Tag: Stanford

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 470



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

This is volume 470, a relatively uninteresting number. There are fewer links than usual this week owing to some travel. I didn’t have much time to read and I’m exhausted today. 

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Can AI Help a Student Get Into Stanford or Yale? (Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed): “Lee is among hundreds of students trying out Esslo—whose name is a mashup of the words ‘essay’ and ‘Elo,’ a ranking system used in chess and esports. The program is the brainchild of two Stanford University students looking to tackle what they believe is one of the most stressful parts of college applications: the admissions essay.” 
    • The two Stanford students in question are part of Chi Alpha. Way to go, guys! The website: https://www.esslo.org/ — if you know any high school seniors, pass the link their way.
  2. Evangelize Like You’re a Sinner (Claude Atcho, Gospel Coalition): “The Samaritan woman’s bold witness teaches us a truth sometimes deemed too simplistic: the key to apologetics isn’t pithy answers or irrefutable arguments but a sense of awe in Jesus that can’t be silenced.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  3. As a Single Man, I Felt Little Pressure to Get Married. I Wish I Had. (Brett McCracken, The Gospel Coalition): “Singleness and marriage can both be good when they’re done for God’s glory and take a cruciform shape. And when chosen for selfish reasons or lived out in unhealthy ways, both singleness and marriage can also be bad. I’m not making an argument for one being universally better than the other. I’m simply observing that in our cultural moment, and perhaps in certain cultural contexts (like mine in Southern California), arguments for the good of marriage need to be sounded more urgently.”
  4. How Stanford and Its West Coast Brethren Planned for Long Road Trips in Conference Realignment (Pat Forde, Sports Illustrated): “The Cardinal are making their Atlantic Coast Conference debut on Sept. 20, at Syracuse. The following week, Stanford will visit Clemson. Of all the hands realigning schools have been dealt, this is the single worst one in football. None of the other Pac-12 diaspora—in the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12—will play league road games on consecutive weeks. And these are three-time-zone sojourns of 5,000 miles or more round trip.”

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 469



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

This is volume 469, which is apparently the largest known n for which n!-1 is prime.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. ChatGPT Goes to Church (Arlie Coles, Plough): “Accidentally generated heresy is a technical failure; a pastor refusing to speak from the heart and preferring to generate the most probable word sequences for a sermon to the congregation in his care is a moral failure.… There is no world where deferring preaching and pastoral care to a text generator does not end with deterioration – first of formation, then of the clergy, and finally of the people in their care.” 
    • The author is a research scientist who focuses on deep learning.
  2. Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice (Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post): “In a series of experiments that could have been plucked from the pages of science fiction, researchers at Stanford University massaged a solution containing tartrazine, the chemical found in the food dye known as ‘yellow No. 5,’ onto the stomachs, scalps and hind legs of mice. About five minutes later, the opaque skin of the mice transformed temporarily into a living window, revealing branching blood vessels, muscle fibers and contractions of the gut, they reported Thursday in the journal Science.” 
    • One of the study’s leaders, Dr. Guosong Hong, was part of Chi Alpha at Stanford. See the actual journal article for more details and some wild images.
  3. America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny (Caity Weaver, New York Times): “Most pennies produced by the U.S. Mint are given out as change but never spent; this creates an incessant demand for new pennies to replace them, so that cash transactions that necessitate pennies (i.e., any concluding with a sum whose final digit is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or 9) can be settled. Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced). In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.”
  4. D.E.I. Is Not Working on College Campuses. We Need a New Approach. (Paul Brest and Emily Levine, New York Times): “Rather than correcting stereotypes, diversity training too often reinforces them and breeds resentment, impeding students’ social development. An excessive focus on identity can be just as harmful as the pretense that identity doesn’t matter. Overall, these programs may undermine the very groups they seek to aid by instilling a victim mind-set and by pitting students against one another.” 
    • The two authors are Stanford affiliates. Paul Brest is a former dean of Stanford Law School, and Emily Levine is associate professor of education and history at Stanford.
  5. Why I changed my mind about volunteering (Rachel M. Cohen, Vox): “Philanthropy certainly has some great victories in funding ‘root’ solutions, but Buchanan urges against the mentality that only permanently eradicating a problem is worth doing. ‘You shouldn’t assume that a focus on roots is necessarily superior,’ he writes. ‘Trimming branches is also important.’ In a way, it can feel safe to distrust the value of individual action. Being wary of philanthropy and charitable groups that promise to better the world resonates with the skepticism I’ve been trained to have, professionally and culturally. It also allows me to avoid making sacrifices; there’s no real vulnerability or bets required.”
  6. I didn’t know that Tolkien had explained Tom Bombadil (Alan Jacobs, a Baylor prof).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 468



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

This is volume 468, which is written as 3333 in base 5. I find that pretty cool.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Nearly Half of the World’s Migrants Are Christian (Chloë-Arizona Fodor, Christianity Today): “While Christians make up about 30 percent of the world’s population, the world’s migrants are 47 percent Christian, according to the latest data collected in 2020.… US migrants are much more likely to have a religious identity than the American-born population in general. The influx of religious migrants can have a significant impact on the religious composition of their destination countries. In the case of the US, ‘immigrants are kind of putting the brakes on secularization,’ Kramer said.”
  2. Meet newly crowned Miss USA Alma Cooper M.S. ’25 (Semira Arora, Stanford Daily): “Before Stanford, Cooper graduated in the top five percent of her class at West Point. Currently, she is a part of the highly selective Knight-Hennessy scholarship program, which aims to cultivate multidisciplinary leaders and offers scholars up to three years of funding for graduate studies.”
  3. A Scary Date Can Help You Find a Good Mate (Coltan Scrivner, Substack): “Female participants enjoyed the horror clip the most when watching with a male who displayed mastery, while male participants enjoyed it most in the presence of a distressed female. For males confederates whose photographs were rated less attractive, displaying mastery increased how attractive they were perceived by the female participant that watched the clip with them. In other words, women enjoyed a scary situation more when they experienced it with a man who displayed mastery of their fear, and those men were, in some cases, seen as more attractive than men who displayed indifference or distress.” 
    • The author is a Behavioral Scientist at the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark and also has an appointment in the Psychology Department at Arizona State University. The “Recreational Fear Lab” — what an amazing name!
  4. New Training and Tougher Rules: How Colleges Are Trying to Tame Gaza Protests (Alan Blinder, New York Times): “The strategies that are coming into public view suggest that some administrators at schools large and small have concluded that permissiveness is perilous, and that a harder line may be the best option — or perhaps just the one least likely to invite blowback from elected officials and donors who have demanded that universities take stronger action against protesters.” 
    • Related: At Michigan, Activists Take Over and Shut Down Student Government (Halina Bennet, New York Times): “But last spring, pro-Palestinian activists, running under the Shut It Down party, won control over the student government. They immediately moved to withhold funding for all activities, until the university committed to divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war in Gaza.… When campaigning for student government, the Shut It Down party did not keep its intentions a secret. Its platform ‘ran with one single point: to halt the operations of the University of Michigan Central Student Government,’ Alifa Chowdhury, the president of the party, wrote in a statement to The Times.”
  5. Gossiping Is Fun. It’s Natural. And These People Won’t Do It. (Michal Leibowitz, New York Times): “I found the lives and relationships described by the abstainers compelling. I was intrigued by their optimism, by their grace, by their commitment to judging others by their best features. Which is not to say I’ve sworn off gossip entirely. But I’ve definitely cut back. And what do you know? The less I judge people, the less I want to judge people. The less I complain, the less I want to complain. The less, maybe, that I even see things to complain about.”
  6. How your mindset could affect your response to vaccines (Taylor Kubota, Stanford News): “It’s important to remember that our body’s responses to anything – the medications we take, the foods we eat, and the stress we experience – are influenced by our mindsets as well as the objective properties of those things. And this is also true of the COVID-19 vaccine. Our mindsets about the vaccine can affect not just how we feel afterward but also our experience with side effects. And in some instances, your mindset about the vaccine’s side effects can potentially influence your immune response.” 
    • Recommended to me by a medical doctor.
  7. Can We Be a Little Less Selective With Our Moral Outrage? (Bret Stephens, New York Times): “Of all the world’s injustices, perhaps the saddest is that so many of them are simply ignored.” 
    • A depressing list of a bunch of horrible governments around the world.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 464



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

This is volume 464, which only has two prime factors: 2 and 29.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Stanford in Paris 2024 (Stanford News): “A school-record 60 Stanford-affiliated athletes have qualified to compete at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.… Nations represented include the United States (38), Canada (5), Australia (3), Israel (2), Switzerland (2), Egypt (1), France (1), Germany (1), Greece (1), Hong Kong (1), Nigeria (1), Philippines (1), Singapore (1), Spain (1) and Venezuela (1).”
  2. Teachers and the Transmission of Excellence (Matt Clancy, New Things Under The Sun): “Here’s a striking fact: through 2022, one in two Nobel prize winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine also had a Nobel prize winner as their academic advisor.” 
    • Mentorship matters, and not just in academia. I have a friend who once told me, “You always need to learn up. Look above you and find people who have already achieved what you hope to achieve and spend as much time around them as you can.”
  3. There Is Almost No ‘Liberalizing Religion’ in the United States (Ryan Burge, Substack): “The more people go to church, the less liberal they are. That’s true across racial lines. That’s also true in a lot of major Protestant traditions including a few mainline stalwarts like the United Methodist Church and the PCUSA.” 
    • Emphasis removed for readability.
  4. The Most Revealing Moment of a Trump Rally (McKay Coppins, The Atlantic): “To understand the evolving psychology and beliefs of Trump’s religious supporters, I attempted to review every prayer offered at his campaign events since he announced in November 2022 that he would run again. Working with a researcher, I compiled 58 in total, the most recent from June 2024. The resulting document—at just over 17,000 words—makes for a strange, revealing religious text: benign in some places, blasphemous in others; contradictory and poignant and frightening and sad and, perhaps most of all, begging for exegesis.” 
    • Interesting concept for an article. Note that the author is Mormon, so factor that in when evaluating his religious commentary. 
  5. People Say Queer People Are Born That Way. It’s More Complicated. (Charles M. Blow, New York Times): “ ‘Born this way’ may, unfortunately, have been an oversimplification. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that people are ‘formed this way.’ As the complexity of human sexuality has become clearer, scientists and writers have attempted to add necessary nuance to the subject. But the slogan remains entrenched in the culture.… It is not only unsupportable by science but also does not capture the full reality of queer experience and is unjust to some members of the queer community itself.” 
    • I am old enough to remember when the “born this way” argument was the dominant reason homosexuality gained widestream acceptance in America. Unlocked.
  6. Should Pornography Be Completely Banned? (Ryan Burge, Substack): “The share of Americans who want no restrictions on porn has never been that high. It was 10% of the sample back in the early 1970s and today it’s dropped to a very small fraction — just 4% of those who took the survey in 2022. So, there’s little appetite for a laissez-faire approach to pornography.”
  7. Couples, Stop Writing Your Own Wedding Vows (Cheryl Mendelson, The Atlantic): “Traditional vows create an intense moment of quiet speech that heightens the exuberance of the toasts, drinking, and dancing that follow. Replacing them with sentimental or jokey words turns the vow-taking into an ironic performance of something the couple is implicitly disavowing. One of my friends regards taking vows other than the traditional ones as ‘like being on the witness stand and answering the questions you wish you had been asked.’ He and his wife wanted ‘no irony’ or attempts at wit in their vows, and ‘redacted’ theirs from a church rite.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 463



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

This is volume 463, a prime number.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Why your smartphone might be stopping you from following Jesus (Martin Saunders, Premiere Christianity): “[Haidt] argues that smartphones actually drive spiritual degradation: ‘[social media] trains people to think in ways that are exactly contrary to the world’s wisdom traditions: Think about yourselves first; be materialistic, judgemental, boastful, and petty; seek glory as quantified by likes and followers.’… our digital culture isn’t neutral; it’s offering a kind of anti-discipleship.”
  2. Move Over, Mathematicians, Here Comes AlphaProof (Siobhan Roberts, New York Times): “A pair of Google DeepMind models tried their luck with the problem set in the 2024 International Mathematical Olympiad, or I.M.O., held from July 11 to July 22 about 100 miles west of London at the University of Bath. The event is said to be the premier math competition for the world’s ‘brightest mathletes,’ according to a promotional post on social media. The human problem-solvers — 609 high school students from 108 countries — won 58 gold medals, 123 silver and 145 bronze. The A.I. performed at the level of a silver medalist, solving four out of six problems for a total of 28 points. It was the first time that A.I. has achieved a medal-worthy performance on an Olympiad’s problems.”
  3. Standing Out, Crafting Hooks, and Accidentally Revealing Everything That’s Wrong With You (Max Nussenbaum, Substack): “You wouldn’t think that people’s natural instinct would be to reveal their full litany of psychological issues in their profiles, but it actually is. They just don’t realize that’s what they’re doing.” About a year old.
  4. Online opt-in polls can produce misleading results, especially for young people and Hispanic adults (Andrew Mercer, Courtney Kennedy & Scott Keeter, Pew Research): “…several recent studies have documented large errors in online opt-in surveys due to the presence of so-called ‘bogus respondents.’ These respondents do not answer questions sincerely; instead, they attempt to complete surveys with as little effort as possible to earn money or other rewards. Studies have shown that bogus respondents can cause opt-in surveys to overestimate rare attitudes and behaviors, such as ingesting bleach to protect against COVID-19, belief in conspiracies like Pizzagate or support for political violence.”
  5. Patronage vs. Constituent Parties (Or Why Republican Party Leaders Matter More Than Democratic Ones) (Tanner Greer, personal blog): “…many discussions of American politics assume that that the structures and operational norms of the two parties are the same. If these party differences were more widely recognized, I suspect we would see fewer evangelicals frustrated with their limited influence over the GOP party platform, fewer journalists shocked with J.D. Vance’s journey from never-Trump land to MAGA-maximalism, and greater alarm among centrist Democrats about the longer-term influence that the Palestine protests will have on the contours of their coalition.”
  6. Evangelicals Must Stop Their Preferential Treatment of the Left (James R. Wood, First Things): “Today, centrists and those on the right are more fertile soil, I believe, because they are more open to reality. They recognize that the cultural revolutionaries’ projects to rewrite reality are destroying civilization. These refugees crave clarity about basic moral realities because of how much confusion the negative world has produced. They are looking for voices who stand up to the civilizational destroyers—maybe even voices who boldly proclaim supernatural truths.Like the ‘god-fearers’ that early church missionaries often targeted, we today need to consider the ‘reality-respecters’ in our mission.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  7. Stanford’s biggest star lured to Texas Tech with $1 million deal (Alex Simon, SF Gate): “Canady announced her transfer to Texas Tech on Wednesday, with multiple reports quickly coming out that the Red Raiders’ name, image and likeness (NIL) collective Matador Club, the group of boosters supporting Texas Tech by signing the school’s athletes to endorsement deals, signed the pitcher to a one-year deal for over $1 million.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 457



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

This is volume 457, the sum of three consecutive primes (149 + 151 + 157) and also apparently the index of a prime Euclid number, but I would be lying if I said I knew what that is.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The case for showing up to church—even if you don’t believe in God (Emma Camp, America): “But despite my regular church attendance for almost two years now, I still haven’t developed a rock-solid faith. I’ve joked—and said as much on Twitter—that I only believe in God about 30 percent of the time on a good day. My ambivalence does set me apart from most of my friends from church, a group that includes a few seminarians. But it doesn’t keep me from coming back.”
  2. The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs (Ruxandra Teslo, Substack): “To formalize this: ‘Any system that is not explicitly pro-Weird Nerd will turn anti-Weird Nerd pretty quickly.’ That is because most people, while liking non-conformism in the abstract and post-facto, are not very willing to actually put up with the personality trade-offs of Weird Nerds in practice. There is an increasing number of people right now who are thinking about how to build better intellectual institutions… it’s worth thinking about what kind of people one wants to attract in these institutions and how to keep them there. And I believe the conversation here starts with accepting a simple truth, which is that Weird Nerds will have certain traits that might be less than ideal, that these traits come ‘in a package’ with other, very good traits, and if one makes filtering or promotion based on the absence of those traits a priority, they will miss out on the positives.”
  3. An Object Lesson From Covid on How to Destroy Public Trust (Zeynep Tufekci, New York Times): “If the government misled people about how Covid is transmitted, why would Americans believe what it says about vaccines or bird flu or H.I.V.? How should people distinguish between wild conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies?… As the expression goes, trust is built in drops and lost in buckets, and this bucket is going to take a very long time to refill.” 
    • Unlocked.
  4. ‘Sham’ Surgery Can Actually Fix Our Bodies. So Why Are Some Against It? (Jeremy Howick, Science Alert): “More broadly, a review of 53 placebo-controlled surgery trials found that sham surgery was as good as the real thing in over half of the studies. Sham knee and back surgery works as well as real surgery for pain. Pretending to put brain implants works as well as real implants for reducing migraine attacks. Fake laser surgery works as well as real laser surgery to stop gastrointestinal bleeding. And fake surgery works as well as real surgery for making sphincters function more efficiently.” 
  5. The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day (David French, New York Times): “When I left the Republican Party, I thought a shared faith would preserve my denominational home. But I was wrong. Race and politics trumped truth and grace, and now I’m no longer welcome in the church I loved.” 
    • Unlocked.
  6. Alito’s ‘Godliness’ Comment Echoes a Broader Christian Movement (Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, New York Times): “It’s a phrase not commonly associated with legal doctrine: returning America to ‘a place of godliness.’ And yet when asked by a woman posing as a Catholic conservative at a dinner last week, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. appeared to endorse the idea.… Now, Supreme Court justices have become caught up in the debate over whether America is a Christian nation. While Justice Alito is hardly openly championing these views, he is embracing language and symbolism that line up with a much broader movement pushing back against the declining power of Christianity as a majority religion in America.” 
    • This caveat is significant and should perhaps be higher placed in the story: “The Times has not heard the full unedited recording and has reviewed only the edited recording posted online, after the woman who recorded them, a liberal activist, declined to send the Times the full recording.” 
    • Related: What Exactly Did Justice Alito Say That Was Wrong? (Marc O. DeGirolami, New York Times): “Where was the justice’s error? He did not mention any pending case or litigation. He did not name any person or party. He did not discuss any specific political or moral matter. Most of the exchange consists of the filmmaker’s own goading remarks, followed by the justice’s vague and anodyne affirmations and replies. About what you might expect when cornered at a boring cocktail party.”
    • Related: Wild Distortions of ‘Secret Recording’ of Alito (Ed Whelan, National Review): “You are welcome of course to disagree with Alito.… But it’s beyond bizarre to find it newsworthy that Alito made a private comment that mirrors public speeches he has been giving.”
  7. Against Ambition (Grace Carroll, Stanford Daily): “Wineburg walked into his classroom intending to make a brief opening comment about the scene outside. What followed — a tirade against a culture of careerism so blatantly profit-motivated that students were being lured, literally, to flashing salaries like moths to flame — ‘sort of took on a life of its own,’ he recalled recently. It’s known colloquially among some students as ‘the rant.’ I was one of the frosh sitting in Wineburg’s class that fall. I remember the rant.… mostly I remember feeling like someone was lifting something very heavy off of me, a weight I hadn’t realized I was carrying until it was gone.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 453

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. Reconciling Christianity with intellectual curiosity (Nadia Jo, Stanford Daily): “One of the values Jesus emphasized most is humility, and I strive to implement that value in my intellectual life in addition to my personal life. My ethos of intellectual curiosity involves curiosity, challenging and wrestling with claims and lines of reasoning, flexible thinking and respect for people who put in the same effort. I hope that my nonreligious peers can come to understand and appreciate Christianity’s deep intellectual tradition, even if they don’t agree with its conclusions. And, I encourage more Christians to live up to that tradition and examine their own belief. You’ll probably find it more rewarding than you expect.” 
    • Nadia is a student in Chi Alpha.
  2. Homeless man is brought to church and starts CURSING right in the middle of the sermon while the pastor is preaching on the parable of the lost sheep. (Twitter): the link title is clickbaity, but the video is really good. 17 minutes but 100% worth your time.
  3. The Single Christian (Alexandra DeSanctis Marr, Religion & Liberty Online): “Rather than offering sympathy to those who are single for reasons outside their control, Broadway argues, Christians often send the message that singleness is an affliction endured by those who simply aren’t trying hard enough to find a spouse. But, as she explains, there isn’t an easy answer to what is ultimately a problem of numbers: ‘When women outnumber men in the church, that leaves three options: polygamy, marrying a non-Christian or staying single. Which would you like us to choose?’” 
    • That’s a great line by Broadway.
  4. The Scholar of Comedy (David Remnick interviewing Jerry Seinfeld, The New Yorker): “Every artist is only showing you his best. When you watch a movie, every scene—they only show you the one take that worked. Seventeen times, they missed it. You’re only seeing the peak of it. But in standup you gotta make it happen every night. That’s the difference. That’s why actors, I think, like to do the theatre. They want to be honest. They want to be held to account. And only a live audience holds you to account.”
  5. Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker says Pride Month is example of ‘deadly sin’ during commencement speech (Lukas Weese, New York Times): “Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, speaking during a commencement speech at Benedictine College, referred to Pride Month, the events in June demonstrating inclusivity and support for the LGBTQ+ community, as an example of the ‘deadly sins’ as he advocated for a more conservative brand of Catholicism.” 
    • I am always surprised when people seem surprised when religious people say religious things. 
    • Related: Harrison Butker jersey sales increase in aftermath of Benedictine College address (Greg Dailey and Ryan Hennessy, KCTV 5): “Amid reaction to Harrison Butker’s now-viral commencement speech at Benedictine College on Saturday, the placekicker seems to have gained several new fans in the process. According to NFL.com, Butker’s jersey sales are among the most popular online. Only Travis Kelce rated higher than Butker, with Mahomes coming in right behind the star from Georgia Tech.”
    • This is common enough that there is probably a term for it: high-status people denounce something and or pretend it doesn’t exist, whereas many lower-status people really like it. This is a good example of this, as is the New York Times bestseller list compared to actual sales numbers.
  6. Campus protest-related:
    • Seeing the University More Clearly (David Pozen, blog): “To simplify somewhat, we might say that professors are granted a number of basic rights within the university, including rights to free speech and due process and quasi-property rights in the job itself. Students and staff are granted a partially overlapping, though weaker, bundle of rights. What none of us have are governance rights against the trustees who really run the place. We enjoy various individual privileges and protections, but not the franchise. Legal scholars and political scientists have a term for this sort of arrangement, too: liberal autocracy.” 
      • The author is a law prof at Columbia and has some insightful thoughts about how shifts in university governance in recent years have provided the context for how campuses are responding to protests.
    • Modern Protest Culture is Crippled by Internet-Brain (Samuel D. James, Substack): “A transformational protest is one that bears the brunt of reality and, in so doing, convinces others to join in changing it. The inability to bear this reality is not just fragility, it is precisely the way computer systems work; when the autonomous system fails to yield a pleasant or smooth solution, it must be fixed, not endured. Contemporary student activism reflects the assumptions and habits of the digital era.” 
      • Emphasis in original.
  7. Belgian Government Will Intervene In Cases Where Prostitutes Refuse Sexual Acts Too Often (Amy Hamm, ProPublica): “Prostitutes are to be granted ‘rights’ to refuse sexual acts, stop sexual acts, perform sexual acts in the manner they prefer, and refuse to sit behind Amsterdam-style windows (public facing windows where prostitutes are on display). However, should a prostitute use these ‘rights’ 10 times within six months, their pimp can then call on a government mediator to intervene.” 
    • Pimps used to have to beat their prostitutes. Now they can have the government use force on their behalf. #progress
    • This is the logic of “bake the cake, bigot” taken to its ultimate conclusion — conscience is nothing and the market is everything and personal convictions are inconveniences to be trampled upon.
    • If, as some feminists tell us, sex work is real work then you can’t be shocked at stuff like this. If, on the other hand, prostitution is both a tragedy and a vice you can get outraged. 

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 449

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

This is volume 449, which is not a super interesting number. It has this going for it: its base 3 representation (121122) begins with the same digits as its base 7 representation (1211).

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Religious Worship Attendance in America: Evidence from Cellphone Data (Devin G. Pope, NBER): “I establish several key findings. First, 73% of people step into a religious place of worship at least once during the year on the primary day of worship (e.g. Sundays for most Christian churches). However, only 5% of Americans attend services ‘weekly’, far fewer than the ~22% who report to do so in surveys. The number of occasional vs. frequent attenders varies substantially by religion. I estimate that approximately 45M Americans attend worship services in a typical week of the year, but with large changes around Holidays (e.g. Easter).” 
    • Excerpt is from the abstract. Author is a prof of behavioral science and economics at U Chicago.
    • See also this (somewhat harsh) critique by Lyman Stone: https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/1779889740260499820 (read the whole thread for the critique)
    • Response from Devin Pope, on religious attendance (Devin Pope, Marginal Revolution): “There are definitely limitations with the cellphone data (I’ve had about 100 people tell me that I’m not doing a good job tracking Orthodox Jews!). I know that these issues exist. But survey data has its own issues. Social desirability bias and other issues could lead to widely incorrect estimates of the number of people who frequently attend services (and surveys are going to have a hard time sampling Orthodox Jews too!). Given the difficulty of measuring some of these questions, I think that a new method – even with limitations – is useful.”
    • Lyman Stone helpfully replies to Devin Pope (Twitter thread)
    • Extremely interesting throughout. If you don’t have time to dive in then just read the abstract of the initial article and the Stone’s final Twitter thread.
  2. Americans are still not worried enough about the risk of world war (Noah Smith, Substack): “So if you were living at any point in 1931 through 1940, you would already be witnessing conflicts that would eventually turn into the bloodiest, most cataclysmic war that humanity has yet known — but you might not realize it. You would be standing in the foothills of the Second World War, but unless you were able to make far-sighted predictions, you wouldn’t know what horrors lurked in the near future. In case the parallel isn’t blindingly obvious, we might be standing in the foothills of World War 3 right now. If WW3 happens, future bloggers might list the wars in Ukraine and Gaza in a timeline like the one I just gave.” 
    • This was published before Iran attacked Israel. btw.
  3. How to Stop Losing 17,500 Kidneys (Santi Ruiz, Substack): “Greg and the researchers that he worked with showed that there are 17,500 kidneys, 7,500 livers, 1,500 hearts, and 1,500 lungs that go untransplanted every year from potential American organ donors. For scale, that means the United States does not need to have a waiting list for livers, hearts, or lungs within three years, and the kidney waiting list should come way down. That data convinced not only the Obama administration, but also the Trump administration. This reform movement has now crossed three administrations, and that almost never happens.”
  4. Should We Change Species to Save Them? (Emily Anthes, New York Times): “In some ways, assisted evolution is an argument — or, perhaps, an acknowledgment — that there is no stepping back, no future in which humans do not profoundly shape the lives and fates of wild creatures. To Dr. Harley, it has become clear that preventing more extinctions will require human intervention, innovation and effort.” 
    • Including partly for the amazing header art. Unlocked.
  5. Abolish Grades (Bethany Lorden, Stanford Review): “I have earned an ‘A’ on architecture drawings which were not my most careful, on physics problem sets that I did not fully understand, on stories which were not my most creative. Something is broken in the grading system. Feedback on work ought to be in words, not letters, and it should be relative to a student’s best work, not to the performance of the class.” 
    • Bethany is a student in Chi Alpha.
  6. Mate Poaching: Social Taboo or Healthy Way to Find Love? (Kevin Bennett, Psychology Today): “Psychological research suggests that 10 to 20 percent of new relationships among heterosexual couples are formed directly from mate poaching. One study found that 10 to 15 percent of participants’ current relationships were the result of successful mate poaching. Another study surveyed undergraduate students and found that 20 percent were currently involved in a relationship that began this way.… Research suggests that mate poachers—and those most susceptible to poaching—share some characteristics. There is a link between narcissism, infidelity, uncommitted sex, and mate poaching, and these findings are not limited to modern industrialized countries.” 
    • That’s a lot of relationships begun on the shady side! A bit of advice from a longtime observer of college romances: if they cheat with you they are likely to cheat on you.
  7. Switch to Web-Based Surveys During COVID-19 Pandemic Left Out the Most Religious, Creating a False Impression of Rapid Religious Decline (Schnabel et al, Sociology of Religion):  “Although at first glance it appears that intense religion declined dramatically during the pandemic, further investigation reveals how this shift is a function of changes in how the survey was fielded rather than Americans turning away from religion during a time of crisis.… religion is more persistent than it appears, intensely religious people are less likely to agree to participate in surveys, and data collection efforts like the typical in-person GSS are invaluable for accurately estimating religion and other ideological factors in the United States associated with the likelihood of participating in surveys.” 
    • The authors are sociologists at Cornell, Harvard, and NYU. Fascinating.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Sticky Situation (Loading Artist) — there are two kinds of people 
  • A Dungeons & Dragons actual play show is going to sell out Madison Square Garden (Amanda Silberling, Tech Crunch): “Dropout’s Dungeons & Dragons actual play show, Dimension 20, is getting pretty close to selling out a 19,000-seat venue just hours after ticket sales opened to the general public. To the uninitiated, it may seem absurd to go to a massive sports arena and watch people play D&D. As one Redditor commented, ‘This boggles my mind. When I was playing D&D in the early eighties, I would have never believed that there was a future where people would watch live D&D at Madison Square Garden. It’s incomprehensible to me.’ ”

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 448

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

This is volume 448, an untouchable number. Which is an absolutely cool designation for a number to have.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Gossip is good, Stanford scientist suggests (Sarayu Pai, Stanford Daily): “Although gossiping is typically cast in a negative light, a study conducted by researchers from Stanford and the University of Maryland found that gossiping may be a beneficial practice, as long as information remains ‘reliable.’ Study co-author Michele Gelfand, who is a professor at the Graduate School of Business, estimates that people gossip an hour a day on average — defined as the ‘exchange [of] personal information about absent third parties.’ ” 
    • Recommended to me by a student, who said “these people need a dose of the Kingdom principle of the week : gossip is corrosive!” [Glen’s note — the Kingdom principle of the week is a thing we do in our Chi Alpha, and “gossip is corrosive” is one of them]
    • Indeed they do, and this is useful launching point for a brief discourse on gossip. In this study, gossip is defined as “exchange [of] personal information about absent third parties.” But that’s not what we’re condemning when we condemn gossip! If someone tells you, “wow — that Caleb guy is super charming and handsome” and you reply, “You know he’s married, right?” then you’ve done nothing wrong — that’s not the sin of gossip. But if you spread a false negative rumor about Caleb “you know he does drugs, right?”, that is the sin of gossip. This study conflates those two very different conversations.
    • The sin of gossip can be described as bearing bad news behind someone’s back with a bad heart. The bad news can be bad in the sense of being untrue or it can be bad in the sense of unnecessary and unhelpful. For more on this helpful framing, check out What Is Gossip? Exposing a Common and Dangerous Sin (Matt Mitchell, Desiring God).
    • This is a recurring pattern, by the way: some researcher wants to study something interesting but needs to operationalize a variable in some unorthodox way to make the research feasible. Then they do their research and find something that would be counterintuitive relative to the original meaning of the word they’re using (although maybe not that surprising given their operationalization of the variable), and then the media repeats it as a commentary on the actual thing — a thing which the scientists never studied. In this case, the study didn’t actually analyze the sin of gossip, but nonetheless near the end of the article we learn that “some students with previously negative views of gossip report seeing it differently in light of this study.”
  2. Why We Fast (Ross Byrd, Mere Orthodoxy): “Fasting is no magic fix. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite of a magic fix. It takes time, patience, and discipline—dare I say, suffering—to see its fruit. But the fruit is no less than the ability to see more of God. Here are three ways to understand Christian fasting: 1. Fasting makes space for God. 2. Fasting interrupts and reorients our unconscious patterns. 3. Fasting gives us eyes to see the unseen.”
    • Emphasis in original. Lots of good insights in this one.
  3. ‘Little Women’ and the Art of Breaking Grammatical Rules (John McWhorter, New York Times): “Curzan notes, for example, that the use of ‘literally’ to exaggerate is no recent anomaly but rather goes back to, for example, our ‘Little Women,’ in which Louisa May Alcott has it that at a gathering ‘the land literally flowed with milk and honey.’ The March girls, also, would have said ‘sneaked’ where, since just the 1970s, as Curzan charts, we have been increasingly likely to say ‘snuck.’ Are you a little irked by the youngs saying ‘based off of’ rather than ‘based on’? That one threw me when I started hearing my students saying it about 15 years ago; Curzan calms us down and demonstrates how ordinary and even logical it is. Curzan is also good on the use of ‘hopefully’ to mean ‘it is hoped.’ This became a punching bag only in the 1960s — until then, not even grammar scolds cared, too busy complaining that, for example, the ‘proper’ meaning of obnoxious is ‘subject to harm.’” Recommended by a student.
  4. Some more Israel/Hamas commentary 
    • Fractured Are the Peacemakers (Sophia Lee, Christianity Today): “I spent a week in Israel and the West Bank meeting Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews who are pastors, youth leaders, YMCA leaders, tour guides, lawyers, and students. Many of them aren’t professional peace activists, but all of them, from what I could tell, take seriously Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and strive to embody his proclamation that ‘blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Matt. 5:9). The problem is, I spoke to about two dozen individuals about what peacemaking means and got almost two dozen different answers.” Unlocked.
    • Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It? (John Spencer, Newsweek): “In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I’ve never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy’s civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” 
      • The author is the chair of urban war studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. Recommended by a student.
    • There Shall Be None to Make Him Afraid: American Liberty and the Jews (Mike Cosper, Acton Institute): “Historically speaking, the emergence of anti-Semitism is always a sign of something poisonous taking root in a society. It doesn’t just spell danger for Jews; it spells danger for everyone. As Bari Weiss has put it, ‘What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.’ The rise of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and half a dozen Middle Eastern states was quickly followed by other forms of violence, tyranny, and authoritarianism.” This is a long and solid article that covers much more than anti-Semitism (although that is at its heart).
  5. Schools are using research to try to improve children’s learning – but it’s not working (Sally Riordan, The Conversation): “A series of randomised controlled trials, including one looking at how to improve literacy through evidence, have suggested that schools that use methods based on research are not performing better than schools that do not.” 
    • British context, hence the spelling.
  6. The Anti-Fragile Brendan Eich (Andrew Beck, First Things): “I am not here to complain about cancel culture. Brendan Eich does not. He is too busy. He refuses to be defined by the evil done to him, or by the purported heterodoxy of his beliefs, but by the work he does and by his character, as known by those closest to him. Rather than taking to the airwaves and leaning into the role of martyr, as have so many others who have endured similar abuse, Eich never speaks publicly about the wrong done to him—not once even in private to me. Instead, he diligently pursues his vocation.”
  7. The Great Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement (David French, New York Times): “The older I get, the more I’m convinced that we simply don’t know who we are — or what we truly believe — until our values carry a cost. For more than 40 years, the Republican Party has made the case that life begins at conception. Alabama’s Supreme Court agreed. Yet the Republican Party can’t live with its own philosophy. There is no truly pro-life party in the United States.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 446

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

This is volume 446, which is equal to 92 + 102 + 112 + 122

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The War at Stanford (Theo Baker, The Atlantic): “At one point, some members of the group turned on a few Stanford employees, including another rabbi, an imam, and a chaplain, telling them, ‘We know your names and we know where you work.’ The ringleader added: ‘And we’ll soon find out where you live.’ The religious leaders formed a protective barrier in front of the Jewish students. The rabbi and the imam appeared to be crying.” 
    • Full of gripping anecdotes, most new to me. 100% worth reading.
    • A response that caught my attention: Are the Kids Alright? (Robert Farley, blog): “Israel-Palestine is to international relations what St. Patrick’s Day is to an alcoholic; amateur night, when every idiot is not only entitled to an opinion but absolutely must tell you about it in the most abrasive terms possible. But the divide between elite and non-elite campus engagement with Israel-Palestine is deeply interesting to me, and I think that it’s a divide that has largely been missed by media institutions that a) are headquartered in places like Washington, New York, and San Francisco, and b) are populated by graduates of elite colleges and universities.”
    • The author is a professor of political science (I think that’s his department — the university website is a bit confusing) at the University of Kentucky.
  2. A Christian revival is under way in Britain (Justin Brierley, The Spectator): “All that our post-Christian society has delivered so far is confusion, a mental health crisis in the young and the culture wars. It’s not surprising then that a movement of New Theists has sprung up.… As a Christian I believe things that are dead can come back to life. That’s the point of the story after all. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: ‘Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.’” 
    • The author did not choose the title of this column and stated on Twitter he does not consider what is happening a revival… yet.
  3. 101 things I would tell my self from 10 years ago (Leila Clark, blog): “10 years ago, I started my freshman year of college. This is the advice I needed to hear… I would trade half my current net worth for a world in which I had a stronger community of friends and had worked more on my own projects instead of someone else’s.” 
    • A high percentage of this advice is good.
  4. The Online Degradation of Women and Girls That We Meet With a Shrug (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times): “The greatest obstacles to regulating deepfakes, I’ve come to believe, aren’t technical or legal — although those are real — but simply our collective complacency. Society was also once complacent about domestic violence and sexual harassment. In recent decades, we’ve gained empathy for victims and built systems of accountability that, while imperfect, have fostered a more civilized society.” 
    • Unlocked
  5. The Quest for a New Vision of Sexual Morality (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “You can have a culture of hard moral constraint, a conservative order that imposes norms that intentionally limit human freedom — remain faithful to your chosen spouse, live with your given body. Or you can have the kind of freedom-maximizing culture that removes limits and strictures but creates new regrets, new kinds of suffering, new dangers for the vulnerable and weak.” 
    • Unlocked
  6. Some thoughts about relationships: 
    • Resentment Between Men and Women in the Church: 4 Observations (Samuel D. James, Substack): “…marriage creates empathy between the sexes in a way that platonic friendship or mere collegiality cannot. If this is true, in a society where fewer people are opting to get married, we should see evidence that men and women are becoming ideologically polarized and suspicious of one another. That’s what we see… there needs to be some kind of thought given to helping foster solidarity between Christian men and women that goes beyond marriage.” 
      • Recommended by a student
    • How To Choose A Romantic Partner (Rob Henderson, Substack): “You can commit a lot of blunders in your life, but if you manage to get two things right, you will maximize your chance of long-term wellbeing. Our choice of job and our choice of spouse are central to our happiness because they are where we spend most of our lives—at work and with our families. Therefore, we should devote a good deal of time concentrating on how to make the best possible decision for these two sources of potential happiness.” 
      • Advice aimed at men, but useful to ladies as well.
    • 11 Reasons Why Two Parents Are Better Than One (Aaron Renn, Substack): “There’s a massive outcome gap between children growing up in two parent vs. single parent homes. The differences are so large, and the attempts to help kids in single parent homes so limited in their impact, that if we don’t reduce the share of children in single family homes, we are not going to make a dent in many of our social problems.”
  7. Water isn’t normal (Derek Lowe, Chemistry World): “The next time you see the reflection of a white cloud in a puddle of water, one of the most familiar sights in all of human history, take a moment to realise just what a mystery you are really looking at, and how much about it we still have to understand.” 
    • The author has his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Duke.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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