Tag: catholicism

TGFI, Volume 554: atheist delusions

You’ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. FAQs by Atheists (and others) (Sarah Salviander, Substack): “I’m often informed that I ‘wasn’t really an atheist,’ because I changed my mind. I don’t know what it takes to qualify as having been a Real Atheist, but I was raised atheist by ex-Catholic, socialist, political-activist, atheist parents in a secular country (Canada), and I really hated religion. Seems like that should qualify.” 
    • Recommended by a student and it was quite good indeed. I clicked some of the links and really enjoyed the slideshow she made at https://sixdayscience.com/six-days‑2/ (the big idea is that Genesis is literally true — all of creation was made in six days as viewed from God’s perspective. God’s perspective is cosmic and not earthbound, and so how He sees a day changes in accordance with the principles of relativity as spacetime itself changes).
  2. One of the biggest mistakes the New Atheists made (Sarah Salviander, Substack): “My own journey to faith didn’t come from what I _didn’t_ understand. It came from what I _did_. As a grad student, I studied the chemistry of the early universe through observations of distant quasars. The exquisite fine-tuning, the precise convergence of physical constants and conditions needed to make those measurements possible, the underlying order that allowed the Big Bang model to hold together—it all radiated a profound sense of intentional design. To me, it wasn’t a gap screaming for a filler. It was evidence pointing unmistakably to a Creator. Lennox puts it beautifully: the more he understands the universe—its mathematical intelligibility, its laws that describe rather than create—the more it draws him toward God. He compares it to standing before a great painting. The untrained eye sees beauty; the expert, who grasps the technique and genius behind the brushstrokes, sees far more. Science doesn’t erode faith for those who see clearly. It deepens awe.” (recommended by a student)
  3. Free Will Is Undefeated (Rob K. Henderson, Wall Street Journal): “Suppose we ask whether an apple is red. The determinist looks closer. He realizes the apple is nothing but atoms. Because no individual atom is red, he concludes the apple can’t really be red. The error is obvious. Color exists at the scale of the apple, not at the scale of an atom. Free will works the same way. A choice exists at the scale of a person thinking, weighing and deciding. Looking at the molecules underneath and finding no choice there doesn’t prove that choice is an illusion.”
  4. Protestantism’s Institutional Problem (Jordan B. Cooper, Substack): “It has often been the case when someone I know personally informs me that they have decided to [become Catholic], that they justify such a move with claims of intellectual persuasion based upon the strength of RC arguments. In many cases, they have never brought any of these claims or questions to me at all before making a decision. If someone really wanted to evaluate the truth claims of two traditions, and that person had a friend who examines these issues for a living, one would think they’d at least hear that person out prior to committing. But alas, it often does not happen. It is the same story every time: someone has watched some RC apologetics videos online, has decided to join the RCC for whatever reason, and is unwilling to hear any critique. Theological reasons are constructed post hoc. This person is already convinced and uses theology to justify a conclusion already arrived at. This should not be so surprising, as human beings are not as rationally driven as we sometimes assume.” 
    • 100% agree with this observation (although I have a few quibbles with the larger post in which it is embedded). Earlier this week I talked with a colleague on another campus about this exact issue. I cannot recall a time when a student considering Catholicism ever asked me about the Protestant side of the argument. Ever. But then they act as though they weighed the evidence carefully. I thought it was unusual the first time I saw it, but now it’s what I expect.
    • Related: Which Church Changed? (Larry Sanger, personal blog): I am quite sure people will contest some of the details or the precise wording, but I think this is a substantially correct summary rooted in church history.
  5. Why So Few Babies? We Might Have Overlooked the Biggest Reason of All. (Anna Louie Sussman, New York Times): “What unites these disparate cultures, policy environments and demographics, researchers are now realizing, is young people’s inescapable and crushing sense that the future is too uncertain for the lifelong commitment of parenthood. Call it the vibes theory of demographic decline.… There is, however, one low-cost fertility policy that actually seems to work: faith, perhaps the original uncertainty reduction strategy.” — Recommended by a friend of the ministry.
  6. Ivy League students are suffering from religious illiteracy (Gregory Conti, Washington Post): “It’s increasingly common on college campuses to encounter students who are unfamiliar with the most basic features of Christianity, such as the difference between the Old and New testaments or between Catholics and Protestants. They seldom recognize the allusions to the Bible that appear in Shakespeare’s work or in Lincoln’s second inaugural address (or in Obama’s first, for that matter). These students are bright, conscientious and curious. But they lack religious literacy — and their ignorance of religious ideas means they struggle to understand a wide array of Western art, literature and philosophy. This is a development that even nonbelievers like myself should find troubling.” 
    • The author is a political scientist at Princeton.
  7. Learning To Beg: God always provides (Sharis Hsu, Stanford Daily): “I am dubious of what this program does — potentially coercing the most vulnerable into believing in religion and becoming dependent on it. But as men of all races and ages come out in blue jeans and a navy top, I can’t help the tears that come to my eyes as they tell their stories. For the first time since I landed in Georgia, there is hope.” 
    • An interesting read and I await the sequel.

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 516: God in history & confused physicists

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 Did God Favor France? (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “[Joan of Arc’s] story is one of the most extensively documented cases of a miraculous-seeming intervention into secular history, calculated to baffle, fascinate and even charm like almost nothing else in Western history. Everything in the story sounds like a pious legend confabulated centuries after the fact. A peasant girl with zero political or military experience shows up at a royal court, announces a divine mission and makes a series of prophecies about what God wants for France that she consistently fulfills — a fulfillment that requires not merely some fortunate happenstance, but her taking command of a medieval army and winning an immediate series of victories over an intimidating adversary with Alexandrine or Napoleonic skill.” 
    • Worth a ponder.
  2. Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows (Elizabeth Gibney, Nature): “Nature asked researchers what they thought was the best interpretation of quantum phenomena and interactions — that is, their favourite of the various attempts scientists have made to relate the mathematics of the theory to the real world. The largest chunk of responses, 36%, favoured the Copenhagen interpretation — a practical and often-taught approach. But the survey also showed that several, more radical, viewpoints have a healthy following. Asked about their confidence in their answer, only 24% of respondents thought their favoured interpretation was correct; others considered it merely adequate or a useful tool in some circumstances. What’s more, some scientists who seemed to be in the same camp didn’t give the same answers to follow-up questions, suggesting inconsistent or disparate understandings of the interpretation they chose.”
  3. How a Christian college ministry glorified a sex offender and enabled him to keep abusing students (Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News): “The pastors who shepherded hundreds of high school and college students to Savala’s home were part of Chi Alpha, a Christian ministry that evangelizes on university campuses. Students seek out Chi Alpha to connect with God and each other, through small Bible studies and rollicking worship services — and, for more than 30 years, through Savala. Generations of Chi Alpha leaders hailed him as a spiritual savant who could answer life’s deepest mysteries.” 
    • Heartbreaking. I’ve posted about this scandal in Texas before (in other words, this is the same scandal from a few years ago with additional reporting). Now that it is being covered on NBC the higher-quality journalism is uncovering even more tragic details.
  4. Put Down the Shofar (Brad East, Christianity Today): “You’re likely familiar with shofars blown in public, Seder meals for Passover, and circumcision for baby boys. But as common and well-intended as these may be, I want to explain why I told my student that, yes, his house church was wrong—or at least, misguided.” 
    • A theologically rich article.
  5. The Simple Truth About the War in Gaza (Coleman Hughes, The Free Press): “Amid these developments, it may seem cartoonish, even obscene, to say that in the war between Israel and Hamas, Israel is the good guy. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth that’s incredibly easy to forget amid the day-to-day coverage of this terrible war.… Israel’s goal is to live in peace with its neighbors. Throughout its 77-year history, it has agreed to half a dozen peace deals with the Palestinians. It voluntarily left Gaza in 2005. If it had any interest in wiping Gaza off the map, it could have done so any time in the last several decades.”
  6. How the Elite Changed Its Mind on Christianity (Emma Camp, Reason): “As the decline in religious attendance has slowed, the past few years have also seen a clear rise in the status of religion. It’s becoming more and more socially acceptable to be religious in elite intellectual spaces—something that could have a real impact on how religion is perceived by everyone else.… Religion became cool again among the educated elite once it gained an association with good aesthetics, high art, and sacred music—not Bush-era Republican soft theocracy.  Today, one can belong to the ideas-making class—an aspiring public intellectual or artist—and still be religious, so long as one steers clear of evangelical kitsch. Whether or not a real religious revival is underway in American public life, one thing is clear: The cool kids aren’t the smug, strident atheists anymore—they’re the Christians.” 
    • Fascinating, although it reminds me I need to write that essay I’ve been mulling over defending low-church Protestantism as the best and most authentic expression of Christianity.
  7. Influencer Missionaries (Lauren Jackson, New York Times): “Churches are turning to the internet to reach new audiences. Evangelical pastors are bringing their famously high-production sermons into vertical video. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is presenting a diverse, younger image to its 1.4 million Instagram followers.” 
    • A short article, not super-informative. Mostly interesting because of the trend reaching the point that the Times is taking note of it. Also because of some of the small vignettes: “Perhaps that explains the celebrity of Father Rafael Capo, 57, a bodybuilding priest in Miami who fuses fitness with faith for his 112,000 Instagram followers. He often posts photos of himself lifting weights and consecrating communion.”

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 489

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. To Hate the Vulnerable: Roe at 52 (Nadya Williams, Mere Orthodoxy): “Do we as a society realize that we tell some people outright: Your life is not worth living.  You do not deserve to live. Your child does not deserve to live. What kind of monsters does this make us?”
  2. Winning The Lottery (Kasen Stephensen, Substack): “Ultimately, what I learned at Stanford was how to think for myself. Confronted with a culture foreign to my own upbringing and desperate to belong, I looked to my fellow students for guidance and at times lost sight of the lessons I learned from my family and on my mission. While I appreciate my new analytical skills and blossoming ambition, I reject the premise implicit at Stanford: that your worth is measured by your income, the prestige of your job, and your family’s connections. I rediscovered the key lessons from my mission: happiness, for me, is found in intellectual curiosity, acts of service, and genuine relationships with others, whether with friends, team-mates, family members, or the woman I would marry.” 
    • Recommended by an alumnus.
  3. The Best Argument for Protestantism Is Its Catholicity (N. Gray Sutanto, Christianity Today): “…Ortlund highlights how the Reformers defended their overarching theology in a surprising way. Not only, they argued, were Protestant positions more biblical than their non-Protestant counterparts; they were also more catholic—in the sense of furthering the goal of a unified church. In their view, Catholic theologians were the ones departing from apostolic and patristic, or early-church, teaching. As Ortlund notes,’“the early Protestants argued on catholic and historical grounds,’ not merely theological grounds, against a host of Roman Catholic doctrines.” 
    • A solid review of an excellent book (What It Means To Be Protestant by Gavin Ortlund).
  4. Can religion make you happy? Scientists may soon find out. (Julia Flynn Siler, National Geographic): “A team of scholars, in partnership with polling firm Gallup, has begun a five-year study of over 200,000 participants from 22 countries, to figure out what leads to what researchers call flourishing. To flourish is to be more than merely happy; it’s a metric meant to show if people are ‘living in a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good.’… That data isn’t in yet. But the results obtained so far back up what Pew and other researchers have found. The average flourishing score was 0.23 points higher for someone who says that religion is an important part of their daily life than for someone who does not – and 0.41 points higher for someone who attends a religious service at least weekly.”
  5. NBA greats think this D‑II coach is a basketball genius. So why don’t you know who he is? (CJ Moore, The New York Times): “Crutchfield, a former math teacher who never played college basketball and coached tennis before getting his big D‑II break at West Liberty University, sees the game like a math problem and has created his own calculations.… When he graduated from West Virginia in 1978, Crutchfield wanted to be a high school basketball coach. A year later, he had given up, returning to his alma mater to go to law school. ‘Too big a dream,’ he thought. He passed the LSAT and rented an apartment in Morgantown. Then he got a call out of nowhere, offering him the boys basketball coaching position at a small school in the state’s northern panhandle. He’s not even sure who recommended him. Crutchfield sold his law books, lost the deposit on his apartment and moved to Cameron, W.V.”
  6. The Case Against Drinking (Sam Kahn, Persuasion): “From as far back as I can remember, my plan had been to be a kind of low-intensity alcoholic. I hoped that it wouldn’t make me beat my family or wet myself at work, and that it wouldn’t lead to organ failure in the end—always the question, isn’t it?—but it seemed a gamble worth taking. The social life of the West is built almost entirely around the copious consumption of alcohol, with its professional life closely adjacent to that.” 
    • A solid essay that (correctly) defends Prohibition and makes many good points. I do not think drinking is always a sin, but I do not drink myself and am happy to encourage you not to, either.
  7. I used to think my peers were antisemitic. Now, I’ve changed my mind. (Julia Segal, Stanford Daily): “‘How many of you have heard about this before?’ I ask the wide-eyed cluster of Stanford students in our hotel conference room. A few seconds of silence go by as eyes dart around the room. Finally, scattered hands go up — approximately half the room. The thing I was asking if they’d head about? Oct. 7. The massacre of roughly 1,300 people in Israel, in the small farming villages and at a music festival. The deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Earlier this year, I would have been surprised that half the Stanford students in the room had never heard about Oct. 7. But I was coming off the tail-end of dozens of interviews for a trip to visit the Nova Exhibition in L.A., where the typical answer to ‘What have you heard about Oct. 7?’ was ‘to be honest, not much,’ and sometimes even, ‘I hadn’t heard about it until I saw your email and googled it.’” 
    • I’m genuinely shocked and it puts some of last year’s campus activism into perspective.

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 462



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 volume 462, which my simple math brain likes because 4, 6, and 2 are related numbers.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Sebastian Junger was a skeptic of the afterlife. Then he nearly died. (Steven Petrow, Washington Post): “Junger, a confirmed atheist and an adherent of the scientific method, had been raised by a physicist (his father) and a painter (his mother). His upbringing had left little room for a spiritual experience like this one, which turns out to be the central conundrum of this book and, I’d venture, his life. The meeting with his father was understandably unnerving. ‘He was dead, I was alive, and I wanted nothing to do with him.’ But, it’s hard to unsee what you’ve seen: His father had not only visited him but opened the door to the idea that an afterlife might actually exist.… Ever the reporter, Junger is unwilling to write off these experiences as hallucinations (or any of the other medical explanations). He admits he was hoping for evidence of an afterlife, finding hints of it in the universality of NDEs that feature seeing the dead. After all, he writes, ‘there are neurochemical explanations for why people hallucinate, but not for why they keep hallucinating the same thing.’ ” 
    • Unlocked.
  2. Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works? (Pamela Paul, New York Times): “Imagine a comprehensive review of research on a treatment for children found ‘remarkably weak evidence’ that it was effective. Now imagine the medical establishment shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients. This is where we are with gender medicine in the United States.” 
    • Unlocked.
  3. We Asked the Nones a Bunch of Questions About Leaving Religion (Ryan Burge, Substack): “The most popular reason [for leaving religion] by a significant margin was ‘religious hypocrisy.’ About 42% of the sample chose that reason for leaving. That was seven points higher than the second most popular — ‘religion doesn’t make sense.’ That was chosen by 35% of the sample. The only other response that scored above 30% was religious bigotry (31%).”
  4. Various pieces about the assassination attempt on Trump: 
    • Photo Appears to Capture Path of Bullet Used in Assassination Attempt (John Ismay, New York Times): “In documenting the Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday afternoon that turned into an attempt on a former president’s life, Doug Mills, a veteran New York Times photographer, appeared to capture the image of a bullet streaking past former President Donald J. Trump’s head.”
    • It’s 1968 All Over Again (Eli Lake, The Free Press): “The near assassination of Trump is an echo of the violence of 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were gunned down in a two-month span in the spring of that year. Both were the victims of lone gunmen, James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan, respectively. The murders threw America into a cycle of riots and crackdowns that culminated with the Democratic convention in Chicago at the end of August.”
    • Why Are There So Few Assassinations? (Richard Hanania, Substack): “Consider that there are a lot of crazy people out there who get agitated about politics. There is also an endless number of nihilists with nothing to live for, but who would probably like to see their names in the history books. Powerful firearms are widely available in many advanced nations, particularly the United States. In this country, it is common for malls or schools to get shot up by disturbed young men who expect to get nothing out of the act except that they might end up being part of a news story for a few days. Why don’t more of these types go after major politicians?” 
    • Video Shows Crowd Warning Law Enforcement About Gunman Before He Fired at Trump (David Botti, Haley Willis and Malachy Browne, New York Times): “Video taken by a bystander shows people pointing to the man suspected of shooting at former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania and frantically warning law enforcement, just two minutes before the first burst of gunfire rang out, according to an analysis of the footage by The New York Times.”
  5. Why slavery is not America’s original sin (Wilfred Reilly, Spiked): “Modern Americans tend to project our positive values back into the past while thinking that our sins are uniquely bad. What we don’t understand is that contemporary Western beliefs about human dignity, inalienable rights, a right to freedom, etc, are the exception, not the norm.… Even a few open slave societies continue to exist today. In the Islamic republic of Mauritania, ‘the very structure of society reinforces slavery’.… CNN reporters and analysts claimed that between ’10 per cent to 20 per cent of the [Mauritanian] population lives in slavery’.” 
    • The author is a political scientist at Kentucky State. The article is an excerpt from his new book, which I have not read.
  6. The Hidden Marriage Market (Rob K. Henderson, Substack): “Today, colleges and universities function as arranged matchmaking services. Charles Murray’s term of art in Coming Apart is ‘the college sorting machine.’ The mechanism whereby people with distinctive tastes and preferences are brought together into educational institutions and the labor force.… It’s true that most college graduates don’t meet their spouse in college. But by graduating, you then, as Caplan notes, enter a refined dating pool for the rest of your life.”
  7. Some stuff from the election and election-adjacent realm, focused on the Republican side because they just had their convention and Trump put forth Vance as his VP: 
    • The changes in vibes — why did they happen? (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “Another way to put it is that Trump was a highly vulnerable, defeated President, facing numerous legal charges and indeed an actual felony conviction. Yet he now stands as a clear favorite in the next election. In conceptual terms, how exactly did that happen? I had been thinking it would be a good cognitive test to ask people why they think the vibes have changed, and then to grade their answers for intelligence, insight, and intellectual honesty.” 
      • Cowen offers interesting hypotheses.
    • How J.D. Vance Rejected Evangelicalism (Aaron Renn, Substack): “He explicitly sees religion through the lens of socio-economic status. Once he saw that it was possible to be Christian in the world of the elites, it became interesting and credible to him again. Note again that it’s Catholics and Mormons who are key to this, not any sort of Protestants. At the time of this interview, Vance was still exploring Catholicism, to which he later converted.… There’s also something in evangelicalism that’s just off-putting to a lot of people like Vance. It’s not just the working class Pentecostal congregations like the one I was raised in (which was very similar to Vance’s experience). The average suburban megachurch is also incredibly cringe. I like to distinguish between middle class and striver class. Evangelicalism appeals to the middle class, but much less so to the striver class.” 
      • Renn is not wrong about the dynamics at play, but he is overlooking the presence of ministries like Chi Alpha on these elite campuses which are usually larger (in terms of weekly attendance) and perceived to be more vibrant than the Catholic ministries. 
      • A foll0w-up Catholic Conversionism (Aaron Renn, Substack): “It’s worth noting that although intellectuals often convert from evangelicalism to Catholicism, a lot more people over all convert the other direction, from Catholicism to evangelicalism.”
      • If anyone thinks Catholicism is correct on the merits, then become a Catholic. I strongly disagree with you, but follow your convictions. But to anyone tempted to convert to Catholicism or anything else primarily because it makes your social life / career prospects better, I urge you to reconsider.
    • How Yale Propelled J.D. Vance’s Career (Stephanie Saul, New York Times): “Sofia Nelson, a former classmate who is transgender and was once a close friend of both Mr. Vance and his wife, recalled that Mr. Vance delivered home-baked treats when they underwent top surgery. But years of friendship ended in 2021 over his support for an Arkansas bill opposing transgender care for minors.” 
      • Interesting when you ignore the partisan dynamic and instead focus on the cultural collision at Yale.
    • The Populist GOP and its Yale Law and Harvard Law Leaders (Orin S. Kerr, The Volokh Conspiracy): “…populist conservative voters are fine with voting for conservative graduates of elite law schools because having attended those school affords conservative politicians a sort of veteran status of its own. The politicians running for GOP office don’t speak fondly of their time at these schools. Instead, they present their time at Harvard Law or Yale Law as a difficult test of strength that they passed. They spent three years in the trenches of liberalism and they emerged victorious. They are now battle-hardened and ready to fight the liberals while in political office. From that perspective, graduating from these schools isn’t a problem. Instead, like a medal on a military uniform, it’s a credential.” 
      • This piece is pretty good, but it overlooks the deliberate pipeline that both sides have set up to scout and route promising young candidates from elite universities into political tracks. There are all kinds of conferences and grants and internships to facilitate this.
    • Is the Republican Party Becoming Pro-Choice? (Jonathon Van Maren, First Things): “The Republican National Committee proposed its 2024 GOP party platform in Milwaukee on July 8, and for the first time in forty years, this platform does not include support for a national abortion ban. Instead, the GOP’s anti-abortion positions are softened and many of the party’s previous pro-life commitments have been removed.… the GOP appears to be pivoting. Trump claims to hold a federalist position on abortion, but in practice he condemns only states that pass pro-life protections—such as Florida—while saying nothing about states with permissive abortion regimes.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • She Didn’t Like His Song, So She Tried to Eat Him (Joshua Rapp Learn, New York Times): “Dr. Gould believes that a female may be able to tell whether a male is better for mating or eating based on the strength of his calls. This means males take a huge risk when trying to attract mates. ‘You’ve really got to give props to the male frogs out there, that they are putting their lives on the line to reproduce,’ Dr. Gould said.”
  • Denominations Host Game Night (Keith Foskey, YouTube): two minutes of funny with some talkey-talkey at the end
  • The Death of Hobbies (Sherry Ning, Substack): “Scrolling through an endless trail of short videos and watching cooking shows is pleasurable because it feels good, but it would be wrong to say you actually enjoy it. It would be much more enjoyable to learn how to cook and roll up your sleeves in the kitchen. When we participate in the motion, we turn from a consumer into a creator. And the act of creation is vital to us because we all unconsciously strive to seek meaning beyond the material world: There is something divine about creating. To bring forth something out of nothing, to have something exist because of you, to leave your mark on the world. Every creative act—from developing a software to writing a book to making a large bowl of salad—is a miniature Genesis.” 
    • This one really belongs above, but I didn’t have space for it with my self-imposed limit of 7 big bullet points. I convinced myself it belongs here since it has to do with recreation.

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 362

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.

362 feels like a number that should have lots of factors, but it’s only got the prime factors 2 and 181.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Exploring AI-Assisted Bible Study (John Dyer, personal blog): “I prompted GPT‑3 to generate text for each chapter in the Bible in each category. For example, the prompt to generate a prayer was: “Write 5 prayers inspired by John 3 in the Bible. Remember that the events described here are in the past. First include a short observation or lesson for each prayer, and then write a personal prayer related to the lesson.”  I reviewed the generated text to avoid (or at least minimize) unhelpful or heretical content. I accepted about 90% of GPT‑3’s suggestions on its first pass and regenerated the rest until it gave me something useful. It cost about $150 over six weeks to generate this content, which consists of 71,062 generations and 1.1 million words.”
    • This is the same guy who generated the AI Bible artwork I shared recently (these and other experiments of his are available at http://www.openbible.info/labs/).
  2. What an Overly Pessimistic View of America Gets Wrong (Yascha Mounk interviewing Eboo Patel, Persuasion): “If every institution founded by a faith community in your city disappeared overnight, preschools, hospitals, and universities would be gone. YMCAs would be gone, places where AA groups meet would be gone. Half of your social services would probably be gone. It feels to me that religious identity diversity should be at the center of our national conversation, and I’m curious as to why it’s not.” This conversation is full of wisdom and I highly recommend it.
  3. People Are Dating All Wrong, According to Data Science (Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Wired): “Good romantic partners are difficult to predict with data. Desired romantic partners are easy to predict with data. And that suggests that many of us are dating all wrong.”
    • From later in the article: “…how a person answered questions about themselves was roughly four times more predictive of their relationship happiness than all the traits of their romantic partner combined.”
  4. A Crucial Court Case Exposes the Darkness of America’s Worst Industry (David French, The Dispatch): “If someone wanted to create a system that was designed to facilitate the distribution of child pornography, videos of rape and other kinds of abuse, or revenge porn, it would be hard to construct a more efficient system than MindGeek’s. And the sheer amount of MindGeek’s traffic and the volume of the downloads demonstrates that Pornhub and other sites are injecting poison into American life at an industrial scale.”
    • A student recommended this piece from a month ago in addition to the above: The Fight to Hold Pornhub Accountable (Sheelah Kolhatkar, The New Yorker): “Pschorr was surprised by the lack of regulation in the U.S. ‘It was always interesting for me as a German to see that, in the U.S., you’d get I.D.’d if you went to a bar, and if you’re not twenty-one you get in big trouble,’ he said. ‘But if you want to consume porn all you have to do is click ‘Yes, I’m 18,’ and you’re in the realm of dirt.’ ” I found this article interesting because it portrays Christians both favorably and unfavorably in short order.
  5. How Did a Two-Time Killer Get Out to Be Charged Again at Age 83? (Rebecca Davis O’Brien & Ali Watkins, New York Times): “A homeless shelter worker and people close to Ms. Leyden questioned whether, despite her gender identity, Ms. Harvey should have been placed in a homeless shelter for women, given her history of attacking and murdering them.” Read that sentence slowly. Wow. And the last eight paragraphs are jaw dropping.
  6. A large new study offers clues about how lower-income children can rise up the economic ladder. (David Leonhardt, New York Times): “Churches and other religious organizations may have some lessons to teach other parts of society. Although many churches are socioeconomically homogeneous, those with some diversity tend to foster more cross-class interactions than most other social activities. Churchs [sic] have lower levels of what the researchers call socioeconomic ‘friending bias.’ ” 
    • Sadly there isn’t more info on the religious dynamic, even though this section of the newsletter is called “How Churches Shine”
    • Although this is a NYT piece, it is not paywalled because it is from their morning newsletter.
  7. Nondenominational Churches Are Adding Millions of Members. Where Are They Coming From? (Ryan P. Burge, Christianity Today): “What is driving the growth of nondenominational churches? While in the past it resulted from a significant portion of individuals leaving a mainline tradition, now it looks like nondenominational congregations are increasing by taking in people who were raised Catholic—which is about a quarter of the general population.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have The Problem Isn’t the ‘Merit,’ It’s the ‘Ocracy’ (Tanner Greer, personal blog): “The American system of government was built on the assumption that the most salient political divides would reflect geography, not ideology or class. The senator from Massachusetts would share bonds in common with the lay citizenry of Boston that he did not share with a senator from South Carolina. On the national sphere this would allow him to represent the interests of his constituents as if they were his own. This has proven more true at some times in American history than others; yet because of the way American politicians are elected, this sense of representing the interests of a geographically bounded group of people is more true in the political arena than in most others.” First shared in volume 232

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 353

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 volume 353, the 71st prime number.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. I saw this gem on Twitter: “I don’t wish to sound apocalyptic about this, but one has the sense that at present our society is simultaneously characterized by wildly disproportionate accountability for trivial transgressions and zero accountability for profound institutional failure.” (David Polansky, co-founder of LinkedIn)
  2. The Robber Baroness of Northern California (Maia Silber, New Yorker): “The university’s most vital purpose, Stanford explained in an address to its Board of Trustees a few years after her husband’s death, was the development of the student’s ‘soul germ.’ She urged the trustees to eschew classrooms in favor of shops and workshops that would ‘dignify labor’ by teaching future workers to ‘use their hands deftly and usefully.’ Stanford believed that, in addition to providing vocational training, the university should inculcate the values of faith, thrift, and abstinence of various kinds. She and her husband banned alcohol from the dormitories and capped the number of women undergraduates at five hundred.”
  3. 78 Minutes (Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic): “I know it’s a statistical anomaly. I know it almost never happens. I know there are a million things I worry less about that happen with greater regularity and worse effects; but those things are unfortunate, and this is evil. Misfortune is awful, but this was something worse. This was torture. This was cruel. This was intentional. The distinction matters.”
  4. How did the IR community get Russia/Ukraine so wrong? (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “The IR community is risk-averse, and preserving of its academic reputations, and thus its members are less willing to make bold predictions than say pundits are. You might even think that is good, all things considered, but it will help explain the missed predictions here.” Many interesting considerations, follow-up at Data on IR scholars and their views on Russia/Ukraine.
  5. Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity (Eric Kaufmann, CSPI): “The youthful surge is mainly about LGBT identity, with considerably less change in sexual behavior. The rise is greatest for bisexuality, especially among females, with less change for gays and lesbians. The growth in LGBT identification shows no signs of slowing down among the young, but there is compelling evidence that gender nonconformity peaked around 2020 and declined in 2021. It appears less prevalent among teenagers than those in their early twenties.” Plus a fascinating Twitter thread by the author highlighting key details — so much data in this piece to contemplate. Spicy throughout.
  6. The Pope’s Secret Back Channel to Hitler (David Kertzer, The Atlantic): “As the head of a large international organization, his overriding aim in negotiations with Hitler’s emissary was protecting the institutional resources and prerogatives of the Roman Catholic Church in the Third Reich. If the only goal was to protect the welfare of the institutional Church, his efforts could well be judged a success. But for those who see the papacy as a position of great moral leadership, the revelations of Pius XII’s secret negotiations with Hitler must come as a sharp disappointment.” Recommended by an alumnus.
  7. We Need to Complicate the Negative World (Trevin Wax, Gospel Coalition): “…taking a stand for true Christianity has always been costly. Christian ministers lost their jobs in the 1960s for doing nothing more than allowing African Americans to attend worship! In some way or another, we’ve been in the negative world since the time of the New Testament, but the form of that hostility toward the faith changes depending on the place and the era. And the opportunities—where society smiles on aspects of Christianity—change too. We live in positive, neutral, and negative worlds simultaneously, depending on the issue.“This is quite good.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have The New National American Elite (Michael Lind, Tablet Magazine): “from the American Revolution until the late 20th century, the American elite was divided among regional oligarchies. It is only in the last generation that these regional patriciates have been absorbed into a single, increasingly homogeneous national oligarchy, with the same accent, manners, values, and educational backgrounds from Boston to Austin and San Francisco to New York and Atlanta. This is a truly epochal development.” Lind is a professor at UT Austin in the school of public affairs, and I featured another article by him shortly before this one. First shared back in volume 286.

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 260

From naked protestors in Portland to slavery in China to theological reflections on conspiracy theories. 

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. China’s Xinjiang Province a Moral Quandary for the West (Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review): “The attempt to place modern slaves in the supply chain of Western luxury goods is an attempt to implicate and morally geld Western nations who would criticize or punish the Chinese Communist Party for its crimes.”
  2. USS University (Scott Galloway, personal blog): “There is a dangerous conflation of the discussion about K‑12 and university reopenings. The two are starkly different. There are strong reasons to reopen K‑12, and there are stronger reasons to keep universities shuttered.“ The author is a business prof at NYU. Recommended by an alumnus. 
    • Related: Colleges Are Getting Ready to Blame Their Students (Julia Marcus and Jessica Gold, The Atlantic): “Students will get infected, and universities will rebuke them for it; campuses will close, and students will be blamed for it. Relying on the self-control of young adults, rather than deploying the public-health infrastructure needed to control a disease that spreads easily among people who live, eat, study, and socialize together, is not a safe reopening strategy—and yelling at students for their dangerous behavior won’t help either.” The authors are professors at Harvard and Washington University, respectively. 
    • Vaguely related: Your State’s COVID Numbers In Context (PoliMath, Substack): “Headlines are allergic to context and the high-population states get all the attention because they show big numbers (because they are big states). When a smaller state gets any reporting, it is entirely outside any context. In Washington, it was reported that we had 754 new cases and 7 new deaths. Is that a lot? How does that compare to other states?” Very detailed and insightful. 
  3. Coronavirus, Conspiracy Theories, and the Ninth Commandment (David French, The Dispatch): “Christian teaching about our lives in our workplaces is not primarily about how to obtain a promotion, how to invest our money, or how to start a business. In other words, it’s not about the objectives of economic engagement, though those objectives are important. Instead, the focus is on ministering to colleagues, cultivating faith in adversity, and generally learning how to be salt and light even in sometimes hostile or intimidating environments. [But we don’t do this with politics.]” Recommended by an alumnus, this one was really good.
  4. 8 facts about religion and government in the United States (Dalia Fahmy, Pew Research Center): “While the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, every state constitution references either God or the divine. God also appears in the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and on U.S. currency.” Recommended by a student.
  5. Where is the national news coverage of current surge of vandalism at Catholic churches? (Clemente Lisi, GetReligion): “Who’s responsible for this anti-Catholic violence? Is it Muslim terrorists? Neo-Nazis? Left-wing radicals? Are these isolated incidents or part of a coordinated attack? We don’t know because the elite newsrooms with the talent and resources to handle this kind of investigation are missing in action, in this case.… One has to wonder how these incidents would have been covered had they been mosques? What about public schools? Or say Planned Parenthood facilities?” 
    • Related: Roman Catholics: The Original Abolitionists (Paul Kengor, Crisis Magazine): “Last weekend, one of Serra’s mission churches in California went up in flames, with the cause of the fire not yet known. In the last few days, a statue of Mary was set on fire in Boston and another was vandalized in Brooklyn (among others). As to what Mary has to do with the modern anti-statue-racism movement is anyone’s guess. Nonetheless, if the issue is (rightly so) a just condemnation of slavery and racism, and if one is genuinely seeking accurate history, then today’s activists ought to look back in admiration at the impressive track record of the Roman Catholic Church.” The author is a professor of political science at Grove City College. The history of the Catholic Church on the issue of slavery is better than the Protestant church.
  6. What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland (Robert Evans, Bellingcat): “I reported on the fighting in Mosul back in 2017, and what happened that night in the streets of Portland was, of course, not nearly as brutal or dangerous as actual combat. Yet it was about as close as you can get without using live ammunition.“ A significant qualifier at the end of that sentence, interesting nonetheless. 
    • Portland’s protests were supposed to be about black lives. Now, they’re white spectacle. (E.D. Mondainé, Washington Post): “We welcome our white brothers and sisters in this struggle. In fact, we need them. But I must ask them to remain humbly attuned to the opportunity of this moment — and to reflect on whether any actions they take will truly help establish justice, or whether they are simply for show.” The author is president of the Portland branch of the NAACP.
    • Out of Portland tear gas, an apparition emerges, capturing the imagination of protesters (Los Angeles Times): “She emerged as an apparition from clouds of tear gas as federal agents fired pepper balls at angry protesters in the early Saturday darkness. A woman wearing nothing but a black face mask and a stocking cap strode toward a dozen heavily armed agents attired in camouflage fatigues, lined up across a downtown Portland street.” Portland gonna port.
    • Tangentially Related: American Crime and the Baltimore Model (Bret Stephens, New York Times): “Idealists may hope these changes will eliminate police brutality as communities find better ways to prevent crime than deterrence and force. But on the hunch that human nature hasn’t changed, that isn’t going to happen. Criminals, fearing less, will continue to prey on others. Police, fearing more, will hold back from doing their jobs. Those with means to leave their neighborhoods, will. Those without the means will suffer.”
  7. A new intelligentsia is pushing back against wokeness (Batya Ungar-Sargon, Forward): “The anti-woke Black intelligentsia is leading a counter-culture to a woke hegemony and the online culture that popularized it. But their views hew more closely to those of most Black Americans than the new antiracism. Polling has long indicated that white liberals express radically more liberal views on racial and social issues than their Black and Latino neighbors.” Very interesting interviews. 
    • Related: The Left is Now the Right (Matt Taibbi, Substack): “Things we once despised about the right have been amplified a thousand-fold on the flip. Conservatives once tried to legislate what went on in your bedroom; now it’s the left that obsesses over sexual codicils, not just for the bedroom but everywhere. Right-wingers from time to time made headlines campaigning against everything from The Last Temptation of Christ to ‘Fuck the Police,’ though we laughed at the idea that Ice Cube made cops literally unsafe… today Matt Yglesias signing a group letter with Noam Chomsky is considered threatening.”
    • Related: When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything (Ryan Long Comedy, YouTube) : two minutes of brilliance

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Dissolving the Fermi Paradox (Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex): “Imagine we knew God flipped a coin. If it came up heads, He made 10 billion alien civilization. If it came up tails, He made none besides Earth. Using our one parameter Drake Equation, we determine that on average there should be 5 billion alien civilizations. Since we see zero, that’s quite the paradox, isn’t it? No. In this case the mean is meaningless. It’s not at all surprising that we see zero alien civilizations, it just means the coin must have landed tails. SDO say that relying on the Drake Equation is the same kind of error.”  First shared in volume 159.

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 191

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

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

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

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

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 187

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

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

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

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

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 180

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 week was especially hard for me to put together. I stumbled upon so much insightful writing this week! I had to ruthlessly eliminate some that I really liked, so I hope you enjoy these gems that survived my ruthless winnowing process.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Slain missionary John Chau prepared much more than we thought, but are missionaries still fools? (Ed Stetzer, Washington Post): “…Mary Ho, who leads All Nations (the agency that sent Chau on missions), indicated that he was heavily vaccinated and even quarantined before going on the mission. The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that Chau also undertook linguistic and medical training to prepare for the outreach. These new reports at a minimum challenge the simplistic image of an adventure-seeking zealot willing to recklessly risk the lives of a remote group of islanders.” By far the best article I’ve read on this subject.
  2. Liberal Parents, Radical Children (David Brooks, New York Times): “In the age of social media, virtue is not defined by how compassionately you act. Virtue is defined by how vehemently you react to that which you find offensive. Virtue involves the self-display of a certain indignant sensibility, and anybody who doesn’t display that sensibility is morally suspect.” An insightful column — this excerpt does not do it justice. 
    • Related but not obviously: The Question Without A Solution (Alan Jacobs, The Weekly Standard): “You read all this with a feeling of rising horror, and not just because of the physical and mental and spiritual suffering. You feel that horror also because it becomes increasingly difficult, as the story progresses, to imagine how the even the worst of the pain could have been avoided. Not one man, or woman, knew a prudent remedy.” Haunting and highly recommended.
    • More clearly related: Debate ends when we label views we simply disagree with as ‘hatred’ (Kenan Malik, The Guardian): “‘It is better to debate a question without settling it,’ observed the 18th-century French writer Joseph Joubert, ‘than to settle a question without debating it.’ How naive that sounds today.”
  3. My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy (Andrea Long Chu, New York Times): “Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound;as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain. This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to.” 
    • See also this response piece: The New York Times Reveals Painful Truths about Transgender Lives (Ryan T. Anderson, Public Discourse): “Why should a doctor perform surgery when it won’t make the patient happy, it won’t accomplish its intended goal, it won’t improve the underlying condition, it might make the underlying condition worse, and it might increase the likelihood of suicide?” Anderson was mentioned in Chu’s op-ed.
  4. American Exorcism (Mike Mariani, The Atlantic): “If neither the mental-health evaluation nor a subsequent physical exam turns up a standard explanation for the person’s affliction, the priest starts to take the case more seriously. At this point he may begin looking for what the Church considers the classic signs of demonic possession: facility in a language the person has never learned; physical strength beyond his or her age or condition; access to secret knowledge; and a vehement aversion to God and sacred objects, including crucifixes and holy water.”
  5. What If The Placebo Effect Isn’t A Trick? (Gary Greenberg, New York Times Magazine): “The findings of the I.B.S. study were in keeping with a hypothesis Kaptchuk had formed over the years: that the placebo effect is a biological response to an act of caring; that somehow the encounter itself calls forth healing and that the more intense and focused it is, the more healing it evokes.”
  6. For Californians living in their cars, a church parking lot can briefly be home (Kimberly Winston, Washington Post): “As they often do in hard times, houses of worship stepped in. In Chico, a hub for Paradise refugees, churches have opened their buildings and parking lots as temporary shelters. But while those churches have been lauded, congregations in other areas that open their parking lots to those they sometimes refer to as ‘vehicle residents’ face hurdles and hostility. Many Bay Area municipalities, including the tech centers of San Francisco and San Jose, have outlawed sleeping in a car parked on the street overnight, while neighbors speak out against having the homeless next door.”
  7. A Time To Fast (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “Over one hundred years ago researchers demonstrated that calorie restriction in rats increased lifespan, sometimes by as much as 50%. Since that time, the finding has been replicated and extended to primates. A few humans have taken up the diet but for most of us easy access to delicious food trumps willpower. A new paper in Science reviews the literature on calorie restriction and also offers some evidence that less restrictive regimes such as intermittent fasting may have similar effects.” A secular perspective on the benefits of certain types of fasting (this is a summary of an article in the journal Science).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas (Joseph Bottum, The Weekly Standard): many modern political ideas are derived from Christian theological concepts. (first shared in volume 1)

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.