Tag: LGBTQ

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 113

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. I Don’t Understand Christians Watching Game of Thrones (Kevin DeYoung, Gospel Coalition): “Does anyone really think that when Jesus warned against looking at a woman lustfully (Matt. 5:27), or when Paul told us to avoid every hint of sexual immorality and not even to speak of the things the world does in secret (Eph. 4:3–12), that somehow this meant, go ahead and watch naked men and women have (or pretend to have) sex?” I don’t always agree with everything I share here, but for the record I am 100% in agreement with the author. Softcore porn doesn’t cease to be softcore porn just because it has gripping dialog and cool special effects. For another (unpersuasive to me) perspective, read Seriously, ‘Game of Thrones’ made me a better Bible reader (Caryn Rivadeneira, Washington Post).
  2. Newsworthy Deaths (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): just a reminder that the view we have of  what’s happening in the world is always a distorted one.
  3. You’ve no doubt heard about the Google memo suggesting new ways to pursue gender diversity in tech which got the author fired. There has been a TON of fascinating commentary. Here are a few pieces that stood out to me.
    • Here’s the memo itself: Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber (James Damore). It’s short and easy to read. Definitely skim it if you’ve only heard other people describe it.
    • Google’s War Over The Sexes (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “I strongly suspect that more than a few Silicon Valley higher-ups agreed with the broad themes of Damore’s memo. But just as tech titans accept some censorship and oppression as the price of doing business in China, they accept performative progressivism as the price of having nice campuses in the most liberal state in the union and recruiting their employees from its most elite and liberal schools.” If you only read one thing this week, read this one. The last six or so paragraphs in particular are quite good.
    • I’m a woman in computer science. Let me ladysplain the Google memo to you. (Cynthia Lee, Vox): “At the outset, it must be conceded that, despite what some of the commentary has implied, the manifesto is not an unhinged rant. Its quasi-professional tone is a big part of what makes it so beguiling (to some) and also so dangerous.” The author is a CS lecturer at Stanford.
    • As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People (Megan McArdle, Bloomberg View): “James Damore, an engineer at Google, wrote a memo suggesting that maybe there weren’t so many women at Google because women are less interested in sitting around and staring at code all day. The internet erupted. James Damore is no longer working at Google. As a woman working in the brotastic atmosphere of IT, I ultimately came to a conclusion similar to his.”
    • What the Google Engineer’s Manifesto Missed About Discrimination at Work (Paula England, Institute For Family Studies blog): “Damore’s memo missed one huge thing: Abundant and rigorous scientific studies—by sociologists, psychologists, and economists—have demonstrated that gender and race biases adversely affect women and people of color in the workplace.” The author is a sociology professor at NYU.
    • The Google Memo: Four Scientists Respond (Quillette Magazine): four scholars with relevant expertise largely back up the memo author’s claims about gender differences.
      1. Lee Jussim, professor of social psychology at Rutgers: “The author of the Google essay on issues related to diversity gets nearly all of the science and its implications exactly right.”
      2. David Schmitt, who has a Ph.D. in personality psychology: “In the case of personality traits, evidence that men and women may have different average levels of certain traits is rather strong.… But it is not clear to me how such sex differences are relevant to the Google workplace.”
      3. Geoffrey Miller, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico: “Graded fairly, his memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course.”
      4. Debra W Soh, who has a Ph.D. in sexual neuroscience: “Within the field of neuroscience, sex differences between women and men—when it comes to brain structure and function and associated differences in personality and occupational preferences—are understood to be true, because the evidence for them (thousands of studies) is strong.”
    • The Google Memo: What Does the Research Say About Gender Differences? (Sean Stevens and Jonathan Haidt, Heterodox Academy): A summary of meta-analyses on the subject of gender differences. “Gender differences in math/science ability, achievement, and performance are small or nil.… Gender differences in interest and enjoyment of math, coding, and highly ‘systemizing’ activities are large.”
    • Googling Moral Purity (R.R. Reno, First Things):  “Our ruling class relies on ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ to legitimate its supereminence. This makes the attendant ideology sacrosanct. Any public dissent becomes explosive, because it threatens the legitimacy of our current social system, which is characterized by an increasing concentration of wealth and power among just a few at the tippy-top.”
    • Quote of the week goes to Rod Dreher: “Gender non-essentialists are the young earth creationists of the Left.” (source)
  4. Related in a weird way: The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter (Kat Rosenfield, Vulture): “One author and former diversity advocate described why she no longer takes part: ‘I have never seen social interaction this [messed] up,’ she wrote in an email. ‘And I’ve been in prison.’”
  5. Why Are There No New Major Religions? (Joe Emont, The Atlantic): “State persecution, aided by religious authorities, is in fact a major reason why new faiths fail in parts of the world where government polices religious doctrine.” The author fails to acknowledge the potent new religion in North America that is a brew of environmentalism and sexual autonomy with New Age superstition thrown in. Also, he doesn’t really consider that maybe some religions are legitimized by miracles/divine sanction. Interesting stuff nonetheless.
  6. Hypepriests: The Grail-Wearing Pastors Who Dress Like Justin Bieber (Sam Schube, GQ): “I wish Justin Bieber the best. ‘Love Yourself’ is among the finest pop songs of this short century, and I find his Instagram account deeply charming in its utter lack of guile. But even if he weren’t Justin Bieber, he’d deserve the guidance, spiritual or otherwise, he’s seeking. We all deserve that. All I mean to say is this: It is rather remarkable that the men Justin Bieber has entrusted to deliver that guidance have decided to dress like Justin Bieber.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Inside Graduate Admissions (Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschick): if you plan to apply to grad school, read this. There is one revealing anecdote about how an admissions committee treated an application from a Christian college student. My takeaway: the professors tried to be fair but found it hard to do, and their stated concerns were mostly about the quality of the institution rather than the faith of the applicant. Troubling nonetheless. (first shared in volume 32)

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 111

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. Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBTQ Rights Movement (Andy Kroll, Rolling Stone): “More broadly, for Gill and his allies, nondiscrimination is the new front of the movement: a campaign that pits LGBTQ advocates against a religious right that responded to marriage equality by redoubling its efforts…. Gill refuses to go on the defense. ‘We’re going into the hardest states in the country,’ he says. ‘We’re going to punish the wicked.’.… ‘We have been fighting for [nondiscrimination] since the Sixties,’ he says. ‘It’s the religious right that decided to make marriage an issue. They worked tirelessly on it for decades and they lost.’”
  2. Fusion GPS Illuminates the Brave New World of Manufactured News For Hire (Lee Smith, Tablet Magazine) “There is no accurate accounting of how many of the stories you read in the news are the fruit of opposition research, because no journalist wants to admit how many of their top ‘sources’ are just information packagers—which is why the blinding success of Fusion GPS is the least-covered media story in America right now.”
  3. The Death Of Reading Is Threatening The Soul (Philip Yancey, Washington Post): “I am reading many fewer books these days, and even fewer of the kinds of books that require hard work. The Internet and social media have trained my brain to read a paragraph or two, and then start looking around.”
  4. Ask Andrew W.K.: My Dad Is a Right-Wing Asshole (Andrew W.K., The Village Voice): apologies for the title, this is a surprisingly good piece (published back in 2014).
  5. Charlie Gard and the Experts (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “The rights of parents are essential to a free society’s architecture, and fathers and mothers are far more likely than any other party to have their child’s best interests close to heart. To intervene on behalf of experts against the family is sometimes necessary but always dangerous, fraught with totalitarian temptations to which the modern West is not immune.” Charlie Gard died after this column was written, which makes the piece even more important.
  6. How Cool Works In America Today (David Brooks, New York Times): argues that being woke is a cultural replacement for being cool. “The woke mentality became prominent in 2012 and 2013 with the Trayvon Martin case and the rise of Black Lives Matter. Embrace it or not, B.L.M. is the most complete social movement in America today, as a communal, intellectual, moral and political force.”
  7. Free Markets and Unicorns (Andrew Strain, First Things): “In the age of corporations, a truly free market is as mythical as a unicorn.” This essay called forth the response piece Why is socialism being promoted by conservative Christian outlets? (Joe Carter, Acton Institute): “by analyzing his essay we can see a common pattern that is emerging, even in once conservative publications: writers who don’t know the first thing about free markets explaining why they are inferior to socialist policies.” Reading them together is illuminating.

Things Glen Found Amusing/Entertaining

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Christian Missions and the Spread of Democracy (Greg Scandlen, The Federalist): This is a summary of some rather wonderful research Robert Woodberry published in The American Political Science Review back in 2012: The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy. If it looks familiar it’s because I allude to it from time to time in my sermons and conversations. (first shared in volume 14)

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 110

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The First Church of Intersectionality (Elizabeth C. Corey, First Things): “Intersectionality is, then, a quasi-religious gnostic movement, which appeals to people for precisely the reasons that all religions do: It gives an account of our brokenness, an explanation of the reasons for pain, a saving story accompanied by strong ethical imperatives, and hope for the future. In short, it gives life meaning.”
  2. Nondicrimination For All (Jonathan Rauch, National Affairs): “The landmark civil-rights bills that broke the back of racial segregation in the 1960s were not absolutist. They provided exemptions for religious organizations. They exempted ‘Mrs. Murphy,’ the landlady renting a room in her own house. At the time, civil-rights advocates in Congress made the pragmatic argument that exemptions were needed to pass the bill, but they also made the politically principled argument that exceptions would increase social comfort with the legislation while still covering the vast majority of cases — a trade they deemed worth making…. In fact, the pop-culture ideal of zero-tolerance nondiscrimination is possible only because of the underlying reality of ubiquitous accommodation.”
  3. The Wasted Mind of Ben Sasse (Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate): “What is most maddening about Sasse is not his party fealty per se—I’m not expecting a Republican senator to support left-wing policies; that’s not the standard we should hold him to—but the way he has outlined the basis for a path he has yet to take himself.” This is more partisan than most things I share, but since I highlighted Sasse as one of my two favorite Senators back in issue 107 it seems appropriate. I still like both Sasse and Booker, by the way.
  4. Some questions I’m asking while off to my white evangelical church (Lisa Robinson, personal blog): “Has all this attention on white supremacy maybe pushed down central issues to being part of the kingdom of God together, with its discipleship mandates and being salt and light in the world? Because it seems to me, based on what I read in Scripture anyway, that only through him can true reconciliation happen.”
  5. Meet Five Men Who All Think They’re The Messiah (Jonas Bendiksen, National Geographic)  “If Christ were to come back to complete his work today, I’ve thought, what would he think of the world we’ve created? And what would we think of him? With these thoughts tumbling around in my head, I decided to start looking for messiahs. I found them the way you find everything these days: through Google.”
  6. “Mainline” Churches Are Emptying. The Political Effects Could Be Huge (Lyman Stone, Vox): “While progressives are keen to see in the decline of labor unions an important component in the rise of conservative political power, they rarely consider the impact of losing their movement’s soul. Despite mainline denominations commanding as much or more popular support and membership as labor unions, their decline seems to be unmourned within the progressive movement they birthed; the consequences of that decline likewise go unconsidered.”
  7. Getting the Rich and Powerful to Give (SSRN, Kessler, Milkman & Zhang): “Consistent with past psychology research, we find that the rich and powerful respond dramatically, and differently than others, to being given a sense of agency over the use of donated funds. Gifts from rich and powerful alumni increase by 200–300 percent when they are given a sense of agency.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have Alcohol, Blackouts, and Campus Sexual Assault (Texas Monthly, Sarah Hepola), the most thoughtful secular piece I’ve read on the issue. “Consent and alcohol make tricky bedfellows. The reason I liked getting drunk was because it altered my consent: it changed what I would say yes to. Not just in the bedroom but in every room and corridor that led into the squinting light. Say yes to adventure, say yes to risk, say yes to karaoke and pool parties and arguments with men, say yes to a life without fear, even though such a life is never possible… We drink because it feels good. We drink because it makes us feel happy, safe, powerful. That it often makes us the opposite is one of alcohol’s dastardly tricks.” (first shared in volume 25)

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 109

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. How We Are Ruining America (David Brooks, NYT): “To feel at home in opportunity-rich areas, you’ve got to understand the right barre techniques, sport the right baby carrier, have the right podcast, food truck, tea, wine and Pilates tastes, not to mention possess the right attitudes about David Foster Wallace, child-rearing, gender norms and intersectionality.” This column spawned much derision on social media, but I strongly agree with Brooks — and so do many commentators. Here are sympathetic reactions from Freddie deBoer on the left and from Rod Dreher on the right. Dan Drezner takes it in a different direction, and the Monkey Cage says “duh” while Alan Jacobs calls people unwilling to acknowledge Brooks’ observation “willfully blind”.
  2. Luther’s Revolution (The Nation, Elizabeth Bruenig): “Theology is morality is politics is law—and whether or not it’s immediately obvious, the world is steeped in theology. In contemporary America, and especially in the more secular precincts of Western Europe, it seems unlikely that one could look at a property deed or a government budget and find, just beneath its explicit reasoning, traces of old theological disputes and their resolutions. But they’re there…”
  3. I’ve Worked with Refugees for Decades. Europe’s Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling. (Cheryl Benard, The National Interest): “Europeans were predisposed to be positive towards Afghan refugees. But it quickly became obvious that something was wrong, very wrong, with these young Afghan men: they were committing sex crimes to a much greater extent than other refugees… It took a while for the pattern to be recognized because, until recently, western European media deliberately refrained from identifying an assailant’s refugee or asylum status, or his country of origin.”
  4. Personality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach (Schwartz HA, Eichstaedt JC, Kern ML, Dziurzynski L, Ramones SM, Agrawal M, et al., PLOS One) — This one is from 2013. Pay particular attention to Figure 6 and notice the cluster of words associated with emotional stability. #blessed #on_my_way to #church
  5. No Retreat: Lecrae’s Approach to “Culture-Making” (Jemar Tisby, Christ and Pop Culture): “But Lecrae couldn’t fulfill his mission if his beats only banged in Christian ears, though not because Christians aren’t important to him. It was Christian fans who propelled him to popularity and still continue to support him. Nevertheless, having testified in Jerusalem, so to speak, Lecrae felt compelled to testify also in Rome (Acts 23:11).” This is related to what we’re covering in our summer reading project, and you’re welcome to join us. 
  6. In Praise of Extreme Medicine (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “It’s odd that we allow some crazy things and ban others—even more that the crazy things we allow are sometimes socially useless while the crazy things that we ban are sometimes socially valuable. The case for banning extreme sports, for example, is much stronger than the case for banning extreme medicine.”
  7. ‘Born this way’? It’s way more complicated than that (Alia E. Dastagir, USA Today): “Getting America to believe that people are born gay — that it’s not something that can be chosen or ever changed — has been central to the fight for gay rights. If someone can’t help being gay any more than they can help the color of their skin, the logic goes, denying them rights is wrong. But many members of the LGBTQ community reject this narrative…”
  8. Why Roman concrete still stands strong while modern version decays (Nicola Davis, The Guardian): recommended by an alumnus. I sometimes hear people state it like a self-evident truth that we are smarter than the ancients. I see no evidence we are any more intelligent than them. We just have more accumulated knowledge in certain domains.

Things Glen Found Entertaining

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have On Obstinacy In Belief (C.S. Lewis, The Sewanee Review). Lewis explains why Christians are justified in continuing to believe even when they encounter an argument they can’t immediately answer (first shared in volume 6).

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 107

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Simple Questions to Ask Every Time You Open Your Bible (Justin Taylor, Gospel Coalition): “1. What does God want me to understand? 2. What does God want me to believe? 3. What does God want me to desire? 4. What does God want me to do?”
  2. Ben Sasse on the Space between Nebraska and Neverland (Tyler Cowen, Conversations With Tyler): Sasse is my favorite Republican Senator and he does not disappoint in this interview. While you could just read the transcript, the audio is great and highly recommended. The Conversations With Tyler podcast generally is a worthwhile subscription (iTunes, RSS). My favorite Democratic Senator, by the way, is Cory Booker. You can read the transcript of Booker’s 2012 commencement speech at Stanford. Sasse and Booker being my favorites does not imply that I agree with them on any specific policy issue — I just think they’d be great to have as neighbors.
  3. Religious Freedom and Discrimination: Why the Debate Continues (Albert Mohler, Gospel Coalition): “Great moral debates ride on arguments, but they’re decided on emotion and moral intuition. That doesn’t mean arguments don’t matter—they assuredly do. What it does mean is the winning side in a great moral crisis will never win on argument alone. Moral sentiment is more basic than moral argument.” Relevant: In Sex Disputes, Most Americans Still Favor Religious Rights.
  4. The Supreme Court made a very encouraging ruling in defense of religious liberty. Here are a few takes on it:
    • SCOTUS ruled that churches qualify for state money. Churches, beware. (Lyman Stone, Vox): “Churches should celebrate the Court’s decision, yet think hard about how they’ll act on it…. Religious people and groups do deserve and are one step closer to receiving equal access to public programs, but if they are wise, they should avoid actually availing themselves of these programs in most cases. The experience of centuries has shown that far from sacralizing the state, public support of religious bodies secularizes the church.”
    • The Supreme Court Strikes Down a Major Church-State Barrier (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “Seven justices affirmed the judgment in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, albeit with some disagreement about the reasoning behind it. The major church-state case could potentially expand the legal understanding of the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It is also the first time the Supreme Court has ruled that governments must provide money directly to a house of worship, which could have implications for future policy fights—including funding for private, religious charter schools.”
    • Paving a Playground, and Weeding the Unruly Garden of Religious Liberty (Matthew J. Franck, Public Discourse): “Something of this generalized animosity to the place of religion in American society can be seen in the startlingly reactionary dissent of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Considerably longer than Roberts’s opinion of the Court, Sotomayor’s dissent stakes out the amazing position that Missouri is not only permitted by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to exclude churches from equal access to funding available to others; it is required to exclude them by the establishment clause.”
  5. I think health care is a right. I asked an expert to tell me why I’m wrong. (Sean Illing, Vox): “Fundamentally, you have to understand that getting access to healthcare services, getting people to be willing to provide high-quality services and innovative treatments, is the result of a market decision for those providers as well, and so if you don’t treat it like a marketplace to some degree, you’ll get less innovation and fewer new treatments than you will if you do.” The journalist interviews an econ professor at Northwestern and they disagree helpfully.
  6. The Seattle Minimum Wage Study (Alex Tabarrok, Marginal Revolution): “The authors are able to replicate the results of other papers that find no impact on the restaurant industry with their own data by imposing the same limitations that other researchers have faced. This shows that those papers’ findings were likely driven by their data limitations. This is an important thing to remember as you see knee-jerk responses coming from the usual corners.” See also The Minimum Wage: Evidence from a Danish Discontinuity.

Things Glen Found Amusing

From The Archives

I’m experimenting with a new feature — every week highlighting an older link still worth your consideration. First up we have the very first link I ever shared way back in volume 1: The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas (Joseph Bottum, The Weekly Standard). It argues that some of our modern and supposedly secular political ideas are mutant variants of Christian theology.

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 106

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. One American family’s mission to rescue civilians in Mosul (Marco Werman, PRI’s The World): I heard this story on NPR this week and was floored. Listen to the thirteen-minute interview (don’t just read the surrounding text ‑the sizzle is in the audio version). Amazing. For more about David Eubank’s ministry, read Jungle Cowboys (Sophia Lee, World Magazine).
  2. The Legal Meaning of the Cosby Mistrial (Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker): “The extraordinarily high prosecutorial burden of proof in any criminal trial is intentionally designed to heavily favor defendants, because we long ago embraced as a society Blackstone’s principle. Formulated in the seventeen-sixties by the English jurist William Blackstone, the presumption is that it is better to have ten guilty people go free than that one innocent person suffer. Hard as it is to stomach today, embracing that calculus means that we should even want ten rapists (not to mention terrorists and murderers) to go free in order to protect the one falsely accused.” Gersen, a Harvard Law prof, also has another solid article this week: Why Racially Offensive Trademarks Are Now Legally Protected.
  3. Philando Castile Aftermath (Rod Dreher, The American Conservative): “Still, I can’t grasp why Castile’s killer got away scot-free, and why there hasn’t been much of an outcry. If a police officer can shoot to death a motorist who was obeying all his commands, and walk away a free man from that shooting, how safe are any of us?” On Slate, Leon Neyfakh writes Philando Castile Should Be the NRA’s Perfect Cause Célèbre. There’s Just One Problem. See also David French’s The Unwritten Law That Helps Bad Cops Go Free.
  4. Camille Paglia: On Trump, Democrats, Transgenderism, and Islamist Terror (Jonathan V. Last, The Weekly Standard): “Although I describe myself as transgender (I was donning flamboyant male costumes from early childhood on), I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows. Furthermore, I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights.”
  5. Mis-Educating The Young (David Brooks, NY Times): “Childhood is more structured than it has ever been. But then the great engine of the meritocracy spits people out into a young adulthood that is less structured than it has ever been.”
  6. The most important truth about hard work, and also reading, that you can find (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity – it is very much like compound interest.”
  7. Two minds: The cognitive differences between men and women (Bruce Goldman, Stanford Medicine): “In a study of 34 rhesus monkeys, for example, males strongly preferred toys with wheels over plush toys, whereas females found plush toys likable. It would be tough to argue that the monkeys’ parents bought them sex-typed toys or that simian society encourages its male offspring to play more with trucks.” Recommended by a student.

Things Glen Found Entertaining

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 101

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Curious Rise Of The ‘White Left” As A Chinese Internet Insult (Chenchen Zhang, Open Democracy): “If you look at any thread about Trump, Islam or immigration on a Chinese social media platform these days, it’s impossible to avoid encountering the term baizuo (白左), or literally, the ‘white left’.… Criticisms of the ‘white left’ against the background of the European refugee crisis fit especially well with the ‘rising China’ versus ‘Europe in decline’ narrative.”
  2. The True Heartbreak Of Reading The Bible (Rebecca McLaughlin, Veritas): “When we humans make metaphors, we’re noticing connections.  Love is a sickness. Life is a marathon. Parents can be helicopters.  But if the message of the Bible is true – if there is a God who created the universe  – then biblical metaphors are different. God did not notice how human fathers love their children and decide to call himself our Father (e.g. Isaiah 63:16, Matthew 6:9).  Rather, God created fatherhood, so that the best of human fathers could give us some small glimpse of how he loves us.”
  3. Beauty sleep is a real thing, research shows (Michelle Roberts, BBC): “Beauty sleep is a real thing, according to researchers who have shown that people who miss out on sleep do appear less attractive to others. A couple of bad nights is enough to make a person look “significantly” more ugly, their sleep experiments suggest.” Bad news for Stanford students.
  4. Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought (Daniel Cox, Five Thirty Eight): I suspect that even the highest estimate in the article is lower than what many at Stanford assume.
  5. The Damage We Would Do To Each Other If We Had “The Explanation”  (Richard Beck, personal blog): “Imagine, if you will, that the Bible gave us an explanation for why there is so much pain and suffering in the world. Imagine that the Bible gave us ‘The Explanation’ in a specific text, something we could easily quote and share…. Then imagine how The Explanation would be used.”
  6. What Makes A Parent? (Ian Parker, New Yorker): “…at the end she stood to make a skeptical point or two. In her view, the speakers had underestimated the legal consequences of making a person a parent. The panel’s chair, a judge, asked Rabin to stop lecturing the room. It was a peculiar moment. Rabin—who is gay, and a parent, and who has no argument with Barone’s victory, and who is admired for her own challenge to Alison D., in 2010—seemed to have been cast as a reactionary, intruding on a celebration.” This is a long, fascinating piece which (in my view but not the author’s) highlights some of the negative consequences of the LGBT revolution in society.

Things Glen Found Amusing

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 100

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. Christians, in an Epochal Shift, Are Leaving the Middle East (Maria Abi-Habib, Wall Street Journal): “Like the Jews before them, Christians are fleeing the Middle East, emptying what was once one of the world’s most-diverse regions of its ancient religions. They’re being driven away not only by Islamic State, but by governments the U.S. counts as allies in the fight against extremism.” You might need to search for an ungated copy.
  2. The Color of Law (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): “Calling itself the Peninsula Housing Association of Palo Alto, the co-op purchased a 260-ranch [sic] adjacent to the Stanford campus and planned to build 400 houses as well as shared recreational facilities, a shopping area, a gas station, and a restaurant on commonly owned land.  But the bank would not finance construction costs nor issue mortgages to the co-op or its members without government approval, and the FHA would not insure loans to a cooperative that included African American members.”
  3. Silicon Valley: A Reality Check (Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex): “…people should lay off the criticism a little. When Capitol Hill screws up, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis get killed. When Wall Street screws up, the country is plunged into recession and poor families lose their homes. When Silicon Valley screws up, people who want a pointless Wi-Fi enabled juicer get a pointless Wi-Fi enabled juicer. Which by all accounts makes pretty good juice.”
  4. The Case for Idolatry: Why Christians Can Worship Idols (Andrew Wilson, Gospel Coalition): this is a reprint of a satirical piece from a few years back. I thought I had linked to it when it first came out, but can’t find it in the archives. 
  5. The Rise of Café Churches in South Korea (Jason Strother, The Atlantic): “‘Churches and cafés have the hardest time surviving in Korea,’ said Ahn Min-ho, a 42-year-old ordained minister and certified barista. ‘Combining the two is mutually beneficial.’”

Things Glen Found Amusing

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 92

Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time? Luke 12:56

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. On Political Correctness (William Deresiewicz, The American Scholar): a long and thoughtful article. “Selective private colleges have become religious schools. The religion in question is not Methodism or Catholicism but an extreme version of the belief system of the liberal elite: the liberal professional, managerial, and creative classes, which provide a large majority of students enrolled at such places and an even larger majority of faculty and administrators who work at them. To attend those institutions is to be socialized, and not infrequently, indoctrinated into that religion.… I say this, by the way, as an atheist, a democratic socialist, a native northeasterner, a person who believes that colleges should not have sports teams in the first place—and in case it isn’t obvious by now, a card-carrying member of the liberal elite.”
  2. Similar: Is Intersectionality a Religion? (NY Mag, Andrew Sullivan): “It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained — and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., ‘check your privilege,’ and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. The sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.”
  3. Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals (Thomas Sittler-Adamczewski, Journal of Practical Ethics): argues that “…wild animals have worse lives than farmed animals, and that consistent vegetarians should therefore reduce the number of wild animals as a top priority.”
  4. What Christianity in China Is Really Like (Colin Clark, Gospel Coalition): “First and foremost, house church leaders aren’t underground because of the extent of governmental meddling, but because of the mere fact of it…. Extend all the apparent olive branches you want, but Jesus Christ is still the head of the church, not the TSPM and not the CCC.”
  5. Why the courts were wrong to rule against a florist who declined service to a gay wedding (Robert Vischer, America Magazine): “The florist, Barronelle Stutzman, had served the gay customers, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, many times over a number of years, including by providing flowers for birthdays and other personal events; she objected only to providing flowers for their wedding. The court declined to recognize such a distinction, finding that a refusal to provide services for a wedding between members of the same sex amounts to discrimination based on sexual orientation.” The author is the dean of a law school and this is one of the more thoughtful and comprehensive pieces I have seen on this issue. Related: UW Madison Students On Religious Freedom (YouTube): I am skeptical of videos like this (how many people did they interview and cut out?), but it definitely reflects a tendency many college students have — they instinctively support religious freedom when it’s not for evangelicals.
  6. Dreaming of life without the GOP? Welcome to California—where things are far from perfect (Conor Friedersdorf, LA Times): “We’re a case study in what a political community looks like when Republicans wield little or no power — and an ongoing refutation of the conceit that but for the GOP, the United States would be free of dysfunction.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 89

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. Are Gender Feminists and Transgender Activists Undermining Science? (Debra Soh, LA Times): “Distortion of science hinders progress. When gender feminists start refuting basic biology, people stop listening, and the larger point about equality is lost.” The author has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and considered herself transgender as a child.
  2. The Masada Mystery (Eric Cline, Aeon): some fascinating insights on one of the most famous tragedies that occurred shortly after the events described in the New Testament. The author is a professor of classics and anthropology.
  3. Use Of Weaponized Drones By ISIS Spurs Terrorism Fears (Joby Warrick, Washington Post): “They’re now showing that these devices can be effective on the battlefield,” said Steven Stalinsky.… “With the way these groups use social media, my worry is that they’re also putting the idea into people’s heads that this is something you can now do.”
  4. 4 Recent Examples Show Why Nobody Trusts Media ‘Fact Checks’ (Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist): “The upshot is that the article does a nice job of proving Mark Twain’s point that the three types of lies are lies, damn lies and statistics, as it uses a statistical analysis of questionable merit to ‘disprove’ a statement that was literally true.”
  5. I Ignored Trump News For A Week. Here’s What I Learned. (Farhad Manjoo, NY Times): “On most days, Mr. Trump is 90 percent of the news on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and probably yours, too. But he’s not 90 percent of what’s important in the world.”
  6. 4 Ways To Make Sure Your Protest Really Makes A Difference (David Christopher Bell, Cracked): “But what if I told you that if you follow the rules history has laid out, protests and boycotts absolutely can work? For when you look down the annals of successful civil disobedience, a clear pattern emerges.” This being Cracked, language warning. Also, the URL is funny: the slug is a‑beginners-guide-to-overthrowing-government
  7. Two articles that I did not expect to find fascinating but did: Sportswriting Has Become A Liberal Profession: Here’s How It Happened (Bryan Curtis, The Ringer): “I’m a liberal sportswriter myself. The new world suits me just fine. Would it be nice to have a David Frum or Ross Douthat of sportswriting, making wrongheaded-but-interesting arguments about NCAA amateurism? Sure. As long as nobody believed them.” This article led to the conservative followup The Arrogant Thinking Of Liberal Sports Writers (Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week): “Has no one stopped to notice there is something odd about an anti-racism that will cause an evermore diverse country to declare rooting for white-faced mascots the only safe thing to do? How will this deletion of all non-white faces look in 50 years?”

Things Glen Found Amusing

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).

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.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.