Tag: religious freedom

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 99

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. Porn Star James Deen’s Cri­sis of Con­science (Conor Frieder­s­dorf, The Atlantic): “In any case, he now feels there is an eth­i­cal dilem­ma in porn. On one hand, the industry’s suc­cess depends on its being acces­si­ble to mass audi­ences online. On the oth­er hand, Deen is con­vinced that the acces­si­bil­i­ty of porn is harm­ing young peo­ple.” This arti­cle is graph­ic.
  2. This Black Pas­tor Led A White Church — In 1788 (Thabiti Anyab­wale, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): “He was licensed to preach on Novem­ber 29, 1780 and five years lat­er became the first African-Amer­i­can ordained by any reli­gious body in Amer­i­ca. In 1804 Mid­dle­bury Col­lege award­ed Haynes an hon­orary Master’s degree—another first for an African-Amer­i­can.”
  3. Trump’s Exec­u­tive Order On Reli­gious Lib­er­ty Is Worse Than Use­less (David French, Nation­al Review): “the order has three main com­po­nents: 1) a promise to ‘pro­tect and vig­or­ous­ly pro­mote reli­gious lib­er­ty,’ 2) a direc­tive to ‘ease restric­tions on polit­i­cal activ­i­ty by church­es and char­i­ties,’ and 3) an order to ‘fed­er­al agen­cies to exempt some reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions from Afford­able Care Act require­ments that pro­vide employ­ees with health cov­er­age for con­tra­cep­tion.’ Those direc­tives are respec­tive­ly 1) mean­ing­less, 2) dan­ger­ous, and 3) mean­ing­less.” The ACLU agrees, say­ing in their press release that the order was “an elab­o­rate pho­to-op with no dis­cernible pol­i­cy out­come.”
  4. It’s Basi­cal­ly Just Immoral To Be Rich (A.Q. Smith, Cur­rent Affairs): “We can define some­thing like a ‘max­i­mum moral income’ beyond which it’s obvi­ous­ly inex­cus­able not to give away all of your mon­ey. It might be 50 thou­sand. Call it 100, though. Per per­son. With an addi­tion­al 50 allowed per child. This means two par­ents with a child can still earn $250,000! That’s so much mon­ey. And you can keep it. But every­one who earns any­thing beyond it is oblig­at­ed to give the excess away in its entire­ty.” Rec­om­mend­ed by an alum­nus. Com­pare and con­trast with 1 Tim­o­thy 6:17–19.
  5. How Two Mis­sis­sip­pi Col­lege Stu­dents Fell in Love and Decid­ed to Join a Ter­ror­ist Group (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, when the Bureau comes across two kids like Jae­lyn and Moe—lost, in love, and grasp­ing toward a dark future—agents could try to set them on anoth­er path, reach­ing out to their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. In real­i­ty, though, that’s not what the coun­try has asked them to do.”
  6. The Reac­tionary Temp­ta­tion (Andrew Sul­li­van, NY Mag): “With­in the space of 50 years, Amer­i­ca has gone from seg­re­ga­tion to dizzy­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism; from tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly struc­tures to wide­spread divorce, cohab­i­ta­tion, and sex­u­al lib­er­ty; from a few respect­ed sources of infor­ma­tion to an end­less stream of peer-to-peer media; from careers in one com­pa­ny for life to an ever-accel­er­at­ing need to retrain and regroup; from a patri­archy to (incom­plete) gen­der equal­i­ty; from homo­sex­u­al­i­ty as a sin to homo­pho­bia as a taboo; from Chris­tian­i­ty being the com­mon cul­ture to a sec­u­lar­ism no soci­ety has ever sus­tained before ours.”
  7. Let­ter To My Younger Self (Ryan Leaf, The Player’s Tri­bune): “Con­grat­u­la­tions. You offi­cial­ly have it all — mon­ey, pow­er and pres­tige. All the things that are impor­tant, right?… That’s you, young Ryan Leaf, at his absolute finest: arro­gant, boor­ish and nar­cis­sis­tic. You think you’re on top of the world and that you’ve got all the answers. Well I’m sor­ry to have to tell you this, but the truth is….” Such a grip­ping let­ter. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed.

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 91

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 Cri­sis of Lib­er­ty In The West (Ryan Ander­son, Her­itage Foun­da­tion): “Free­dom today is under­stood as a mat­ter of indifference—a free­dom from con­straint. But free­dom right­ly under­stood is a free­dom for—a free­dom for excel­lence.” This. Read this.
  2. Gen­der Rever­sal Teach­es Uncom­fort­able Lessons (Alex Tabar­rok, Mar­gin­al Rev­o­lu­tion): “How would the Trump-Clin­ton debates have been per­ceived if the gen­ders had been reversed? Two pro­fes­sors worked with trained actors to dupli­cate not just the words but also the man­ner­isms of Trump and Clinton–only with a female actor play­ing Trump, now called Bren­da King, and a male actor play­ing Clin­ton, now called Jonathan Gor­don.” The pro­fes­sors found the oppo­site of what they expect­ed. There is a video clip so you can judge for your­self. A lit­tle mind-blow­ing.
  3. Amer­i­can Car­nage (Christo­pher Cald­well, First Things): “Call­ing addic­tion a dis­ease use­ful­ly describes cer­tain mea­sur­able aspects of the problem—particularly tol­er­ance and with­draw­al. It fails to cap­ture what is spe­cial and dan­ger­ous about the way drugs bind with people’s minds. Almost every known dis­ease is some­thing peo­ple wish to be rid of. Addic­tion is dif­fer­ent. Addicts resist known cures—even to the point of death.” A pow­er­ful arti­cle.
  4. There’s Enough Time To Change Every­thing (Conor Frieder­s­dorf, The Atlantic): “If I were loose­ly gath­er­ing top­ics of study into cat­e­gories, I might call them arts, reli­gion, schol­ar­ship, and sci­ence. As impor­tant as schol­ar­ship and sci­ence are, arts and reli­gion are more impor­tant” A wide-rang­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view with Yale pro­fes­sor David Gel­ern­ter. This one is long.
  5. Faith Is Chang­ing The Way Peo­ple Think About Music (Marc Barnes, Rel­e­vant): “The cre­ative arts have a long his­to­ry of tak­ing to what is taboo in the pub­lic square. It is no sur­prise that they are tak­ing reli­gion, the ugly duck­ling of mod­ern sec­u­lar life, under their wing.”
  6. North Korea Is Prac­tic­ing For Nuclear War (Jef­frey Lewis, For­eign Pol­i­cy): “What­ev­er restraint Kim or Trump might show — and let’s be hon­est, our expec­ta­tions here are not high — each will face enor­mous pres­sure to start the attack lest his oppo­nent beat him to the punch.” Ouch.
  7. 10 Ques­tions for Sha­di Hamid (Raz­ib Khan, per­son­al blog): “It’s not so much that [devout Mus­lims] want to die; it’s more that they are ready to die, and it doesn’t fright­en them as much as it might fright­en some­one else, because they believe there’s a pret­ty good chance that they’ll be grant­ed par­adise espe­cial­ly if they hap­pen to killed while they’re in the mid­dle of an act that they con­sid­er to be in the ser­vice of God and his mes­sage.” The inter­view­er is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in genet­ics at UC Davis and the inter­vie­wee is a senior fel­low at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion. Also worth read­ing is Rod Dreher’s reac­tion piece Islam: The Last Badass Reli­gion.

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 88

1 Chronicles 12:32 - they "understood the times"
1 Chron­i­cles 12:32 — they “under­stood the times”

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. Sleep-Deprived Judges Dole Out Harsh­er Pun­ish­ments (Chris Barnes, Har­vard Busi­ness Review): this is clever. The author turned day­light sav­ings time into a nat­ur­al exper­i­ment and ana­lyzed the effects of mild sleep depri­va­tion on judge’s deci­sions. After los­ing 40 min­utes of sleep the judges appar­ent­ly became 5% harsh­er in their ver­dicts. Apply to your own sleep debt and moral conun­drums. 
  2. The Hottest Invite In Town: Don­ald Trump’s Sup­per Club (Sara Mur­ray, CNN): “Long after the Pres­i­den­t’s offi­cial day has end­ed, his worka­holic ten­den­cies have him host­ing a rotat­ing sup­per club at the most cov­et­ed address in Wash­ing­ton. At least four nights a week, he wel­comes a steady stream of Cab­i­net mem­bers, staffers and mem­bers of Con­gress to the res­i­dence to brush up on nation­al secu­ri­ty issues and for­eign affairs over steak, fish and sal­ads, accord­ing to Trump aides.” This is sur­pris­ing­ly infor­ma­tive.
  3. Watch­ing Wikipedi­a’s extinc­tion event from a dis­tance (Andrea James, Boing Boing): “Wikipedia went from peo­ple writ­ing an ency­clo­pe­dia to peo­ple writ­ing rules about writ­ing an ency­clo­pe­dia…” I can attest to the ten­den­cy the author describes and am gen­uine­ly wor­ried about Wikipedia’s tra­jec­to­ry.
  4. The Soul Of Evan­gel­i­cal­ism: What Will Become Of Us? (Scot McK­night): “Let’s get the stan­dard def­i­n­i­tion of evan­gel­i­cal­ism on the table first: an evan­gel­i­cal is com­mit­ted to these four ele­ments: the Bible, the cross as the place of atone­ment, the neces­si­ty of per­son­al con­ver­sion, and an active Chris­t­ian life both in missions/evangelism as well as jus­tice, peace and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. On top of this, evan­gel­i­cal­ism is non-denom­i­na­tion­al and cross-denom­i­na­tion­al.”
  5. The Great Shame Of Our Pro­fes­sion: How The Human­i­ties Sur­vive on Exploita­tion (Kevin Birm­ing­ham , The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion): it doesn’t get good until para­graph six (search for the word ‘remiss’ and begin there). “If his­to­ry is any guide, there will be about nine times as many new Ph.D.s this year as there are jobs…. Why do our nation’s Eng­lish depart­ments con­sis­tent­ly accept sev­er­al times as many grad­u­ate stu­dents as their bespoke job mar­ket can sus­tain? Eng­lish depart­ments are the only employ­ers demand­ing the cre­den­tials that Eng­lish doc­tor­al pro­grams pro­duce.”
  6. An Ivy League pro­fes­sor who spent 4 months work­ing in a South Bronx check-cash­ing store says we’re get­ting it all wrong (Alex Mor­rell, Busi­ness Insid­er): “Over and over again, Ser­von heard and observed that check cash­ers met cus­tomers’ needs bet­ter than banks did. She dis­cov­ered there were three main rea­sons peo­ple used these ser­vices instead of banks: cost, trans­paren­cy, and ser­vice.”

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 78

1 Chronicles 12:32 - they "understood the times"
1 Chron­i­cles 12:32 — they “under­stood the times”

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. On Wednes­day I men­tioned how some mod­ern research about speak­ing in tongues aligns very well with Paul’s com­ments about tongues strength­en­ing believ­ers even while their mind is unfruit­ful (1 Cor 14:4, 14). A read­able sum­ma­ry from a few years back is A Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­ic Look At Speak­ing In Tongues (Bene­dict Carey, NYT) and also Speak­ing in Tongues: Glos­salalia and Stress Reduc­tion (The Dana Foun­da­tion). If you want to see the actu­al research they are allud­ing to, check out the uni­ver­si­ty press release Lan­guage Cen­ter of the Brain Is Not Under the Con­trol of Sub­jects Who “Speak in Tongues” (U Penn, 2006) or the aca­d­e­m­ic papers Sali­vary Alpha-Amy­lase and Cor­ti­sol Among Pen­te­costals on a Wor­ship and Non­wor­ship Day (Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Human Biol­o­gy, 2013) and Glos­so­lalia is asso­ci­at­ed with dif­fer­ences in bio­mark­ers of stress and arousal among Apos­tolic Pen­te­costals (Reli­gion, Brain and Behav­ior, 2012).
  2. A hor­ri­fy­ing look into the mind of 9/11’s mas­ter­mind, in his own words (Marc Thiessen, Wash­ing­ton Post): Indis­putably inter­est­ing. Two caveats: you should look up the name James E. Mitchell for con­text and there are sure­ly those who tes­ti­fy dif­fer­ent­ly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Hav­ing said that… fas­ci­nat­ing.
  3. Reli­gious Lib­er­ty Experts Stand Togeth­er, on Cas­es Inside Prison Walls (Ter­ry Mat­ting­ly, On Reli­gion): “There is space enough in our cul­ture to allow dif­fer­ent peo­ple with dif­fer­ent beliefs to live peace­ably in the same land.”
  4. Texas elec­tor who crit­i­cized Trump says he’s resign­ing (Kyle Cheney, Politi­co): “Since I can’t in good con­science vote for Don­ald Trump, and yet have sin­ful­ly made a pledge that I would, the best option I see at this time is to resign my posi­tion as an Elec­tor…. I will sleep well at night know­ing I nei­ther gave in to [the people’s] demands nor caved to my con­vic­tions. I will also mourn the loss of our repub­lic.” The elec­tor is clear­ly a thought­ful Chris­t­ian who made his deci­sion very the­o­log­i­cal­ly. Read his own words about it at Con­flict­ed Elec­tor In A Cor­rupt Col­lege. Even if you dif­fer with his the­ol­o­gy at points, applaud his con­sis­ten­cy. Also note how much Politi­co edit­ed out his the­o­log­i­cal con­vic­tions in their report­ing — a very com­mon occur­rence in major media out­lets.
  5. Gays, Bias, And Pho­ny Sci­ence (Nao­mi Schae­fer Riley,  NY Post): “In the end, nei­ther LaCour nor Hatzen­buehler actu­al­ly did the work to prove their the­ses — because there would be no real con­se­quences if they were caught, and any­way acad­e­mia writ large didn’t want to ‘catch’ them at all.”
  6. The Under­stud­ied Female Sex­u­al Preda­tor (Conor Frieder­dorf, The Atlantic): “In inci­dents of sex­u­al vio­lence report­ed to the Nation­al Crime Vic­tim­iza­tion Sur­vey, 38 per­cent of vic­tims were men…”
  7. Cheat or Go Home: Inside the ‘Dys­func­tion­al Hell’ of Becom­ing a CFB Coach (Matt Hayes, Bleach­er Report): “Auburn offi­cials have always denied it, the NCAA could nev­er nail it down and the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on infrac­tions has long since passed. But here’s the catch: I’ve seen the ledger.” Even if you don’t like sports, this is a worth­while read.

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 71

1 Chronicles 12:32 - they "understood the times"
1 Chron­i­cles 12:32 — they “under­stood the times”

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Set Our Hearts On Fire Again (Zac Hicks, Desir­ing God) : “Christ-cen­tered wor­ship [is] a cycli­cal process of two actions. Let’s call those actions dis­place­ment and replace­ment.” This one was rec­om­mend­ed by a stu­dent. The real meat is the last half.
  2. The Shift from Author­i­ty to Preference—And Its Con­se­quences for the Church (Os Guin­ness, 9 Marks): This is long but worth­while. “in today’s world, free­dom of con­science is con­fused with free­dom of choice and there­fore ren­dered duti­less and shorn of its rights.”
  3. A Fight In The Lep­er Colony (Doug Wil­son, per­son­al blog): “what we [have] is a vile woman run­ning against a vile man, and we must choose between them, God says, because we are a vile peo­ple. We get a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign between a cor­rup­to­crat and a clown, and this is because God has now nar­rowed our choice down to what would best rep­re­sent this stiff-necked gen­er­a­tion.” For a more gen­tle approach, see Joe Carter’s insight­ful Why Evan­gel­i­cals Are Divid­ed Over Trump and the inter­view with Rus­sell Moore titled The Evan­gel­i­cal Civ­il War.
  4. The New Cul­ture Of Life (Ruth Gra­ham, Slate): “In con­ver­sa­tions over the past sev­er­al weeks with activists and oth­er young peo­ple who care deeply about end­ing abor­tion, I found many who are skep­ti­cal of the movement’s long-held ties to the GOP and the Chris­t­ian right. Instead, they are using the lan­guage of fem­i­nism, human rights, and the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment to make their case for a new cul­ture of life.”
  5. Chi­na tar­gets par­ents with reli­gion rules in Xin­jiang (Al Jazeera): a take on China’s reli­gious crack­down from a Mus­lim per­spec­tive. “While Chi­na offi­cial­ly guar­an­tees free­dom of reli­gion, minors are not sup­posed to par­tic­i­pate in reli­gious activ­i­ty.” 
  6. Real Insights About Pornog­ra­phy and Mar­riage (Nick Wolfin­ger, blog): “Even more curi­ous is the role of reli­gion. Porn only seems to threat­en mar­i­tal sta­bil­i­ty for cou­ples who don’t attend church reg­u­lar­ly” (empha­sis added). The author is a pro­fes­sor of soci­ol­o­gy.
  7. Human Rights Cam­paign threat­ens Johns Hop­kins over New Atlantis “Sex­u­al­i­ty and Gen­der” report (Al Mohler, The Brief­ing): “One of the things Chris­tians must keep in mind is that sci­ence is a human endeav­or. Sci­ence sim­ply doesn’t exist inde­pen­dent of, well, sci­en­tists, that is human beings. It isn’t some kind of inde­pen­dent author­i­ty…. That is to say, there is no such thing as a sci­ence that is free of ide­ol­o­gy when it comes to human beings, after all, study­ing them­selves.”

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 62

1 Chronicles 12:32 - they "understood the times"
1 Chron­i­cles 12:32 — they “under­stood the times”

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues, with a pref­er­ence for con­tent from aca­d­e­mics and influ­en­tial voic­es. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

A Quote That Grabbed Glen’s Attention

“I real­ly only love God as much as I love the per­son I love the least” — Dorothy Day

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Cal­i­for­nia Law­mak­er Drops Con­tro­ver­sial Pro­pos­al to Reg­u­late Reli­gious Col­leges (Sarah Zyl­stra, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): this was a goofy bill and I’m hap­pi­ly sur­prised it has been sub­stan­tial­ly amend­ed. For one influ­en­tial take on it, see www.sb1146discriminates.org
  2. Every Place Has Detrac­tors. Con­sid­er Where They’re Com­ing From. (Megan McCar­dle, Bloomerg View): “There is grave dan­ger in judg­ing a neigh­bor­hood, or a cul­ture, by the accounts of those who chose to leave it. Those peo­ple are least like­ly to appre­ci­ate the good things about where they came from, and the most like­ly to dwell on its less attrac­tive qual­i­ties.” Bear this in mind when lis­ten­ing to con­ver­sion tes­ti­monies (both sec­u­lar and reli­gious).
  3. In Defense Of The Gun Emo­ji (John Brown­lee, Fast Co Design): “They’re send­ing a sym­bol­ic mes­sage about gun con­trol through emo­ji. The prob­lem, though, is that mess­ing with the way that peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er isn’t sym­bol­ic. It’s deeply lit­er­al.”
  4. What’s Miss­ing From The Con­ver­sa­tion About Trans­gen­der Kids (Jesse Sin­gal, New York Mag­a­zine): this one is an impor­tant read — the pro-LGBT author is con­cerned with the way sci­ence is being ignored when try­ing to help kids who think they were born the wrong gen­der. I shared a relat­ed arti­cle by the same author back in vol­ume 50.
  5. It’s O.K., Lib­er­al Par­ents, You Can Freak Out About Porn (Judith Shule­vitz, NY Times): “Left-lean­ing par­ents shy away from a cause they iden­ti­fy with right-wing cul­ture war­riors, but I chal­lenge any par­ent to affirm that it’s O.K. for her kids to become dig­i­tal porn con­sumers at 11, the aver­age age of a child’s first encounter.”

Something Glen Found Amusing

  • What I Love About The Olympics (Ultra Spir­i­tu­al Life): this is a video. 3.5 min­utes of bru­tal com­men­tary. “Race walk­ing. Now this is a sport that makes sense. Who can go the fastest at not going their fastest? It’s like who can be the best at medi­oc­rity. So para­dox­i­cal. I love it.”

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.

If you have a non-Stan­ford friend who might be inter­est­ed in these emails, they can sign up at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/subscribe, and if you want to view the archives they are at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 59

1 Chronicles 12:32 - they "understood the times"
1 Chron­i­cles 12:32 — they “under­stood the times”

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues, with a pref­er­ence for con­tent from aca­d­e­mics and influ­en­tial voic­es. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

A Pastoral Exhortation

Anoth­er sense­less shoot­ing. In Matthew 24:12, Jesus warns that “because of the increase of wicked­ness, the love of most will grow cold.” Wicked­ness caus­es love to grow cold by two means: allure and despair. The church tends to focus on those forms of wicked­ness which entice us as a temp­ta­tion, but there is also a wicked­ness that demor­al­izes. It leaves Chris­tians feel­ing drained and help­less. This wicked­ness, with which we are all too famil­iar, can make a Chris­tian’s love grow cold. Do not be deceived. Rec­og­nize this for the demon­ic work that it is and do not let it lead you astray. Cling to Christ. Let Him be your com­fort, your peace, and your wis­dom. “Do not be over­come by evil, but over­come evil with good” (Rom 12:21).

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Bat­tle For Reli­gious Lib­er­ty (George Wood, PE News): Dr. Wood is the leader of the Assem­blies of God, which spon­sors Chi Alpha. See also this GetRe­li­gion piece on reli­gious lib­er­ty — high­ly rec­om­mend­ed
  2. Of inter­est to aca­d­e­mics
  3. Trump: Tri­bune of Poor White Peo­ple (Rod Dreher, The Amer­i­can Con­ser­v­a­tive): “And I’m always left think­ing: if this is the qual­i­ty of thought of a Har­vard Law grad­u­ate, then our soci­ety is tru­ly doomed.” This is an inter­view with the author of Hill­bil­ly Ele­gy and is much more wide-rang­ing and insight­ful than the title leads you to believe . Both the jour­nal­ist and the inter­vie­wee are Chris­tians.
  4. In Defense of Third-Par­ty Vot­ing (Zac Crip­pen, per­son­al blog): rec­om­mend­ed, dif­fi­cult to excerpt
  5. Amus­ing: This Is How We Work (Owl­turd Comix): apolo­gies for the pub­lish­er’s title.

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.

If you have a non-Stan­ford friend who might be inter­est­ed in these emails, they can sign up at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/subscribe, and if you want to view the archives they are at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 57

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues, with a pref­er­ence for con­tent from aca­d­e­mics and influ­en­tial voic­es. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom.

Articles I Found Interesting

This has been a depress­ing week. Shoot­ings by police, shoot­ings of police, the ISIS bomb­ing in Bagh­dad, reli­gious-lib­er­ty infringe­ments, dis­grace­ful polit­i­cal behav­ior and more. If you’re feel­ing down, the first few links will be espe­cial­ly help­ful to you.

  1. How To Pray In Our Time Of Nation­al Cri­sis (Joe Carter, Gospel Coali­tion): “Many of us are anx­ious and hurt­ing. All of us are con­fused. When faced with this type of nation­al crisis we may find it dif­fi­cult to turn to our Com­forter in prayer. We are used to going to God with our requests, but this time seems dif­fer­ent. We are mired in sor­row and pain…”
  2. Lamen­ta­tions: A Bot­tle For The Tears Of the World (Christo­pher Wright, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): “So much of our wor­ship is cov­er-up: pre­tend­ing to have emo­tions we don’t real­ly feel, or smoth­er­ing the emo­tions we do. That is not praise. It sim­ply leaves us to pick up our suf­fer­ing again on the way out—without bring­ing it into God’s pres­ence or hurl­ing it at him in ques­tion­ing (but trust­ing) protest. Spend­ing time in Lamen­ta­tions helps us learn how to plumb the depths of lament as well as scale the heights of rejoic­ing.”
  3. What Shoot­ings And Racial Jus­tice Mean For The Body of Christ (Rus­sell Moore, per­son­al blog): “If we believe that every per­son will stand before a Judg­ment Seat, we can­not then stand silent­ly when we see injus­tice. But many—including evan­gel­i­cals of all ethnicities—wonder what we can real­ly do? Some are reluc­tant to speak because they do not wish to reduce these issues to a hash-tag and they don’t know what to do.”
  4. End Need­less Inter­ac­tion With Cops Dur­ing Traf­fic Stops (Conor Frieder­s­dorf, The Atlantic): a shrewd, easy-to-imple­ment sug­ges­tion.
  5. My Four Months As A Pri­vate Prison Guard (Shane Bauer, Moth­er Jones): a very long but very engag­ing essay. “I start­ed apply­ing for jobs in pri­vate pris­ons because I want­ed to see the inner work­ings of an indus­try that holds 131,000 of the nation’s 1.6 mil­lion pris­on­ers. As a jour­nal­ist, it’s near­ly impos­si­ble to get an uncon­strained look inside our penal sys­tem. When pris­ons do let reporters in, it’s usu­al­ly for care­ful­ly man­aged tours and mon­i­tored inter­views with inmates. Pri­vate pris­ons are espe­cial­ly secre­tive.” See also Wounds From Incar­cer­a­tion That Nev­er Heal (Tony Brown & Eve­lyn Pat­ter­son, The New Repub­lic)
  6. Two sto­ries on the reli­gious-lib­er­ty front:
  7. A group of our sum­mer Chi Alphans had a con­ver­sa­tion about how the books of the Bible got select­ed. If you’re curi­ous, here are two resources by Michael Kruger, a schol­ar in the field, that should prove help­ful: Ten Basic Facts About the NT Canon That Every Chris­t­ian Should Mem­o­rize and 10 Mis­con­cep­tions About the NT Canon

A Quote To Ponder

Think before you act; think twice before you speak; think thrice before you post to social media.

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.

If you have a non-Stan­ford friend who might be inter­est­ed in these emails, they can sign up at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/subscribe, and if you want to view the archives they are at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.