Tag: charity

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 213

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. Sev­er­al arti­cles relat­ed to the mass shoot­ings:
  2. Con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians have a porn prob­lem, stud­ies show, but not the one you think (Jana Riess, Reli­gion News Ser­vice): “Draw­ing on numer­ous stud­ies, Per­ry finds that, despite the sta­tis­ti­cal find­ing that con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians are less like­ly to use porn, the per­cep­tion with­in evan­gel­i­cal church­es is that this has become an enor­mous prob­lem for the faith­ful.”
  3. What Ails the Right Isn’t (Just) Racism (Conor Frieder­s­dorf, The Atlantic): “Put anoth­er way, the right is cor­rect that cry­ing wolf mat­ters. And the left is cor­rect that The Boy Who Cried Wolf ends with a wolf feast­ing on folks who con­clud­ed that they shouldn’t wor­ry about wolves because one kid fibbed.” I found this far more inter­est­ing than the title led me to antic­i­pate.
  4. Against Against Bil­lion­aire Phil­an­thropy (Scott Alexan­der, Slate Star Codex): “I wor­ry the move­ment against bil­lion­aire char­i­ty is on track to dam­age char­i­ty a whole lot more than it dam­ages bil­lion­aires.” This is a very inter­est­ing essay, and he has a fol­low-up, High­lights From The Com­ments on Bil­lion­aire Phil­an­thropy, which thought­ful­ly responds to crit­i­cisms. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed.
  5. How (and Why) to KISSASS (Kevin Mims, Quil­lette): “…if you’re not a mem­ber of the pro­fes­sion­al class, the key to get­ting your per­son­al essays pub­lished in promi­nent pub­li­ca­tions is KISSASS—Keep It Short, Sad, And Sim­ple, Stu­pid.” This is a fol­low-up to an arti­cle I shared pre­vi­ous­ly and I found it fas­ci­nat­ing.
  6. Car­ol Swain Worked to Hold Politi­cians Account­able. Then She Felt God Call Her to Run. (David Roach, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): “For Swain, change has been a recur­ring theme in her life. She went from low-income sin­gle moth­er to Ivy League aca­d­e­m­ic, from Demo­c­rat to Repub­li­can media com­men­ta­tor, and from Jehovah’s Wit­ness turned non-church­go­er to com­mit­ted fol­low­er of Christ.” What a fas­ci­nat­ing lady.
  7. Why I’m Not A Lib­er­al (Michael Bren­dan Dougher­ty, Nation­al Review): “Because lib­er­al­ism is based on indi­vid­ual rights, it nat­u­ral­ly favors the indi­vid­ual assert­ing his rights against tra­di­tion­al social sub­jects, whether they be the com­mu­ni­ty, the fam­i­ly, or even his own mar­riage. If a clas­si­cal­ly lib­er­al sys­tem has no effect on the val­ues of soci­ety, it is an aston­ish­ing coin­ci­dence that wher­ev­er lib­er­al polit­i­cal arrange­ments emerge, a new lib­er­al under­stand­ing of mar­riage even­tu­al­ly replaces the pre­vi­ous Chris­t­ian under­stand­ings as the legal and social real­i­ty.” This essay cov­ers a lot of ground.

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 19

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, on Fri­days I’ve been shar­ing 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

With­out fur­ther ado, I give you the inter­est­ing things:

  1. There was a shoot­ing at a col­lege in Ore­gon yes­ter­day. There’s a reli­gious angle to this sto­ry, but the details are still not clear.
  2. For com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent news, read Googling For God (NY Times, Seth Stephens-Davi­d­owitz): file under “inter­est­ing but not that sur­pris­ing” (although I am sur­prised at the rel­a­tive posi­tions of ques­tions 1 and 2  — I assumed they were swapped)
  3. Pope Fran­cis and the Not-Quite-Sec­u­lar West (NY Times, Ross Douthat): Secularism’s grip on Amer­i­ca is weak­er than it appears.
  4. Stop The Robot Apoc­a­lypse (Amia Srini­vasan, Lon­don Review of Books): the title is mis­lead­ing — this is an insight­ful cri­tique of the effec­tive altru­ism move­ment from the left.
  5. Huh. The Cor­re­la­tions Between Arts and Crafts and a Nobel Prize (Rosie Cima, Priceo­nom­ics).

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 13

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, on Fri­days I’ve been shar­ing 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 provoca­tive-but-not-ful­ly-explained depart­ment: Maris­sa John­son, Part of a New, Dis­rup­tive Gen­er­a­tion of Activists (Nina Shapiro, Seat­tle Times): turns out that Maris­sa John­son (the Black Lives Mat­ter activist famous for dis­rupt­ing a Bernie Sanders speech) attends an evan­gel­i­cal church and stud­ied the­ol­o­gy in col­lege. Fas­ci­nat­ing pro­file, although it leaves me with many ques­tions.
  2. From the friends-in-high-places depart­ment: The Late, Great Stephen Col­bert (Joel Lovell, GQ): Col­bert has deep faith, and it real­ly comes out in this inter­view. It’s long, so if you just want the faith bit search for the phrase “He lift­ed his arms as if to take in the office” and start read­ing there.
  3. From the spir­i­tu­al insight depart­ment:
    • Faith­ful­ness in Col­lege Is “Life-Wide” (Stephen Lutz, Gospel Coali­tion): what good does it prof­it a per­son to get a 4.0 and lose their soul? This one comes rec­om­mend­ed by an alum­nus.
    • Keep Your Enthu­si­asm In Check (George Wood, per­son­al blog): very short but help­ful. The author is the leader of the Assem­blies of God, the group which spon­sors Chi Alpha (and which I am ordained by).
  4. From the peo­ple-of-this-world-are-shrewd depart­ment: Effec­tive Altru­ism: Where Char­i­ty and Ratio­nal­i­ty Meet (Tyler Cowen, NY Times): there is noth­ing overt­ly Chris­t­ian about this piece, but the sub­ject should be of great inter­est to Chris­tians. We are called to give to spread the gospel and help the poor — and the Church can do bet­ter at both.
  5. From the pol­i­tics-and-the-pul­pit depart­ment: Ten Things To Remem­ber As the Pres­i­den­tial Cam­paign Sea­son Gets Into Full Swing (Kevin DeY­oung, per­son­al blog): DeY­oung is a well-known pas­tor and author. Points 6, 7, and 8 are espe­cial­ly good.
  6. From the unex­pect­ed bed­fel­lows depart­ment: Scalia Gets It Pret­ty Much Right (Stan­ley Fish, Huff­in­g­ton Post): I share this most­ly because famed post­mod­ern (or anti-foun­da­tion­al­ist) the­o­rist Stan­ley Fish is one of the most unlike­ly defend­ers of the famed orig­i­nal­ist Jus­tice Scalia I can imag­ine. The world is an odd place. Be sure to read the fol­low-up Respond To The Col­umn That Was Actu­al­ly Writ­ten.

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.