Tag: justice

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 451

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 451, which feels like it is maybe a prime number but it turns out that 451 = 11 · 41.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Was Paul a Slave? (Mark R. Fairchild and Jordan K. Monson, Christianity Today): “Reconciling the Pharisee, Hebrew of Hebrews, Aramaic-speaking zealot Paul with the Roman citizen, globetrotting, Greek-speaking Paul seems impossible. Unless, that is, we consider the early church’s recollection of Paul’s upbringing as a child in an enslaved family. ‘The manumission of Paul’s father solves these problems,’ Riesner told me.” 
    • The title is a little misleading — the question is really whether Paul was born a slave and later freed (they do explain Acts 22:28, “When Paul told the commander in Acts 22:28 that he was ‘born’ a Roman citizen, that word, gennao, can refer to birth or adoption. Freed Roman slaves were often adopted into their master’s family and given a Roman name and citizenship.” 
    • The authors are scholars with relevant expertise. The middle section of the article is where all the meat is and makes some good points. The opening and closing felt like fluff to me. 
    • Unlocked.
  2. Stuff about the college protests 
    • For most people, politics is about fitting in (Nate Silver, Substack): “People are trying to figure out where they fit in — who’s on their side and who isn’t. And this works in both directions: people can be attracted to a group or negatively polarized by it.… Notice what’s missing from my list? The notion of politics as a battle of ideas.”
    • College protesters seek amnesty to keep arrests and suspensions from trailing them (Jocelyn Gecker, AP News): “Petocz said protesting in high school was what helped get him into Vanderbilt and secure a merit scholarship for activists and organizers. His college essay was about organizing walkouts in rural Florida to oppose Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies. ‘Vanderbilt seemed to love that,’ Petocz said.’ ”
    • What Students Read Before They Protest (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “[Reading the syllabus explains] the two things that seem so disproportionate in these protests and the culture that surrounds them. First, it explains why this conflict attracts such a scale of on-campus attention and action and disruption, while so many other wars and crises (Sudan, Congo, Armenia, Burma, Yemen …) are barely noticed or ignored. Second, it explains why the attention seems to leap so quickly past critique into caricature, past sympathy for the Palestinians into justifications for Hamas, past condemnation of Israeli policy into anti-Semitism.”
    • In an Online World, a New Generation of Protesters Chooses Anonymity (Nicholas Fandos, New York Times): “On campuses from New England to Southern California, students leading one of the largest protest movements in decades have increasingly strapped on face masks and checkered Palestinian kaffiyehs in a polarizing bid to protect their anonymity even as they demand universities and governments be held to account. The choice represents a sharp break by many, though not all, of these students from earlier generations of university activists, who gained their moral force in part by putting their words on record and their futures in jeopardy for a larger cause.”
    • How Protesters Can Actually Help Palestinians (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times): “…this may sound zany, but how about raising money to send as many of your student leaders as possible this summer to live in the West Bank and learn from Palestinians there (while engaging with Israelis on the way in or out)? West Bank monitors say that a recent Israeli crackdown on foreigners helping Palestinians, by denying entry or deporting people, has made this more difficult but not impossible. Student visitors must be prudent and cautious but could study Arabic, teach English and volunteer with human rights organizations on the ground. Palestinians in parts of the West Bank are under siege, periodically attacked by settlers and in need of observers and advocates.”
  3. Some stuff about gender: 
    • The Battle of the Sexes Needs a Truce (Thomas Adamo and Isabella Griepp, Stanford Review): “We must acknowledge how society has lied to both men and women since they were boys and girls—lies that have done nothing but bring about disharmony between the sexes. In seeking to empower young girls, parents and teachers have de-emphasized the innate differences between the sexes. And, any differences between the sexes were explained in terms of how men had historically oppressed women, rather than the unique and valuable characteristics that men and women inherently possess.” 
      • The authors are students in Chi Alpha.
    • The Masculinity Pyramid (Seth Troutt, Mere Orthodoxy): “A man who is overly concerned with how he is different from women is missing the holy instinct of Adam, who first notices the sameness of Eve and second notices their differences (Gen 2:23).”
    • Scripts for Healthy Masculinity (Seth Troutt, Mere Orthodoxy): “…men ought to be differentiated from God, animals, boys, and women. When properly considered, those four distinctions yield the four core masculine virtues of humility (in our differentiation from God), discipline (in our differentiation from animals), responsibility (in our differentiation from boys), and chivalry (in our differentiation from women).”
  4. There’s Really No Good Reason to Use TikTok (Samuel D. James, Substack): “TikTok is, in my view, a social media platform devoid of positive benefit. I do not mean by that that it is wholly evil or cannot be used except sinfully. Rather, I think TikTok simply lacks any merit as a platform and is only useful in the sense that it is passively entertaining. This is also how I would describe things like soap operas, professional wrestling, and the national hot dog eating contest. The difference, though, between TikTok and those things, is that TikTok is 1) addictive, 2) actively corrosive to thinking, and 3) marketed to and consumed by an enormous number of children.”

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 391

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 391, which is a product of two of my favorite prime numbers. 391 = 17 * 23.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Facts Don’t Care About Your Healings (Samuel D. James, Substack): “Historically, ‘justice’ is about law. There’s an objective givenness to it that transcends personal narrative or experience, which helps to explain why justice historically has been right-coded. But this is no longer true. ‘Justice’ is left-coded because it has become narratival. Justice is what people talk about when they talk about their personal experiences. Justice is the subtext of people speaking their truth.” 
    • This is an exceptionally acute bit of cultural analysis. Recommended for its core insight.
  2. America’s Culture Is Booming. Really. (Ted Goia, The Free Press): “Consider the fact that there are now 36 YouTube channels with more than 50 million subscribers—each of these has far more reach than any record label or newspaper.… Can all this transform our culture? The simple fact is that it already has. And it will continue to do so at an accelerating rate.” 
    • There are some shocking stats in here even if you already know the broad outlines. Recommended.
  3. The Bitter End of “Content” (Freddie deBoer, Substack): “So long as advertising is the dominant funding source of the online world, any and every creative platform will be a race to the bottom. People will find ways to abuse the system to receive attention and money based on nothing more than manipulation.” 
    • This essay is built around a really important insight. It’s worth reading.
  4. More on Asbury. I find it interesting that the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post all published relatively solid articles about it. 
    • ‘No Celebrities Except Jesus’: How Asbury Protected the Revival (Daniel Silliman, Christianity Today): “By evening the crowd had grown to about 3,000, and the university had to set up overflow rooms. At the same time, an uncoordinated infrastructure of support began to appear. An Asbury student set up a table and started handing out tea and coffee. She said Jesus told her to. A woman in Indianapolis baked chocolate chip cookies for a full day and then drove down to give them away. A professor went and got cases of bottled water. Pizza appeared, unbidden, along with homemade potato soup, cake, a table of protein bars, and what one volunteer called ‘all the Chick-fil‑A.’ Someone volunteered to start organizing housing and put up signs with QR codes that people could scan to start the process of finding a place to sleep.” 
      • I’ve unlocked the paywall for this one. Recommended for the behind-the-scenes info. Also, the “all the Chick-fil‑A” line made me chuckle.
    • ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town (Ruth Graham, New York Times): “The university estimates that the revival has drawn more than 50,000 people to Wilmore, a sleepy town of 6,000 people where the grocery store hosts a weekly Bible study and police cars read ‘In God We Trust.’ Asbury was founded in 1890, and its roots are in the Methodist and Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, which has a historical emphasis on transformative movements of the Holy Spirit.” 
      • I have unlocked the paywall for this article. Includes details that are not in other articles I have read. 
    • Why Students in Kentucky Have Been Praying for 250 Hours (Olivia Reingold, The Free Press): “It all started on Wednesday, February 8, when Zach Meerkreebs, a volunteer soccer coach who had addressed the student body only twice before, gave an improvised sermon about love.… In a final, kind of corny throwaway line, he said: ‘I pray that this sits on you guys like an itchy sweater, and you gotta itch, you gotta take care of it.’ Meerkreebs told me he was certain that he had ‘totally whiffed’ the sermon, and immediately got off stage and texted his wife, ‘Latest stinker. I’ll be home soon.’ ” 
      • What a wonderful anecdote. 
    • A nonstop worship gathering at a Kentucky school echoes an old Christian tradition (AJ Willingham, CNN): “The Asbury Revival, as it has been called, has captured the attention and imagination of every possible circle in the expansive Venn diagram of Christianity. Among their endless debates are some questions likely shared by those on the outside, looking in at the commotion: What in the world is going on here? And what, exactly, is a Christian revival?”
    • Opinion: What is Revival—and is it Happening at Asbury? (Craig Keener, The Roys Report): “Calvinists dominated the First Great Awakening, the Hebrides Revival, and the West Timor Revival. Wesleyans dominated the Second Great Awakening, the Azusa Street Revival, and the 1950 and 1970 Asbury Revivals. Witnesses from the West Timor Revival reported a sound like a rushing wind. Witnesses from the revival at Pandita Ramabai’s orphanage in India reported tongues of fire. Miraculous signs accompanied evangelism in the Shandong Revival. Why should an infinite God fit our boxes?” 
      • Keener is an eminent New Testament scholar at Asbury Seminary (and, I might add, a graduate of my own seminary — AGTS).
    • Nonstop worship service at a Kentucky college is spreading through TikTok (Amber Ferguson, Washington Post): “Asbury University is no stranger to revivals but thanks to social media the latest gathering has sparked both national and international attention, attracting groups of students from at least 22 colleges and universities to descend upon its campus, and even gaining the support of former vice president Mike Pence, who tweeted his support of the movement.” 
      • Pence apparently got saved while visiting Asbury years ago.
      • Also, the byline is surprising. She’s not one of their religion beat specialists.
  5. Time to Think by Hannah Barnes review – what went wrong at Gids? (Rachel Cooke, The Guardian): “Hannah Barnes’s book about the rise and calamitous fall of the Gender Identity Development Service for children (Gids), a nationally commissioned unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London, is the result of intensive work, carried out across several years.… As Barnes makes perfectly clear, this isn’t a culture war story. This is a medical scandal, the full consequences of which may only be understood in many years’ time.” 
    • Not much new here if you’ve been following. But the info is becoming more and more widespread.
  6. Selling a Positive Culture War Message (Richard Hanania, Substack): “The high-status way to oppose wokeness runs away from conspiracy theories, which are not only false and stupid, but have the added effect of portraying one’s opponents as extremely smart, successful, and competent. High-status opposition to wokeness is not only better electorally, but will bring higher quality individuals to the cause that will be willing and able to focus on making important policy changes.” 
    • Mostly about presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, but also about larger issues of politics. Quite interesting.
  7. Do masks work? (Katelyn Jetelina & Kristen Panthagani, Substack): “The scientific ‘arc’ of mask discovery is ongoing. Science is always evolving. Do not let anyone convince you of a one word answer to the question: Do masks work? It depends.”

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 New Research Shows Religious Liberty Drives Human Flourishing – And Why This Matters Now More Than Ever (Christos Makridis, Real Clear Religion): “…religious liberty is an integral prerequisite for democratic governance, aiding the process for civic engagement and women’s empowerment and reducing the potential for public and political corruption.” Christos is an alumnus of our ministry. From volume 270.

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 371

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 371, which like its immediate predecessor is one of four three-digit narcissistic numbers, meaning that it has three digits and when you raise each digit to the number of digits (in this case, to the third power) they sum to the original number:  33 + 73 + 13 = 371.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. What Harvard Is Really Like (Olivia Glunz, The Public Discourse): “Prestige and influence require class distinctions; in a truly equitable world, Harvard does not exist. Thus, Harvard will continue to champion progressivism—but never enough to endanger its own future. Harvard students of all political stripes perceive this hypocrisy; if anything, they graduate not more liberal but more cynical. So much for the formidable brainwashing machine.… Despite the prevalence of secularism and credentialism at Harvard, faith and friendship were central to my joyful first year. In fact, Christianity, particularly Catholicism, is alive at Harvard.”
    • Short but interesting, and relevant to life at Stanford.
  2. Why the music of Rich Mullins endures, 25 years after his death (Tish Harrison Warren, New York Times): “Mullins had all his royalties and wages go directly to his accountant, whom he asked to issue him an allowance equal to the average working-class salary at the time. The rest of his earnings were given away, mostly to charity. Smith tells me that Mullins ‘was scared for his own soul.’ It wasn’t that he wasn’t tempted by money and fame. It’s that he knew he was tempted, so he ran from it.”
  3. Revolutions Occur When a Significant Portion of Elites Defect From the Existing Regime (Rob Henderson, Substack): “Social movements are typically led not by someone from the underclass or the poor, but by second-tier elites. Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, America’s founders, etc. were relatively educated and at least middle-class. They were not nearly the poorest of their societies. Far from it.  Which is why their criticisms of the elite within their societies were so astute. They were, figuratively speaking, close cousins—they saw their flaws up close.” 
    • This one is really good. Related but long: Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students (Eric Kaufmann, Substack): “A quarter of students are LGBT, and there are roughly equal shares of Christian and nonreligious students. LGBT, Nonreligious, and Christians are set to become more important political groups among America’s future leaders.”
    • The data in this latter one is interesting, but it is so long you should definitely skim and not read.
  4. Related to justice:
    • A Jury Acquitted Them of Various Charges. They Served Prison Time for Them Anyway. (Billy Binion, Reason): “Can you do prison time for a criminal charge of which you were never convicted? I’d venture that most would assume the answer is ‘no.’ They would be wrong. Known as acquitted conduct sentencing, the practice allows judges to bloat a prison term when sentencing a defendant by punishing them for a separate charge or charges on which a jury deemed them not guilty.” Outrageous. I hope the Supreme Court squashes this 9–0.
    • Thousands were released from prison during covid. The results are shocking. (Molly Gill, The Washington Post): “To protect those most vulnerable to covid-19 during the pandemic, the Cares Act allowed the Justice Department to order the release of people in federal prisons and place them on home confinement. More than 11,000 people were eventually released. Of those, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) reported that only 17 of them committed new crimes. That’s not a typo. Seventeen. That’s a 0.15 percent recidivism rate in a country where it’s normal for 30 to 65 percent of people coming home from prison to reoffend within three years of release.… These 11,000 releases were not random. People in low- and minimum-security prisons or at high risk of complications from covid were prioritized for consideration for release.”
    • Stock Trades Reported by Nearly a Fifth of Congress Show Possible Conflicts (Kate Kelly, Adam Playford and Alicia Parlapiano, New York Times): “The potential for conflicts in stock trading by members of Congress — and their choice so far not to impose stricter limits on themselves — has long drawn criticism, especially when particularly blatant cases emerge. But the Times analysis demonstrates the scale of the issue: Over the three-year period, more than 3,700 trades reported by lawmakers from both parties posed potential conflicts between their public responsibilities and private finances.… The 97 members who were flagged by the Times analysis amounted to more than half of the people who reported trades, and nearly a fifth of Congress. The group was split almost equally between Democrats and Republicans.”
  5. The amazing power of “machine eyes” (Eric Topol, Substack): “While there are far simpler ways to determine gender [than studying retinas], it’s a 50–50 toss up for ophthalmologists, which means there are no visible cues to human eyes. But now two models have shown 97% accuracy of gender determination from neural network training. That was just the beginning.… That work has now extended to detection of kidney disease, control of blood glucose and blood pressure, hepatobiliary disease, a previous study on predicting heart attack, close correlation of the retinal vessels with the heart (coronary) artery calcium score, and, prior to the new report above, the ongoing prospective assessment and tracking of Alzheimer’s disease.” Wild stuff.
  6. A Nuclear Zugzwang? (Anusar Farooqui, Substack): “Precisely because Russia is so weak relative to Nato, any Russia-Nato war will eventually escalate into strategic nuclear war, the only level on which the Russia enjoys parity with the United States. So, any counter-escalation by the United States would be fraught with escalation risk and nuclear danger.”
    • The author has a PhD in mathematics but writes extensively about foreign policy. I have had multiple smart people recommend this article and finally gave it a read.

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 Porn Restriction for Realists (Tanner Greer, personal blog): “…a world where the tube-sites are gone and people must go back to paying for their porn is a significant improvement over the world we live in now. This world is possible: it existed two decades ago. Technological change is part of what happened, but only part. Just as important in the creation of the new, porn-flushed world we live are legal protections given to websites like PornHub and X Hamster which allow them to dodge liability for the theft their business model is based on. It also allows them to dodge liability for much worse sins.” From volume 242.

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 358

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 358, a number whose base 3 representation ends in its base 7 representation. 3583 is 111021, and 3587 is 1021.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Culture War That More Christians Should Be Fighting (Tish Harrison Warren, New York Times): “But the people who debate the morality (or lack thereof) of Disney or Hobby Lobby rarely discuss how much paid time off these companies provide employees or whether they pay a living wage or what the wealth disparity is between their top and bottom earners or whether they have adequate maternity leave policies or how much a corporation financially gives back to a community.” Recommended by a student.
  2. The Surprising Case for Marrying Young (W. Bradford Wilcox, Institute for Family Studies): “Our analyses indicate that religious men and women who married in their twenties without cohabiting first — a pattern which describes Joey and Samantha’s path to the altar to a ‘T’ — have the lowest odds of divorce in America today.”
  3. I should have loved biology (James Somers, personal blog): “In the textbooks, astonishing facts were presented without astonishment. Someone probably told me that every cell in my body has the same DNA. But no one shook me by the shoulders, saying how crazy that was.”
  4. Concerning abortion and the Supreme Court:
    • Christians Should Rejoice Over Dobbs (Carl Trueman, First Things): “Nobody of whom I am aware, for example, regards the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 as a morally ambiguous thing. No child freed that day was particularly concerned that his liberators were members of the Red Army, acting on Stalin’s orders. Yet the Red Army was engaged in a military action that, in the long term, would lead to the notorious Iron Curtain dividing Europe. Nobody regards the fall of Hitler as a morally ambiguous thing, even though it was only made possible by the Americans and the British striking a deal with Joseph Stalin. Yes, Trump is obnoxious, but he isn’t Stalin, and he did deliver on the abortion issue. Dobbs is a moment for joy.”
    • Here’s the Surprising Backstory of the Downfall of Roe v. Wade (Mark Hemingway, Real Clear Investigations): “…conservative activists have long argued the pro-life movement was a moral cause on par with the civil rights movement – and ignoring the strategies commonly used to get the Supreme Court’s attention would amount to unilateral disarmament in a lot of important legal battles.”
    • SCOTUS Justices ‘Prayed With’ Her — Then Cited Her Bosses to End Roe (Kara Voght & Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone): “In the shadow of the high court, across the street from its chambers, sits a cluster of unassuming row houses known only to the initiated as ‘Ministry Row.’ The strip is host to evangelical political groups that have spent the past several decades pushing Beltway conservatives to embrace the religious right’s political causes…”
    • In a Post-Roe World, We Can Avoid Pitting Mothers Against Babies (Leah Libresco Sargeant, New York Times): “The first person to see us was another ultrasound technician. Her voice got sharp when I asked if our baby had a heartbeat. ‘It’s not a baby, don’t talk like that,’ she told me, as I lay on the table. Her voice softened a little, ‘You don’t have to think of it that way.’ For her, part of providing care was denying there was any room for grief. But when the surgeon came in, he began by expressing his condolences. He talked about our options, he talked about our baby as a baby.”
    • There’s a follow-up at My Ectopic Pregnancies (Leah Libresco Sargeant, Substack): “I wanted to write about Camillian to describe not just what is allowed but what can be offered to parents who are losing their child when the doctors acknowledge their child as a child, rather than minimizing their loss.” This one is a sad reminder of how cruel people can be.
    • Angry about Roe, many journalists focus on crisis pregnancy centers as villains behind it all (Julia Duin, GetReligion): “Like, the CPCs have outwitted the abortion clinics when it comes to figuring out what many pregnant women really want and it’s clear the abortion facilities have suffered financial losses as a result. How about asking people at the latter hard questions about the clients they’ve lost to the CPCs and whose bad marketing decision that was? Hint: It might have to do with the free ultrasounds offered by the CPCs. Offering this service was a trend that began a decade or more ago and it really cried out for coverage. But, you know. That wasn’t news.”
    • ‘The Pro-Life Generation’: Young Women Fight Against Abortion Rights (Ruth Graham, New York Times): “Young women whose activism is not connected to religious belief are relative newcomers to the movement, where they make up a small but boisterous niche. Kristin Turner started a chapter of a youth climate group in her hometown, Redding, Calif. Her Instagram bio includes her pronouns (she/they) and support for Black Lives Matter. She describes herself as a feminist, an atheist and a leftist. At 20, she is also the communications director for Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, whose goals include educating the public about ‘the exploitative influence of the Abortion Industrial Complex through an anti-capitalist lens.’”
  5. Seeing Like a Finite State Machine (Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber): “In short, there is a very plausible set of mechanisms under which machine learning and related techniques may turn out to be a disaster for authoritarianism, reinforcing its weaknesses rather than its strengths, by increasing its tendency to bad decision making, and reducing further the possibility of negative feedback that could help correct against errors.” The author is a political scientist at Johns Hopkins and I hope he is correct.
  6. Why I’m Giving Up Tenure at UCLA (Joseph Manson, Bari Weiss’s Substack): “Gradually, one hire at a time, practitioners of ‘critical’ (i.e. leftist, postmodernist) anthropology, some of them lying about their beliefs during job interviews, came to comprise the department’s most influential clique. These militant faculty members recruited even more militant graduate students to work with them.”
  7. Transgender-related:
    • Transformation of a Transgender Teen (Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Gospel Coalition): “Martin Luther King Jr. talks about the long arc of justice,” said Falls Church Anglican rector Sam Ferguson, who has spent time with multiple transitioning young adults and their families. “The Bible also envisions the long arc of redemption, which aims at the resurrection of the body. There is continuity—the end reflects the beginning. Our Creator doesn’t need to start over. If your child has an XY chromosome, then he’ll be raised from the dead as a male. We need to work along the arc of redemption, not against it.”
    • Pronouns and Cases Involving Transgender Parties (Eugene Volokh, Reason): “For a bit of the factual backstory, which may be relevant because it may illustrate how use of pronouns might color readers’ perspective: Petitioner C.G. was found to have sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy (whom the opinion calls Alan, a pseudonym) who had been ‘diagnosed with autism’ and who was apparently working in school at three grades below his age level. At the time, C.G., who was 15 and who would a year later be 300–345 pounds and 6’4” or 6′5″, was apparently perceived by people, or at least by Alan, as male.” For a little more on the case: No First Amendment Right to Legal Name Change (Eugene Volokh, Reason).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Uh oh! (The Far Side)
  • Study Finds 92% Of Californians Who Flee The State Don’t Survive First Winter (Babylon Bee)
  • A Classic (The Far Side)
  • Magician Dan White Proves Fate Really Exists (The Tonight Show, YouTube): ten and a half minutes.
  • Frightening But 100% True Facts About Guns (Babylon Bee, YouTube): four minutes. The first part is the funniest, it drags a little at the end.
  • Truly Humbled to Be the Author of This Article (David Brooks, The Atlantic): “If you’ve spent any time on social media, and especially if you’re around the high-status world of the achievatrons, you are probably familiar with the basic rules of the form. The first rule is that you must never tweet about any event that could actually lead to humility. Never tweet: ‘I’m humbled that I went to a party, and nobody noticed me.’ Never tweet: ‘I’m humbled that I got fired for incompetence.’ The whole point of humility display is to signal that you are humbled by your own magnificent accomplishments. We can all be humbled by an awesome mountain or the infinitude of the night sky, but to be humbled by being in the presence of yourself—that is a sign of truly great humility.”

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have How I Got Rich On The Other Hand (Derek Sivers, personal blog): “It’s not how much you have. It’s the difference between what you have and what you spend. If you have more than you spend, you’re rich. If you spend more than you have, you’re not. If you live cheaply, it’s easy to be free.” This is really simple and really true. Emphasis in the original. First shared in volume 226.

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 313

a disturbingly high number of pandemic-related articles

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.

313 is the 65th prime number.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Pandemic related
    • How the Pandemic Now Ends (Ed Yong, The Atlantic): “Here, then, is the current pandemic dilemma: Vaccines remain the best way for individuals to protect themselves, but societies cannot treat vaccines as their only defense.” 
      • First, this is a free article that won’t use up a paywall click. Second, this is discouraging to read and makes me think Stanford is going to be way more restrictive than I was hoping come fall.
    • What We Lose When We Livestream Church (Collin Hansen, New York Times): “The very word we translate from Greek as ‘church’ in the New Testament suggests we must assemble in person. The church wasn’t just a bridge of 2,000 years until humanity reached Peak Zoom. It’s essential for the religion where God took on flesh and dwelt among us. It’s essential in a faith that believes Jesus physically rose from the dead and then sat down to enjoy a meal with his stunned friends.”
    • Covid incompetence (John Cochrane, personal blog): “Delta is the fourth wave of covid, and amazingly the US policy response is even more irresolute than the first time around. Our government is like a child, sent next door to get a cup of sugar, who gets as far as the front stoop and then wanders off following a puppy.” 
      • The author is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
    • “What Do Full Hospitals Really Tell Us About COVID?” (Eugene Volokh, Reason): “The public argument for specialty hospitals is more expertise and lower costs because of efficiency. The real model was no emergency room, and thus no way for un- and under-insured people to get into the hospital. All of the financial benefits of being a hospital without any of the responsibilities. So we get women’s hospitals, orthopedic hospitals, etc., sucking the profitable work from community hospitals, without taking any of the burden of community care for the indigent.… The hospitals in Louisiana which take indigent patients and patients though the ER—pretty much all COVID patients—are slammed. The specialty hospitals have lots of staff and lots of beds and don’t have much in the way of COVID patients, if there are any at all.”
      • I did not know any of that. Really interesting. Written a law prof at Louisiana State University.
    • Porndemic? A Longitudinal Study of Pornography Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Nationally Representative Sample of Americans (Grubbs et al, Archives of Sexual Behavior): “In general, pornography use trended downward over the pandemic, for both men and women. Problematic pornography use trended downward for men and remained low and unchanged in women.” 
      • The excerpt is from the abstract. It’s a little surprising but also I think people are less likely to watch porn with their families around, which happened a lot during the pandemic. I do wonder how their findings cross-check with traffic stats from porn websites. It seems like an obvious way to do a simple check on their findings.
  2. The Gap Between Law and Morality (Helen Dale, Law & Liberty): “The planet’s two great legal systems developed in two European civilisations, Rome and England. Their wide provenance is not only due to both peoples conquering great empires. It’s also because they worked: they did things no other legal regime did before them, and those others are still incapable of doing now.… Incredibly, these developed independently of each other. The English common law did not borrow from Rome: when it first emerged, Roman law was lost.” 
    • This is surprisingly engrossing. In the words of an alumnus, “This one was a sleeper hit. Started slow, blew me away by the end.”
  3. Why a Masculine Ministry Rose and Fell (David French, The Dispatch): “When countering a culture that often attacks traditional masculine inclinations as inherent vice, the answer isn’t to indulge traditional masculine inclinations as inherent virtue.… Driscoll, in all his toughness and swagger, tried to make men out of Christians. The church, however, should make Christians out of men.”
  4. Cornel West on Why the Left Needs Jesus (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “When I was in Charlottesville, looking at these sick white brothers in neo-Nazi parties and the Klan spitting and cussing and carrying on, I could see the hounds of hell raging on the battlefield of their souls. But I also know that there’s greed in me. There’s hatred in me. People say, ‘Oh, you’re so qualitatively different than those gangsters.’ I say, ‘No, I’ve got gangster in me. I was a gangster before I met Jesus. Now I’m a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.’ It is a very different way of looking at things than many of my secular comrades.”
  5. Criminal-Justice Reformers Chose the Wrong Slogan (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic): “Before the public sours on criminal-justice reform more broadly—as it may amid rising fears about crime and disorder in cities—a new focus and rallying cry are needed. And given the spike in homicides that has afflicted the United States during the pandemic, disproportionately killing Black people, there’s an especially strong case for this overdue slogan: Solve All Murders. Precisely because Black lives matter, people who take Black lives shouldn’t get away with it.”
  6. Assemblies of God Growing with Pentecostal Persistence (Ryan P. Burge, Christianity Today): “It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why the Assemblies of God has continued to increase over the past 15 years. Research shows that membership of the Assemblies of God has become more politically conservative and more religiously active today than just a decade ago, but its own numbers indicate that it has achieved incredible racial diversity—44 percent of members in the United States are ethnic minorities.”
    • Since the Assemblies of God is the group with which I am ordained and is the parent organization of Chi Alpha, file under “articles that make me happy.”
  7. We Need to Build Our Way Out of This Mess (Eli Dourado, New York Times): “How did the most dynamic country on the planet become so sclerotic? We did it to ourselves. We enacted laws that privilege the status quo at the expense of change and progress. We liberally passed out veto rights to anyone with the money and wherewithal to hire a lawyer. If we want to reverse the damage and create a more prosperous future, we must make it easy to build.” 
    • The author is an economist at Utah State University.

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 a provocative read, In Defense of Flogging (Peter Moskos, Chronicle of Higher Education) — the author is a former police officer and now a criminologist at the City University of New York. This one was shared back before I started sending these emails in a blog post called Punishment.

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 299

so many entertaining tidbits at the end — way more than normal

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 the 299th installment of these emails. 299 is, I am told, the most pieces into which a simple object (like a cube or a sphere — something without a weird structure) can be split using 12 straight cuts. 

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Why You’re Christian (David Perrell, personal blog): “…I’m a tepid non-believer myself.… [However] I realized that society’s most passionate critics, most of whom claim to be secular, usually have the most Christian values of all. They’ve studied in elite universities, they live in major cities, and they’re proud members of the intelligentsia. Human rights, a centerpiece of their moral outlook, is inconsistent with the rest of their worldview. Though they pride themselves on evidence-based thinking, they’re intellectually bankrupt on the topic of human rights.”
    • Related (at least in my mind): What Became of Atheism, Part One: Wearing the Uniform (Freddie deBoer, Substack): “…if God exists then that is the single most important fact in the history of creation and nothing else can take its crown, ever. If a being exists, of whatever nature, who created reality, exists within all of reality, set reality’s physical and moral rules, watches over all of reality, judges all of us on how devout and moral we are, and determines reward and punishment based on that judgement, that clearly is the truth that trumps all other truths. Strange to let it slip out of the debate quietly in the night. But then I suppose that’s culture war; sooner or later the only question that remains is who is on what side of the line, and all the rest dissolves.”
  2. Justice-related thoughts:
    • ‘The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood Is Crying to Me From the Ground’ (David French, The Dispatch): “…we can articulate three truths of simple, individual justice. First, a grave wrong creates a moral and spiritual cry for redress. Second, it is the role of government to provide that redress. And third, the government must be impartial, treating ‘great and small’ alike. All too many Americans are completely unaware of the extent to which the present structures and habits of American law fail to meet those basic obligations, especially when injustice is visited upon the citizen by the state.”
    • Chauvin Was Convicted. Something Is Still Very Wrong. (Elizabeth Bruenig, New York Times): “Forgiveness doesn’t feel particularly triumphant. It’s a gift no one wants to be in the position to give; it releases a wrongdoer from moral debt — for their own good and the common good, not for the sake of the wronged.… But I want to live in a world where it is possible to forgive and to be forgiven. In fact, I think it’s necessary.”
    • The Real Reason to End the Death Penalty (Paul Graham, Substack): “But in practice the debate about the death penalty is not about whether it’s ok to kill murderers. It’s about whether it’s ok to kill innocent people, because at least 4% of people on death row are innocent.” I find this a really interesting line of argument. Clearly we want to have a 100% accuracy rate in all criminal convictions. But is 96% accuracy outrageously intolerable? To the extent that it becomes a persuasive argument against the death penalty isn’t that then also an argument against imprisonment? Or virtually any punishment?
    • Unjust Secular Justice (Matthew Schmitz,First Things): “While in the colonial era most cases went to trial (and most trials lasted a stunningly short thirty minutes), more and more are now resolved by a plea bargain. Nowhere is our abandonment of colonial ideas of criminal justice more apparent than in no-contest pleas that allow defendants to receive lighter sentences without any admission of guilt.” This is an older book review (2013) but is quite good.
    • Outrage Overload (Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch): “Modern policing—or even policing qua policing—owes far less to slave patrolling than NASA owes to Hitler’s rocket program. And yet no one talks about the troubling Nazi roots of modern space exploration, or asks Elon Musk if he’s exorcised the ghost of Werner Von Braun from SpaceX. I have seen this slave patrol thing brought up countless times in interviews, and not once have I seen an interviewer say, ‘Really?’ never mind, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ It’s as batty as any conspiracy theory, and it’s a deliberate attempt to heap innuendo on policing in lieu of making an intelligent argument. And that’s what frustrates me to no end. It’s the job of journalists to call out B.S. when it’s being thrown in their faces.”
  3. Where Two or Three Are Gathered (William J. Haun & Daniel L. Chen, Law & Liberty): “Over 40 amicus briefs lambasted this embrace of open-ended government surveillance—reflecting an ideological agreement so wide that NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina and Wisconsin Right to Life joined the same brief. On the surface, widespread consensus in favor of associational privacy is surely welcome. But this agreement masks equally widespread, decades-long confusion over how and why the Constitution protects free association.” Quite good, a bit dry. The authors are lawyers with the Becket Fund.
  4. “Wokeness is a problem and we all know it” (Sean Illing interviewing James Carville, Vox): “We won the White House against a world-historical buffoon. And we came within 42,000 votes of losing. We lost congressional seats. We didn’t pick up state legislatures. So let’s not have an argument about whether or not we’re off-key in our messaging. We are. And we’re off because there’s too much jargon and there’s too much esoterica and it turns people off.” Carville is a legendary Democratic political strategist and he is in full-on old man rant mode here.
  5. ‘This Is a Catastrophe.’ In India, Illness Is Everywhere. (Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times): “New Delhi, India’s sprawling capital of 20 million, is suffering a calamitous surge. A few days ago, the positivity rate hit a staggering 36 percent — meaning more than one out of three people tested were infected. A month ago, it was less than 3 percent.” 
    1. Related: ‘Death Is the Only Truth.’ Watching India’s Funeral Pyres Burn. (Aman Sethi, New York Times): “The Indian government has ordered Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to take down dozens of posts criticizing its handling of the pandemic. But the graphic images of mass cremations have cut through this wall of noise, misinformation and propaganda, capturing what epidemiologists call ‘excess mortality’ in gruesome detail.”
  6. Columbia Stone (T.A. Krasnican, Substack): “This public forgetfulness is the same indifference that in 1938 inspired Adolf Hitler, after issuing orders for his Nazi ‘death-head formations’ to ‘send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language,’ to write the famous phrase, ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ Public ambivalence about human tragedy emboldened him.” Recommended by a student.
  7. Individualism is associated with happy countries, but not people (Zaid Jilani, Substack): “In a recently released study, team of researchers studied young adults across four countries — China, the United States, Russia, and Italy — starting with the hypothesis that levels of life satisfaction would be higher among individuals who have individualistic values. At the country level, this is indeed what they found. Countries with a higher index of individualistic values had more life satisfaction — that put America on top, followed by Italy, Russia, and then China. But an entirely different picture emerged when they looked at the individual level. There, they found that individualism had no impact on life satisfaction. Instead, life satisfaction was positively correlated with collectivism, regardless of the wider culture of the country.” My take: Americans are on average happier than the Chinese because of the freedoms which emerge from our individualism, but the happiest individuals in each country are those that freely choose to embrace family and community. 

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

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

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 272

I cheated when numbering a few of these

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. A DC Church Shows How to Fight for Religious Freedom (David French, The Dispatch): “Late Friday night a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., handed down a religious liberty ruling that I hope will echo throughout the nation…. It demonstrates how thoughtful Christians can engage in the public square and defend their liberty with conviction while also caring for their communities and demonstrating extraordinary patience with public officials. In other words, in one court case we’re watching what it’s like when Christian legal ends are pursued through Christian moral means.” Excellent news with typically insightful commentary by David French.
  2. Stop Being Shocked (Bari Weiss, Tablet): “The hatred we experience on campus has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s because Jews defy anti-racist ideology simply by existing. So it’s not so much that Zionism is racism. It’s that Jewishness is.“ 
    • Outstanding. There are SO MANY quotable bits in this essay. 
    • Why Is Wokeness Winning? (Andrew Sullivan, Substack): “Critical theory was once an esoteric academic pursuit. Now it has become the core, underlying philosophy of the majority of American cultural institutions, universities, media, corporations, liberal churches, NGOs, philanthropies, and, of course, mainstream journalism.”
    • The Fundamentalist War on Wokeness is a War on Christian Love (Michael Bird, Patheos): “The whole anti-woke and anti-critical race theory trope strike me as not so much interested in opposing progressive authoritarianism and its divisive racial politics, as much as it serves to deny ethnic minorities have any grievances and white churches have any responsibility to do anything about it.” Bird is a respected evangelical theologian. 
  3. Some Stanford-related articles I saw: 
    • The Prescience of Shelby Steele (Samuel Kronen, Quillette): “Shelby was the only sibling to reject the tenets of modern liberalism, and although he and his [twin] brother work on the same campus and occasionally pass each other (Shelby is at Stanford’s Hoover Institution), the two are not on speaking terms.” Not the most revealing excerpt, but probably the most interesting to this audience.
    • An open letter from a Stanford wrestling parent to the University president (Sarah Traxler, Stanford Daily): “When addressing the reasons that the 11 sports in particular are being discontinued, wrestling was cited only in the category of competing ‘without a full complement of scholarships.’ One over-looked reason for this is that wrestlers often come from lower income groups. As such, wrestling student-athletes often qualify for need-based financial aid, reducing the demand for the full complement of athletic-based scholarships.”
    • My Brief Spell as an Activist (Lucy Kross Wallace, Quillette): “This was my first intoxicating taste of empowerment born from victimhood. I was vindicated; exuberant. None of it had been my fault. All my doubts and self-hatred and guilt could be laid to rest. I had been the victim not only of circumstance and misfortune, but of oppression. The problem was simple, the solution equally so. I didn’t have to change—society did.” The author is a sophomore at Stanford.
  4. A reminder that there are some horrible things happening in this world: 
    • How Turkey’s Military Adventures Decrease Freedom at Home (Garo Paylan, New York Times): “After a decades-long fitful truce, the conflict over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh — a breakaway Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan — between Azerbaijan and Armenia resumed last month, leading to a large military deployment, destruction of civilian centers and thousands of casualties. In this war, Turkey strongly supports Azerbaijan, with which it shares ethnic bonds, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed global calls for a cease-fire.” The author is a member of the Turkish Parliament. Recommended by an alumnus.
    • Azerbaijan’s assault against Armenia threatens democracy everywhere (Christos Makridis & Alex Galitsky, The Hill): “While Azerbaijan has attempted to shield itself from international scrutiny by riding on the presence of tense domestic politics in the United States and a global pandemic, we cannot ignore it any longer. The international community must recognize that failure to stand up for religious minorities anywhere is a threat to them everywhere. Inaction creates precedent and emboldens dictators.” One of the authors, Christos, is an alumnus of Chi Alpha.
    • China ambassador makes veiled threat to Hong Kong-based Canadians (Helen Davidson, The Guardian): “Canada is among several countries that suspended extradition agreements with Hong Kong in response to Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law in June. Dozens of MPs recently called for Canada to offer ‘safe harbour’ to pro-democracy protesters fleeing Hong Kong, prompting the warning from Cong.”
    • Related from a few weeks ago: ‘You will be put into detention’: Former ABC bureau chief tells story of fleeing China for first time (Matthew Carney, Australia Broadcasting Corporation): “We were instructed to report to a facility in north Beijing and told to bring my daughter Yasmine, who was 14 at the time, as she was now part of the investigation. This felt like a line in the sand for me. I could not accept that they would involve my children. At the same time I was frightened. It felt like part of the Chinese playbook: to go after family members as a way to exact punishment and revenge.”
  5. ‘Handmaid’ reality: Deeply religious marriages have more spousal equality (New York Post): “Religious, home-worshipping couples also report greater relationship quality and stability, and they are three times more likely than less-religious peers to report a sexually satisfying relationship. The women don’t appear to be repressed; in fact, they’re generally more likely to say they’re happy and that their life has meaning and purpose.” And yet again research confirms Biblical precepts. Allow me to take his opportunity to offer a friendly pastoral reminder to marry another Christian, should you marry. 
    • Why Only Amy Coney Barrett Gets to Have It All (Katelyn Beaty, New York Times): “…to set the record straight, on handmaids and beyond, conservative Christians must do their part to imagine a broader and more humanizing vision for women’s place in the public square. Christianity has always contained a liberatory seed: one that tells women that the human desire to work, create and shape institutions is as important, even as holy, as their ability to bear children. If Christians don’t like the handmaid stereotypes, now is the time to be clear on all that Christian women can do and be.”
  6. How Christians Should Think About Voting (Michael & Melissa Wear, Substack): “When you vote in an election, with the exception of a write-in ballot, you are not voting for your dream candidate. Your vote is not an unmediated expression of your identity, your vote is a choice between options you did not choose yourself. If you view your vote as an unmediated, pure expression of your will, it can be debilitating.” The author is a former Obama White House staffer. The article itself is very nonpartisan. 
    • Latino, Evangelical and Politically Homeless (Jennifer Medina, New York Times): “When Pastor Rivera looks at his congregation of 200 families he sees a microcosm of the Latino vote in the United States: how complex it is, and how each party’s attempt to solidify crucial support can fall short. There are not clear ideological lines here between liberals and conservatives. People care about immigration, but are equally concerned about religious liberty and abortion.”
    • Putting this one here is kind of cheating, but I like having only 7 major topics. This is political enough that I’m justifying it to myself. The 1619 Chronicles (Bret Stephens, New York Times): “Journalists are, most often, in the business of writing the first rough draft of history, not trying to have the last word on it. We are best when we try to tell truths with a lowercase t, following evidence in directions unseen, not the capital‑T truth of a pre-established narrative in which inconvenient facts get discarded.”
    • How the 1619 Project took over 2020 (Sarah Ellison, Washington Post): “Hannah-Jones has fiercely defended the 1619 Project. But today, she acknowledges that for all the experts she consulted, she should have sat down with additional scholars with particular focus on colonial history, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, to better reflect the contention in the field.”
  7. Forget What Gender Activists Tell You. Here’s What Medical Transition Looks Like (Scott Newgent, Quillette): “I write all this as a 47-year-old transgender man who transitioned five years ago. I’m also a parent to three teenagers. Though I admire the good intentions of parents who seek to support their children, I have serious concerns about reckless acquiescence to a child’s Internet-mediated self-diagnosis. Many older transgender folks share these concerns, too.”

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 Religion’s health effects should make doubting parishioners reconsider leaving (John Siniff and Tyler J. VanderWeele, USA Today): “Simply from a public health perspective, the continuing diminution of religious upbringing in America would be bad for health. This is not proselytizing; this is science.” The Harvard epidemiology professor  last made an appearance here back in volume 65. First shared in volume 195.

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 265

lots about race and racial tension

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. Here are the things about race and racial tension that stood out to me. 
    • Why Did the Police Shoot Jacob Blake? (Trevor Noah, The Daily Show): “I could tell you this story with my eyes closed by now. If I wanted to I could prerecord five of these segments and go on vacation and you would never know.” Ten worthwhile minutes.
    • The Kenosha shooting didn’t happen in a vacuum (Denise Lockwood, CNN): “I am reminded of what Rodney Prunty, the former executive director of the United Way of Racine County, said to me during an interview: ‘If you have a pond full of fish and a few of them die, you ask what’s wrong with the fish. But when the pond full of fish dies, we ask what’s wrong with the pond.’ In Wisconsin, it’s time we talked about what’s wrong with the pond.”
    • Riots in John Piper’s Neighborhood (Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Gospel Coalition): “Piper’s people moved in without a master plan, which was both confusing (‘What should we do?’) and exactly what When Helping Hurts authors would later advise (start with building relationships, watching, and learning). Everyone ended up doing something different. But for decades, they’ve kept at it, working through disappointments and challenges, looting and riots, broken glass and homeless tent cities in the parks. They’re still doing it.” This is an outstanding story.
    • Feel Good or Do Good (George Yancey, Patheos): “To gain the support of real conviction we need the type of conversations where we listen to others as much as discuss our point of view with them. We connect with others and get at the core of why they disagree with us. We understand their arguments and consider how to deal with the issues they bring up. We admit the validity of those issues even if we disagree with them. Does this sound like anything that is happening with antiracism?” The author, who is black, is a sociologist at Baylor whom I have referenced several times. 
    • Rule of Law Imperiled (R. R. Reno, First Things): “The destruction of property is not just an attack on another’s possessions. It is a violation of justice. This is why rioting and looting affects far more than those whose stores are burned. Citizens begin to worry that they do not live in a society committed to justice. As we know from blacks who resent mistreatment by the police, which is also unjust, this worry can become explosive, even among those not personally affected.”
    • Kyle Rittenhouse, Populist Hero (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): “If I were a polling firm, I would run a national poll asking people who have heard of Kyle Rittenhouse whether they think he’s a villain, a hero, or don’t know. That would tell us a lot about the mood of the country.”
  2. Unbecoming American (Johann N. Neem, Hedgehog Review): “A shared culture is not a totalizing one; indeed, it makes real pluralism possible by giving us something larger to share regardless of our many differences. Or so I believed. But when that shared world was redefined as white—and when white people, threatened by its loss, reclaimed it—I found myself an exile. A person losing his country. I felt myself unbecoming in more than one sense. On college campuses, including the one where I now teach, the left imposes new boundaries on thought and speech in its effort to challenge historical boundaries, while, in politics, the right embraces boundaries that we had hoped never to see again.” The author, a man of Indian descent, is a historian at Western Washington University. I really liked this article. 
    • Follow-up interview: An Immigrant’s Plea: “Don’t Convert to Whiteness” (Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic): “My biggest fear, actually, is violence. We forget that social order is fragile. You don’t have to look far to see how prevalent ethnic or religious violence is around the world. If we form tribes, we will respond in hateful ways to each other. Rightly or wrongly, people will feel beleaguered. We will get angrier and angrier. There will be less empathy.” I share his concern. 
  3. Advice For Students In a Time of Strife (a whole passel of Princeton professors, First Things): “Remember, as an American college or university student you are one of the luckiest—most privileged—people on planet earth. Do not fall into the trap of thinking of yourself as a victim or building an identity for yourself around that idea. You can avoid the trap while strongly standing up for your right to fair and equal treatment and boldly working for reform where there are double standards needing to be rectified.” Technically not a whole passel, which connotes a large but uncertain number. I count 16 signatories!
  4. China Secretly Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Muslims (Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing, and Christo Buschek, Buzzfeed): “Downloading WhatsApp, which is banned in China, maintaining ties with family abroad, engaging in prayer, and visiting a foreign website are all offenses for which Muslims have been sent to camps, according to previously leaked documents and interviews with former detainees. Because the government does not consider internment camps to be part of the criminal justice system and none of these behaviors are crimes under Chinese law, no detainees have been formally arrested or charged with a crime, let alone seen a day in court.” I’ve shared similar news this before. This article is fresh and especially damning. 
    • Part 2: What They Saw: Ex-Prisoners Detail The Horrors Of China’s Detention Camps (Buzzfeed): “More than a dozen former detainees confirmed to BuzzFeed News that prisoners were divided into three categories, differentiated by uniform colors. Those in blue, like Parida and the majority of the people interviewed for this article, were considered the least threatening. Often, they were accused of minor transgressions, like downloading banned apps to their phones or having traveled abroad. Imams, religious people, and others considered subversive to the state were placed in the strictest group — and were usually shackled even inside the camp.”
    • Part 3: Blanked-Out Spots On China’s Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang’s Camps (Buzzfeed): “Our breakthrough came when we noticed that there was some sort of issue with satellite imagery tiles loading in the vicinity of one of the known camps while using the Chinese mapping platform Baidu Maps. The satellite imagery was old, but otherwise fine when zoomed out — but at a certain point, plain light gray tiles would appear over the camp location…. We analyzed the masked locations by comparing them to up-to-date imagery from Google Earth, the European Space Agency’s Sentinel Hub, and Planet Labs.” This one will be particularly interesting to CS people. 
  5. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks about trusting the news (Twitter): “…when you see a FACT that is reported, cited, and verified by several reputable outlets, 99.999% it’s going to be true. HOWEVER! There is a big difference between a fact and the STORY. And the STORY (often the headline) that’s surrounding the fact is frequently stretched, mischaracterized, or dramatized to get you to click.” She and I have a remarkably similar perspective on the media. 
    • Related: Given my time again, I wouldn’t choose journalism (Sarah Ditum, Unherd): “Being mad was important because the economics of this kind of content required fast output (since timeliness is critical) and high engagement (since this is how editors, and writers, measure success). I write quickly when I’m angry, and anger begets more anger, so people are more likely to share and react. Not everything I wrote when this was my main form of journalism was bad, but only some of it was good, and the worst of it had a dishonesty that made me feel ashamed…” 
  6. Do Pro-Lifers Who Reject Trump Have ‘Blood on their Hands’? (David French, The DIspatch): “Decades of data and decades of legal, political, and cultural developments have combined to teach us a few, simple realities about abortion in the United States: 1. Presidents have been irrelevant to the abortion rate; 2. Judges have been forces of stability, not change, in abortion law; 3. State legislatures have had more influence on abortion than Congress; 4. Even if Roe is overturned, abortion will be mostly unchanged in the U.S.; and 5. The pro-life movement has an enormous cultural advantage.“ Chock-full of insights. Despite the title, it is less about partisan politics and more about abortion in America.

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 Facts Are Not Self‐Interpreting (Twitter) — this is a short, soundless video. Recommended. First shared in volume 184.

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 262

Honestly, this week’s collection of articles has some of the best I’ve seen in some time.

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. A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory (Tim Keller, Gospel In Life): “In the Bible Christians have an ancient, rich, strong, comprehensive, complex, and attractive understanding of justice. Biblical justice differs in significant ways from all the secular alternatives, without ignoring the concerns of any of them. Yet Christians know little about biblical justice, despite its prominence in the Scriptures.” The read of the week.
  2. The Church Forests of Ethiopia (YouTube): nine minutes. This commentary by Rod Dreher was what brought the video to my attention. Watch the video before you read the commentary. These forests are a beautiful picture of the way the Church blesses the world around it, and what the Church must do to thrive in the environment we find ourselves in.
  3. Listen to Thomas Sowell (Coleman Hughes, City Journal): “…people predictably line up on opposite sides of political issues that seemingly have nothing in common. For instance, knowing someone’s position on climate change somehow allows you to predict their views on taxing the rich, gun control, and abortion. It’s tempting to dismiss this as mere political tribalism. But Sowell contends that more is at work: that there are two fundamental ways of thinking about the social world, two sets of basic assumptions about human nature, and two conflicting ‘visions,’ from which most political disagreements follow.” Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
  4. Some reflections on the media: 
    • The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free (Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs): “You want ‘Portland Protesters Burn Bibles, American Flags In The Streets,’ ‘The Moral Case Against Mask Mandates And Other COVID Restrictions,’ or an article suggesting the National Institutes of Health has admitted 5G phones cause coronavirus—they’re yours. You want the detailed Times reports on neo-Nazis infiltrating German institutions, the reasons contact tracing is failing in U.S. states, or the Trump administration’s undercutting of the USPS’s effectiveness—well, if you’ve clicked around the website a bit you’ll run straight into the paywall.” 
      • This is a good article. For the record, I agree with his assessment of the New York Times: it often contains the facts, but sometimes incorrectly framed with foolish inferences built upon them. That burning Bibles and flags thing Robinson knocks, though? That really happened: Did Portland Protesters Burn Bibles and American Flags? (Snopes)
    • How the Media Could Get the Election Story Wrong (Ben Smith, New York Times): “The coronavirus crisis means that states like Pennsylvania may be counting mail-in ballots for weeks, while President Trump tweets false allegations about fraud. And the last barriers between American democracy and a deep political crisis may be television news and some version of that maddening needle on The New York Times website.” 
      • This is terrifying and is 100% worth using up one of your paywall articles for.
    • How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening (Zach Goldberg, Tablet): “During this same period, while exotic new phrases were entering the discourse, universally recognizable words like ‘racism’ were being radically redefined. Along with the new language came ideas and beliefs animating a new moral-political framework to apply to public life and American society.”
  5. On the divisions in America: 
    • To unite the country, we need honesty and courage (Robert George and Cornell West, Boston Globe): “Honesty and courage alone can save our wounded, disunited country now. We need the honesty and courage to speak the truth — including painful truths that unsettle not only our foes but also our friends and, most especially, ourselves.” The authors (both Christian) are professors at Princeton and Harvard, respectively. 
    • Remembering John Lewis, and the Political Theology that Changed a Nation (David French, The Dispatch): “What looks inevitable in hindsight was anything but certain. In fact, if you were placing contemporary bets on a political outcome, would you guess that some version of a three-century status quo would prevail, or that the civil rights movement would achieve a legal revolution nearly on par with emancipation itself? At the same time, can we even recall a modern Christian political movement so consistent with the upside-down logic of biblical Christianity?”
    • This is Not The American Cultural Revolution (Tanner Greer, personal blog): “Americans are extremely fond of exaggerating the threat their political enemies pose. Histrionics about Donald Trump ending American democracy are everywhere to be found; readers will no doubt remember the protestors who claimed that Dick Cheney was the second coming of Hitler, or that Barack Obama was a stealth authoritarian socialist.” This is a reassuring essay.
    • Secularism Cannot Sustain Liberty, a Response to Greg Forster (Al Mohler, Law & Liberty): “I believe that the project of civilization in the West, and in the English-speaking world in particular, has brought the greatest flowering of liberties and the greatest opportunities for human flourishing in human history. I also believe that this civilizational project has arrived at this moment of maximum danger after decades of both neglect and mounting opposition. The most fundamental problem is the loss of the intellectual and moral preconditions that make the project of ordered liberty possible.”
    • Could America split up? (Damon Linker, The Week): “I often catch myself pondering exactly what it is that keeps our country together. What do we hold in common? What do we share?” 
  6. Churches and the pandemic:
    • How Two California Megachurches Kept Worshiping (Kate Shellnutt and Nicole Shanks, Christianity Today): “Two California churches were so eager to meet last weekend that when their services began, worshipers erupted in applause. In Sun Valley, congregants filling Grace Community Church’s 3,500-seat sanctuary rose and cheered, some documenting the moment with their iPhones, when pastor John MacArthur opened the second week in a row of in-person services…. An hour away in Riverside, California, worshippers at Harvest Christian Fellowship were greeted with cheeky pink and purple signs that said, ‘Smile with your eyes (and wear a mask)’ and ‘Just leave room for your Bible—and another 5½ feet.’ It was the third Sunday that Harvest met in a white tent half the size of a football field to comply with state orders restricting indoor worship.”
    • Should Churches in California Defy Government Restrictions? A Response to John MacArthur (Gavin Ortlund, personal blog): “To my mind, there are at least four biblical values that should inform our decision-making in this situation: 1. the importance of worship (Hebrews 10:25), 2. love for neighbor (Mark 12:31), 3. obedience to government (Romans 13:1–7), and 4. maintaining a good witness (Colossians 4:5–6). What concerns me about defying the state order right now is that it seems to prioritize 1 at the expense of 2–4.”
    • Masking and Masks: A Hypothetical Interview (Doug Wilson, personal blog): “A free people should be jealous of their liberty. And one of the best ways to be jealous of your liberty is to require the government, whenever it exercises its authority coercively, to be able to give a very specific reason. A general reason is not good enough. The law should prohibit stealing, for example, and when the cops arrest a thief, they should be able to say that they arrested him because he was ‘stealing.’ Negative prohibitions are the foundation of civic liberty, and broad, general feel-good directives are the foundation of tyranny.“ I am not opposed to mandatory masks, but this is a good defense of the opposition. 
  7. Concerning China:
    • The TikTok War (Ben Thompson, Stratechery): “TikTok’s algorithm, unmoored from the constraints of your social network or professional content creators, is free to promote whatever videos it likes, without anyone knowing the difference. TikTok could promote a particular candidate or a particular issue in a particular geography, without anyone — except perhaps the candidate, now indebted to a Chinese company — knowing. You may be skeptical this might happen, but again, China has already demonstrated a willingness to censor speech on a platform banned in China; how much of a leap is it to think that a Party committed to ideological dominance will forever leave a route directly into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans untouched?”
    • Books pulled from the library shelves, songs banned…it’s the new normal in Hong Kong (Louisa Lim, The Guardian): “Put simply, within a single month, Beijing has dismantled a partially free society and is trying to use its new law to enforce global censorship on speech regarding Hong Kong.”
    • Christians Worry Hong Kong’s New Law Will Hamper Missions (D. Cheng, Christianity Today): “…Christians living outside of China now wonder: Is it still safe for them to communicate openly with friends and colleagues in Hong Kong? For years, the territory has served as a staging ground for ministry organizations operating across the region. But now, will they face pressure or persecution, as those in the mainland do? If they are critical of Beijing on social media or in an article such as this, will they be denied entry to Hong Kong—or worse, detained and possibly imprisoned upon landing in Hong Kong?”
    • ‘Clean Up This Mess’: The Chinese Thinkers Behind Xi’s Hard Line (Chris Buckley, New York Times): “While China’s Communist Party has long nurtured legions of academics to defend its agenda, these authoritarian thinkers stand out for their unabashed, often flashily erudite advocacy of one-party rule and assertive sovereignty, and their turn against the liberal ideas that many of them once embraced.”
    • Trump Administration Penalizes Chinese Officials for Hong Kong Crackdown (Pranshu Verma and Edward Wong, New York Times): “The action is another in a series of measures the Trump administration has taken in recent months to ratchet up pressure on Beijing. Last month, the administration imposed sanctions on the Chinese government, including a senior member of the Communist Party, over human rights abuses against the largely Muslim Uighur minority.”

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 What Is It Like to Be a Man? (Phil Christman, The Hedgehog Review): “I live out my masculinity most often as a perverse avoidance of comfort: the refusal of good clothes, moisturizer, painkillers; hard physical training, pursued for its own sake and not because I enjoy it; a sense that there is a set amount of physical pain or self‐imposed discipline that I owe the universe.” Very well‐written. Everyone will likely find parts they resonate with and parts they reject. The author is a lecturer at the University of Michigan and based on his CV seems to be a fairly devoted Episcopalian. First shared in volume 178.

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 241

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. Concerning Coronavirus and Christianity: 
    • Love in the Time of Coronavirus — Andy Crouch (Andy Crouch, The Praxis Journal): “…while government at all levels can enforce a certain amount of behavior change, for example through quarantines and “lockdowns,” it is almost impossible for coercive authority to increase people’s capacity for love and service to others. This is the role of faith and above all, we believe, the Christian faith. Equipping Christians for moments like this is the role of Christian leaders.” THIS. READ THIS.
    • What Martin Luther Teaches Us About Coronavirus (Emmy Yang, Christianity Today): “In a climate of fear surrounding the outbreak, I come back to Luther’s letter for guidance. As a medical student and a future physician, I have a clear vocational commitment to caring for the sick—whether they have coronavirus, tuberculosis, or influenza. Precautions I will take, yes. But I am reminded by Luther that they are individuals deserving of care all the same.”
    • Here is an English translation of Luther’s original letter: Whether One May Flee From A Deadly Plague: “Since it is generally true of Christians that few are strong and many are weak, one simply cannot place the same burden upon everyone. A person who has a strong faith can drink poison and suffer no harm, Mark 16[:18], while one who has a weak faith would thereby drink to his death.”
    • Wuhan Pastor: Pray with Us (anonymous, ChinaSource): “Thus, my brothers and sisters, I encourage you to be strong in Christ’s love. If we more deeply experience death in this pestilence, understanding the gospel, we may more deeply experience Christ’s love, and grow ever nearer to God.”
    • How DC Churches Responded When the Government Banned Public Gatherings During the Spanish Flu of 1918 (Caleb Morell, 9 Marks): “During one of the worst epidemics to ever hit our country, churches respected the directives of the government for a limited time out of neighborly love and in order to protect public health. Even when churches began to disagree with the Commissioners’ perspective, they continued to abide by their orders.”
    • Should Your Church Stop Meeting to Slow COVID-19? How 3 Seattle Churches Decided. (Daniel Chin, Christianity Today): “After working for WHO and then the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China, my wife and I moved to Seattle in 2015 to lead the foundation’s work to control tuberculosis in several countries. For a quarter of a century, I’ve answered a calling as a follower of Christ to stop the spread of diseases and work to eliminate them, and now I heed that calling to speak to my brothers and sisters in Christ to take this epidemic seriously and respond.” The author is an evangelical and a physician who specializes in infectious diseases.
  2. Concerning Coronavirus More Generally: 
    • How Much Worse the Coronavirus Could Get, in Charts (Nicholas Kristof and Stuart A. Thompson, NY Times): “What’s at stake in this coronavirus pandemic? How many Americans can become infected? How many might die? The answers depend on the actions we take — and, crucially, on when we take them. Working with infectious disease epidemiologists, we developed this interactive tool that lets you see what may lie ahead in the United States and how much of a difference it could make if officials act quickly.” Note that this is not paywalled. Many prominent news organizations have kindly made their pandemic news freely available.
    • Why it’s so hard to pin down the risk of dying from coronavirus (Marc Lipsitch, Washington Post): “Several estimates have suggested that the risk of dying, for those infected with covid-19 and showing its flu-like symptoms, is around 1 or 2 percent. Elderly adults have a considerably higher risk of both becoming infected and dying, as do people with compromised immune systems. The estimates might change as new data arrive, but the range of 1 to 2 percent for fatalities among the symptomatic seems to be the consensus for now. The overall fatality rate for people infected with covid-19 will be lower — possibly much lower — when we know how many people are infected but asymptomatic.” The author is a Harvard epidemiologist. 
    • COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planner (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “Now here is the most important point. It’s the size of the group, not the number of carriers that most drives the result. For example, suppose our estimate of the number of carriers if off by a factor of 10–that is instead of 20,000 there are just 2000 carriers in the United States. In this case, the probability of at least one carrier at a big event of 100,000 drops not by a factor of ten but just to 45%. In other words, large events are a bad idea even in scenarios with just a small number of carriers.” (source code for the embedded graph is at https://github.com/jsweitz/covid-19-event-risk-planner) The code and the graph come from a biologist at Georgia Tech and the explanation comes from an economist at George Mason University.
    • TrackCorona — COVID-19 Tracker and Live Map — one of the people running the website is a Stanford undergrad. 
    • Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now (Tomas Pueyo, Medium): “Countries that act fast can reduce the number of deaths by a factor of ten. And that’s just counting the fatality rate. Acting fast also drastically reduces the cases, making this even more of a no-brainer.”
    • How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus (Jane Qiu, Scientific American): “Shi—a virologist who is often called China’s ‘bat woman’ by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years—walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan.” This is a fascinating article.
    • $1 million plus in Emergent Ventures Prizes for coronavirus work (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “I believe that we should be using prizes to help innovate and combat the coronavirus. When are prizes better than grants? The case for prizes is stronger when you don’t know who is likely to make the breakthrough, you value the final output more than the process, there is an urgency to solutions (talent development is too slow), success is relatively easy to define, and efforts and investments are likely to be undercompensated. All of these apply to the threat from the coronavirus.”
    • COVID-19 reduces economic activity, which reduces pollution, which saves lives. (Marshall Burke, G‑Feed): “…disruption is only likely to increase in coming days in regions where the epidemic is just beginning. Strangely, this disruption could also have unexpected health benefits — and these benefits could be quite large in certain parts of the world.” Reality is complicated.
    • How social distancing for coronavirus could cause a loneliness epidemic (Ezra Klein, Vox): “Make no mistake: The rapid implementation of social distancing is necessary to flatten the coronavirus curve and prevent the current pandemic from worsening. But just as the coronavirus fallout threatens to cause an economic recession, it’s also going to cause what we might call a “social recession”: a collapse in social contact that is particularly hard on the populations most vulnerable to isolation and loneliness — older adults and people with disabilities or preexisting health conditions.”
    • The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak (Chinazzi et al, Science): “The travel quarantine around Wuhan has only modestly delayed the epidemic spread to other areas of Mainland China…. The model indicates that while the Wuhan travel ban was initially effective at reducing international case importations, the number of cases observed outside Mainland China will resume its growth after 2–3 weeks from cases that originated elsewhere.”
  3. Keep It Simple (Ed Feser, First Things): “Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem ­immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses.” This is a very interesting review of a book by William Lane Craig.
  4. Concerning Woody Allen: 
    • Woody Allen: Issues and Principles (Steven Brust, personal blog): “Presumption of innocence in the courts is the legal reflection of the principle that we need to be certain someone is guilty before inflicting punishment, that, ‘it is better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished.’ The principle pre-dates its legal reflection, which, in Western society, we can find in sixth Century Rome, as well as both Talmudic and Islamic law. The principle has always been fought for by the oppressed, and for good reason: it is the oppressed who are most vulnerable, and most likely to be abused both by the legal system and bourgeois public opinion. Those who want to chuck the presumption of innocence, whether in law or in the public arena, are doing the work of the oppressors.” The author is a socialist, which I mention because the next author is very conservative. When thoughtful people from diametrically opposed tribes call foul it is worth paying attention. 
    • The Woody Allen Witch Hunt (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): “But we are not supposed to live in a society in which someone who has merely been accused of a horrible thing finds himself unable to publish a book telling his side of the story, or silenced because the cultural winds have shifted. Thirty years ago, or less, children who made accusations against powerful men were not believed. Women too. It is not progress to go from disbelieving women and children as a matter of course to believing them reflexively. We think we are advancing justice, but really we are just rearranging our prejudices.” The author is a very conservative, which I mention because the previous author is a socialist. When thoughtful people from diametrically opposed tribes call foul it is worth paying attention.
  5. How Many Nones Are There? Maybe More than We Thought (Ryan P. Burge, Religion In Public): “When you compare those who say they have “no religion” in the GSS, to those who say they are either atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular in the CCES, a significant difference emerges…. The upshot is this: the share of Americans who have no religious affiliation is nearly a third of the United States, not the 23.1% figure which comes from the GSS.”

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 Dealing With Nuisance Lust (Douglas Wilson, personal blog): “Minimize the seriousness of this, but not so that you can feel good about indulging yourself. Minimize the seriousness of it so that you can walk away from a couple of big boobs without feeling like you have just fought a cosmic battle with principalities and powers in the heavenly places, for crying out loud. Or, if you like, in another strategy of seeing things rightly, you could nickname these breasts of other woman as the ‘principalities and powers.’ Whatever you do, take this part of life in stride like a grown-up. Stop reacting like a horny and conflicted twelve-year-old boy.” (first shared in volume 148)

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.