Tag: religious freedom

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 27

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world.

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

To be frank, most of what I found inter­est­ing this week was turkey. The pick­ings are lit­tle slim­mer than oth­er weeks:

  1. The Chris­t­ian Cen­tu­ry No One Pre­dict­ed (Justin Tay­lor, per­son­al blog): “it was also a rever­sal in that Chris­tian­i­ty moved from being cen­tered in Chris­t­ian nations to being cen­tered in non-Chris­t­ian nations. Chris­ten­dom, that remark­able con­di­tion of church­es sup­port­ing states and states sup­port­ing Chris­tian­i­ty, died. The idea of Chris­t­ian priv­i­lege in soci­ety was all but killed. And yet the reli­gion seemed stronger than ever at the end of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry.”
  2. Ross Douthat on The Joy of ISIS (NY Times): “But if the West’s offi­cial alter­na­tive to ISIS is the full Bel­gium (basi­cal­ly good food + bureau­cra­cy + euthana­sia), if West­ern soci­ety seems like it’s closed most of the paths that human beings have tra­di­tion­al­ly fol­lowed to find tran­scen­dence, if West­ern cul­ture los­es the abil­i­ty to even imag­ine the joy that comes with full com­mit­ment, and not just the remis­sive joy of slough­ing com­mit­ments off — well, then we’re going to be sup­ply­ing at least some recruits to groups like ISIS for a very long to come.”
  3. Why Tol­er­ate Reli­gion? (First Things, Rafael Domin­go):  “The right to reli­gion is dif­fer­ent from free­dom of con­science. Con­science is a sort of pro­tec­tive shell around people’s pri­va­cy: it safe­guards them from abu­sive intru­sions by the law. Con­science marks a pri­vate lim­it of the legal sys­tem, not a pub­lic one.… The right to reli­gion demands tol­er­a­tion; free­dom of con­science demands accom­mo­da­tion.”
  4. Fear and Vot­ing on the Chris­t­ian Right (CNN, Thomas Lake). “They called her a big­ot, a homo­phobe, even a racist, which was strange, because the two gay men were white and so was Bet­ty Odgaard. The angry peo­ple on the Inter­net told Bet­ty she would die soon, that her death would be good for Amer­i­ca, and then she would prob­a­bly go to hell. Bet­ty had oth­er ideas about her final des­ti­na­tion, but she agreed it was time to go.”
  5. There’s an Awful Cost To Get­ting a Ph.D. That No One Talks About (Quartz). Also of inter­est to Chris­tians con­sid­er­ing a doc­tor­al pro­gram, The Illu­sion of Respectabil­i­ty (Chris­tian­i­ty Today, Allen Guel­zo).
  6. Chica­go School of Free Speech (Wall Street Jour­nal, L. Gor­don Crovitz): one school’s response to the tumult sweep­ing col­lege cam­pus­es. (may be behind a pay­wall)

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and we are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read wide­ly (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and in part because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand”) and may at times share arti­cles that have a strong par­ti­san bias sim­ply because I find the arti­cle stim­u­lat­ing. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with every­thing an author says in an arti­cle I men­tion, much less things the author has said in oth­er arti­cles.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 26

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world.

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

On this half-year mark, I give you the inter­est­ing things:

  1. Reli­gious Lib­er­ty and Human Dig­ni­ty: Tale Of Two Dec­la­ra­tions (Har­vard Jour­nal of Law and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, Kevin Has­son). This arti­cle from 2003 argues that reli­gious free­dom is the fun­da­men­tal free­dom. It starts slow as it lays a foun­da­tion, but picks up about halfway through.
  2. While you’re on Thanks­giv­ing break, please reg­is­ter to vote if you have not already done so. I strong­ly sug­gest you reg­is­ter as a Per­ma­nent Vote-By-Mail Vot­er, which sim­ply means that you will receive a bal­lot in the mail before every elec­tion. It gives you plen­ty of time to research the can­di­dates and issues from the com­fort of your dorm room with your bal­lot in front of you. If you pre­fer to vote in anoth­er state then vis­it http://www.brennancenter.org/student-voting). If you’re a cit­i­zen of anoth­er coun­try, do what­ev­er you’re sup­posed to do there. 🙂
  3. Some glob­al per­spec­tive:
  4. More cam­pus activism links: Pres­i­dent Oba­ma weighs in (real­ly). See also A Cri­sis Our Uni­ver­si­ties Deserve (NY Times, Ross Douthat): this is a help­ful big-pic­ture overview of the col­lege scene. Also, Yale’s Activists Deserve Con­struc­tive Crit­i­cism (The Atlantic, Conor Frieder­s­dorf).
  5. Are Non-Reli­gious Chil­dren Real­ly More Altru­is­tic? (Robert Wood­ber­ry) — this is prob­a­bly the last thing I will post on this. I almost didn’t, but WOW what a smack­down. Wood­ber­ry is the author of that arti­cle I keep shar­ing about Chris­tian­i­ty and democ­ra­cy.
  6. Quick Links:

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and we are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read wide­ly (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and in part because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand”) and may at times share arti­cles that have a strong par­ti­san bias sim­ply because I find the arti­cle stim­u­lat­ing. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with every­thing an author says in an arti­cle I men­tion, much less things the author has said in oth­er arti­cles.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 16

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world.

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

  1. From the rec­om­mend­ed-by-a-stu­dent depart­ment: How To Stay Chris­t­ian On Cam­pus (David Math­is, Desir­ing God): I expect­ed some­thing very dif­fer­ent than what I got. Rec­om­mend­ed.
  2. From the per­ilous times depart­ment:
  3. From the unex­pect­ed-insights-from his­to­ry-depart­ment: Morals Leg­is­la­tion, Revis­it­ed (Books and Cul­ture, David Skeel): Books and Cul­ture is an evan­gel­i­cal ver­sion of the NY Times Review of Books. This arti­cle is writ­ten by a law prof at Penn review­ing a Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press book about the evan­gel­i­cal ori­gins of the liv­ing con­sti­tu­tion approach to law.
  4. From the every­body-is-quot­ing-it depart­ment: Microag­gres­sion and Moral Cul­tures (Camp­bell and Man­ning, Com­par­a­tive Soci­ol­o­gy): I have seen so many peo­ple pump­ing this aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cle I am astound­ed. Three to take a look at: Conor Frieder­s­dorf in the Atlantic, Megan McAr­dle in Bloomberg View, and Jonathan Haidt on his per­son­al blog. The orig­i­nal arti­cle is descrip­tive — the response pieces tend to be eval­u­a­tive.
  5. From the prin­ci­ples-you-will-prob­a­bly-need-to-know-one-day depart­ment: When Does Your Reli­gion Legal­ly Excuse You From Doing Part of Your Job? (Wash­ing­ton Post. Eugene Volokh): this one came out right after my last email update. Volokh is a law prof at UCLA.

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.