you find an arti­cle help­ful, route it my way. There’s a good chance I’ll pass it on.
  5. From the make-up-your-mind depart­ment: Humans Are Nowhere Near As Spe­cial As We Like To Think and The Traits That Make Human Beings Unique (both by Melis­sa Hogen­boom, BBC): these two arti­cles go togeth­er. It’s an inter­est­ing approach — argue both sides of a case in sep­a­rate arti­cles so that peo­ple can link to the one they like. I’m going to go with Jesus on this one: “you are worth more than many spar­rows” (Matthew 10:31).

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 7

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar. Past emails are archived at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links

  1. From the peo­ple-are-awe­some depart­ment: Is This New Swim Stroke The Fastest Yet? (Regan Penalu­na, Nau­tilus): how are we still dis­cov­er­ing stuff like this?
  2. From the leviathan-is-scary depart­ment:
  3. From the method­ol­o­gy mat­ters depart­ment: Tal­ly­ing Right-Wing Ter­ror vs Jihad (Megan McAr­dle, Bloomberg View) — I am not super-inter­est­ed in the top­ic itself, but I found this piece fas­ci­nat­ing as an exam­ple of how impor­tant research method­ol­o­gy is. Hone your craft!
  4. From the grace abounds depart­ment: An Evan­gel­i­cal Revival In The Heart of New York (Liz Rob­bins, New York Times): this is about an event host­ed by Luis Palau, not an erup­tion of piety in the Big Apple, although the arti­cle notes that the num­ber of evan­gel­i­cals in NYC has increased by 20% since 2000. This relat­ed sto­ry adds fas­ci­nat­ing details: Saturday’s Big Evan­ge­lism Event In Cen­tral Park Fueled By Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice With A Bless­ing From A Gay May­or In Port­landia (Pauline Dolle, A Jour­ney Through NYC Reli­gions).

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 6

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the sex­u­al­i­ty depart­ment: in light of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion to rede­fine mar­riage to include same-sex cou­ples I’ve got some sug­gest­ed read­ings.
  2. From the some­thing-com­plete­ly-dif­fer­ent depart­ment: On Obsti­na­cy In Belief (C.S. Lewis, The Sewa­nee Review): I was not aware of this C.S. Lewis essay before this week. It was reward­ing.
  3. From the if-it-is-not-news-can-it-be-dis­ap­point­ing-news depart­ment: How Aca­d­e­mics View Con­ser­v­a­tive Protes­tants (Yancey, Reimer, and O’Connell, Soci­ol­o­gy of Reli­gion): The lead author, a soci­ol­o­gist, blogs at Black, White and Gray and I fre­quent­ly ben­e­fit from what he shares there.

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 5

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

Heads up: in light of today’s Supreme Court deci­sion I’ll like­ly include some arti­cles about mar­riage and same-sex rela­tion­ships in next Fri­day’s update. If you see any­thing you find help­ful, please send it my way.

  1. From the ongo­ing reflec­tions on Charleston depart­ment: Per­se­cu­tion and the Black Church (Ross Douthat, NY Times) — Douthat is a NY Times colum­nist who con­sis­tent­ly talks about issues of faith (he is a devout Catholic).
  2. These next two arti­cle­sare linked in that they are about peo­ple dri­ven by their Chris­t­ian faith. One is an out­spo­ken lib­er­al and the oth­er an out­spo­ken con­ser­v­a­tive. If you only have time to read about one, read about the one you prob­a­bly dis­agree with.
  3. From the back­sto­ry depart­ment: Pales­tin­ian BDS Move­ment: Get­ting a Han­dle on a Com­pli­cat­ed Sto­ry Ahead of Dead­line (Ira Rifkin,GetReligion): this is an arti­cle for jour­nal­ists help­ing them pre­pare for cov­er­age of the Boy­cott, Divest­ment, and Sanc­tions move­ment as it comes to the aware­ness of the Amer­i­can pub­lic (it hit Stan­ford last year, as you no doubt recall).
    • Inci­den­tal­ly, it’s real­ly hard to get a good under­stand­ing of this or of most top­ics relat­ed to Israel, espe­cial­ly as it con­nects to Pales­tine. For an eye-open­ing (and dis­may­ing) expe­ri­ence, read What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel (Mat­tie Fried­man, The Atlantic).
  4. From the Chi Alpha world­wide depart­ment: Geor­gia Cou­ple Defend Their Love After Bou­quet Self­ie Gets Neg­a­tive Com­ments: Our Rela­tion­ship ‘Is Not About Looks’ (Caitlin Keat­ing, Peo­ple): I include this only because it is about two Chi Alpha stu­dent lead­ers at Colum­bus State Uni­ver­si­ty, which I know because I know their cam­pus pas­tor. On a relat­ed note — if you are ever in the news please feel free to wear your Chi Alpha t‑shirt.

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 4

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the Charleston depart­ment:
    1. Why A Black Church? (Emma Green, The Atlantic): the last para­graph was like a punch in the gut.
    2. In this mov­ing Youtube clip, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims for­give the shoot­er in court and call upon him to repent. It sounds as though sev­er­al of them were actu­al­ly there when the shoot­ing hap­pened and inter­act­ed with the shoot­er in the hour before­hand.
    3. The Charleston Shoot­ing is the Largest Mass Shoot­ing in a House of Wor­ship Since 1991 (Sarah Pul­liam Bai­ley, Wash­ing­ton Post): this is an infor­ma­tive overview of the his­to­ry of mass vio­lence at reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions in the US. I noticed one typo in the arti­cle — it refers to 176 deaths when I am pret­ty sure it should have referred to 176 vio­lent inci­dents lead­ing to 74 deaths in 2014.
    4. Black Amer­i­cans Are Killed at 12 Times the Rate of Peo­ple in Oth­er Devel­oped Coun­tries (Nate Sil­ver, FiveThir­tyEight): this is prob­a­bly the most depress­ing thing I read on a day of read­ing depress­ing things.
    5. The sto­ry of the lady who bust­ed the shoot­er is a more encour­ag­ing one. “It was God’s way of putting her in the right place at the right time, the Gas­to­nia woman said.”
  2. From the clar­i­ty is impor­tant depart­ment: Is Mor­monism Chris­t­ian? (Roger Olson, blog): Olson, a the­olo­gian, gives a very thor­ough and help­ful answer to the ques­tion. It’s real­ly long, so if you just want the sum­ma­ry jump to the last para­graph.
  3. From the mis­un­der­stood research depart­ment: The Real Les­son of the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment (Maria Kon­niko­va, New York­er): inter­est­ing for sev­er­al rea­sons, among them the fact that we walk past the site of the exper­i­ments reg­u­lar­ly.
  4. From the sin is per­va­sive depart­ment: All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploit­ed Labor (Gillian B. White, The Atlantic): even the most con­sci­en­tious com­pa­nies are unable to keep their prod­ucts oppres­sion-free.

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 3

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the everyone’s a crit­ic depart­ment: The Media Loves The Gates Foun­da­tion — These Experts Are More Skep­ti­cal (Juli­a­Bel­luz, Vox). This piece nev­er men­tions God, but I found it the­o­log­i­cal­ly fas­ci­nat­ing for three rea­sons:
    1. This arti­cle reminds me that no mat­ter how much good you do there will always be crit­ics. Jesus was per­fect and the world nailed him to a cross.
    2. This arti­cle reminds me that it is far eas­i­er to crit­i­cize than to accom­plish. The arti­cle left me far more impressed with the Gates than with their crit­ics. And I reflect­ed upon the fact that the crit­ics are unwit­ting­ly stor­ing up judg­ment for them­selves in heav­en where they will be mea­sured by the same stan­dards they apply to Bill and Melin­da Gates (Romans 2).
    3. But Bill and Melin­da do not get off scot-free. This arti­cle also reminds me of Isa­iah 64:6 — our right­eous deeds are like filthy rags before the Lord. These crit­i­cisms (at least those which are well-found­ed) are mere hints of the lim­i­ta­tions God sees in the right­eous deeds of Bill and Melin­da Gates. All of us need Jesus — even our most moral friends.
  2. From the respond­ing to crit­i­cisms depart­ment: On Con­ser­v­a­tive Reli­gious Activism, The Num­bers Speak For Them­selves (orig­i­nal­ly Wash­ing­ton Post, but bet­ter-for­mat­ted at RNS)  Peo­ple some­times claim that Chris­tians spend too much of their time and mon­ey fight­ing polit­i­cal bat­tles rather serv­ing the poor. This op-ed pro­vides num­bers to rebut the claim. A relat­ed arti­cle by a non-Chris­t­ian jour­nal­ist explains why many peo­ple believe the charge despite the data:  Ver­i­ly I Say Unto You: Chris­tians Care About the Poor (Megan McAr­dle, Bloomberg  View).
  3. From the self-decep­tion depart­ment: If You Use Face­book to Get Your News, Please — For the Love of Democ­ra­cy — Read This First (Cait­lyn Dewey, Wash­ing­ton Post): Nan­cy sent me this inter­est­ing arti­cle about how Facebook’s fil­ter­ing algo­rithms sub­tly rein­force our bias­es. In relat­ed news, Ezra Klein at Vox explains Why The Most Informed Vot­ers Are Often The Most Bad­ly Mis­led.
  4. From the laugh­ter is good depart­ment: Dil­bert meets an Inter­net star. The last pan­el kills me. Yesterday’s strip about brain­storm­ing was insight­ful­ly fun­ny as well.

Sug­ges­tions for a bet­ter title/frequency/best day to send the email on/articles to consider/etc are wel­come. My cur­rent plan is to send out an email with 3–5 top­ics every Fri­day.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and 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 will 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.