Tag: suicide

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 473



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 473, the largest known number whose square (223729) uses different digits than when it is raised to the 4th power (50054665441).

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Evangelistic Shift (Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy): “So what accounts for this shift and how should Christians respond? The answer to the first question might be surprisingly simple: The shift dates back to the growing awareness, acceptance, and promotion of transgender sexual identities in mainstream American culture. This shift, dating to the mid 2010s and probably peaking in the early 2020s, did two things that fundamentally changed the evangelistic landscape for Christians in America.”
  2. Willful ignorance of the male suicide crisis (Richard V. Reeves, Substack): “It’s essentially impossible to come away from this [New Yorker] essay without a strong sense that the teen suicide crisis is, in fact, a teen girl suicide crisis. That is absolutely false. In fact, for every five teenagers dying from suicide, four are likely to be boys.”
  3. Is Evangelicalism Really Protestant? (Aaron Renn, Substack): “Every time I read a book that describes the religious history of America that talks about the nature of Protestantism in the country, it strikes me that the Protestantism of the American past is alien to today’s evangelicalism. They are different enough to raise the question as to whether or not American evangelicalism is actually Protestant in important ways.… All is not well for American Christianity to say the least. It’s easy to point at trends in the world to explain this, but given the manifest and widely publicized problems within evangelicalism, I would submit that at least as much time should go into introspection and internal reform.”
  4. Yes, Third-Trimester Abortions Are Happening in America (Emma Camp, The Atlantic): “…Colorado, which is home to clinics that perform third-trimester abortions, recorded 137 third-trimester abortions in 2023. That’s only one state—eight other states, plus Washington, D.C., have no restrictions on third-trimester abortions. Just a few minutes from my office building in D.C., a clinic offers abortions up to nearly 32 weeks. In nearby Bethesda, Maryland, a clinic performs abortions up to 35 weeks’ gestation.… Americans are broadly uncomfortable with third-trimester abortions. A 2023 Gallup poll found that although more than two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester, just 22 percent think it should be legal in the third. And a 2021 Associated Press poll found that just 8 percent of respondents believe that third-trimester abortions should be legal in all cases.”
  5. A Defense of Legacy Admissions, the Surprising Engine of Meritocracy (Teddy Ganea, Stanford Review): “The purpose of college admissions isn’t to create a new elite from scratch. It’s to meld meritorious non-elites with the existing elite, to incorporate fresh talent and ideas into the highest echelons of power. It should be a win-win-win: established elites benefit from new merit, new merit benefits from elite connections and resources, and society benefits from a more meritocratic elite. Legacy admissions is a prerequisite for this mission statement, because you can’t meld together two groups if one of them is missing.… Critics of legacy admissions ignore the key reality of human history: that the existing elite is almost always deeply entrenched, and breaking into it requires more than just individual talent — it requires access. And this is where legacy admissions play their most crucial role: by enabling meritorious non-elites to mix with the existing elite, they open up the real opportunity for upward mobility.” 
    • Well-argued and provocative. My favorite kind of article!
  6. 55/45 is a really close race (Nate Silver, Substack): “I’ve never seen an election in which the forecast spent more time in the vicinity of 50/50, and I probably never will… on average, since our forecast relaunch on July 30, Harris has won 49.4 percent of simulations, and Trump has won 50.2 percent. (These don’t quite add up to 100 because of the slim possibility of a 269–269 Electoral College tie.) People understand intuitively that a 50/50 or 49/51 forecast is a toss-up. If the forecast is 55/45 in some direction instead, however, confusion can abound — even though this isn’t any different from 50/50 for most practical purposes. Some of the problem is that people can confuse this forecast for a prediction of vote share: if Harris were to win 55 percent of the vote and Trump 45 percent, that would be the biggest landslide in an American election since Ronald Reagan in 1984. But that’s not what this forecast is saying. Rather, it’s that Harris will win the Electoral College about 11 times out of 20 and Trump will win it 9 times out of 20: still basically a toss-up, just with the coin weighted ever so slightly in Harris’s favor.”
  7. Don’t Vote Like Your Life Depended on It (Chris Stirewalt, The Dispatch): “Politicians and media hype merchants tell us every cycle that this is the most important election in history, but the truth is that in a nation with stable system of elections held in a free, fair manner and abundant constitutional protections for political minorities, the knowledge that no election is the final word helps us to live in relative harmony.… It’s not the end of anything if the party opposite your own wins an election, just the continuation of a 235-year long argument that, Lord willing, will go on for another 235.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Doctor admits wearing disguise to poison mom’s partner with fake covid shot (Leo Sands, Washington Post): “A British doctor has been found guilty of attempting to kill his mother’s longtime partner by disguising himself as a nurse and injecting his elderly victim with a flesh-eating toxic substance while pretending to administer a routine coronavirus vaccination.” 
    • I do not mean to suggest that attempted murder is less serious than the sorts of things included above — but I do mean to suggest this is a story you will read because it is wild more than because it has anything to do with your life.
  • The ‘Goth’ Volleyball Player Was Actually Toning Things Down (Callie Holtermann, New York Times): “I was in a film study meeting with my whole team, and I was telling one of my teammates that I was so confused why my Instagram was blowing up. And Allison [Voigt, her team’s head coach] turned to me and showed me Twitter, and was like, ‘You’re going viral. You have two million views right now.’ I was just in shock. I didn’t know what to do or what was going to happen from this.”

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 407

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 407, which is the sum of the cubes of its digits: 43 + 03 + 73

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Is Religion Good for Your Health? (David DeSteno, Wall Street Journal): “Ongoing surveys like these, as well as more targeted studies, show a strong link between religion and better physical and mental health. Of course, this doesn’t mean that religion should be prescribed as a medicine, either in addition to or in place of other established treatments. The choice to be spiritually active is a personal one, and religion is only one of many factors that affect health. Nonetheless, it’s time for health sciences to take religion seriously and consider what it offers the body and mind.” 
    • The author is a psych prof at Northeastern. In this essay he alludes to Tyler VanderWeele’s research which I have spotlighted on many occasions.
  2. Richard Dawkins’ Ex-Right-Hand Man Comes to Christ! (Living Waters, YouTube): fifty-five minutes long (nearly an hour!). Recommended by a student. The testimony itself kicks in at 37 minutes in.
  3. Trump’s Justices Didn’t Doom Affirmative Action. Demography Did. (Christopher Caldwell, New York Times): “The arrival of large numbers of immigrants over the past half-century has upset the logic of affirmative action in several ways. For one thing, white Americans no longer dominate the educational system. (They make up only 22 percent of the Stanford class of 2026, for instance.) Early on, affirmative action was also extended to Latinos, whose numbers continue to grow. In addition, African and Caribbean immigrants and their children now account for more than 40 percent of the Black enrollment in the Ivy League, which risks crowding out the people that affirmative action was originally intended to help.” 
    • Paywall is unlocked.
  4. Should Women Preach? Huge Majorities of Evangelical Think They Should (Ryan Burge, Substack): “I don’t know how many ways I can show this: the support for women preaching on Sunday morning from behind the pulpit is strong among evangelicals. Even among those who say that the Bible is literally true and attend church every week, 74% are in favor of women preaching.”
    • Emphasis in original. 
  5. Universities Shouldn’t Be Ideological Churches (Robert P. George, The Atlantic): “If academic units are permitted to make statements on political issues, then the following will be the case: When considering a job or tenure candidate, voting faculty members will anticipate that he or she, if appointed, will vote on future political statements. So they will perfectly reasonably want to know, and will take into account, the candidate’s ideological leanings and political views and affiliations in deciding whether to support or oppose the appointment.… After all, voting on political statements—if departments were to be authorized to do so and chose to act on that authorization—would be one of the things a faculty member is, as a practical matter, hired to do.” 
    • Robbie George is a gem.
    • I would post more content from The Atlantic but I don’t have a subscription and their paywall is pretty limiting.
  6. How Assisted Suicide Destroys the Loved Ones Left Behind (Jonathon Van Maren, First Things): “The simple, central argument of the suicide activists is that the right to bodily autonomy includes the right to suicide, and that legalization is necessary in order to reduce suffering in society. The reality we see unfolding tells a very different story. Far from reducing suffering, assisted suicide has become the catalyst for spreading it. In many if not most cases, a death by lethal injection transfers temporal suffering to heartbroken loved ones who struggle to process what has taken place.”
  7. The illusion of moral decline (Adam Mastroianni, Substack): “…two well-known psychological phenomena can combine to produce an illusion of moral decline.… Biased exposure means that things always look outrageous: murder and arson and fraud, oh my! Biased memory means the outrages of yesterday don’t seem so outrageous today. When things always look bad today but brighter yesterday, congratulations pal, you got yourself an illusion of moral decline. We call this mechanism BEAM (Biased Exposure and Memory), and it fits with some of our more surprising results.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have What Christian Citizens Owe Government Leaders (George P. Wood, Influence Magazine): “In this new year, with a new presidential administration, let us renew our commitment to praying for our government officials, to sharing the gospel with them, to obeying the law and respecting the lawgivers, and to holding them accountable while giving them our good example! These are the basic duties of Christian citizenship.” This is an excellent summary. Disclaimer: the author is an acquaintance of mine. From volume 285.

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 178

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. No — really. I mean them. Also, I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Cultural winsomeness will not be enough for Christians (Andrew T Walker, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission): “Chow is the very definition of class, dignity and civility. She’s a model for what faithful Christian discipleship looks like in the public square. There is no foaming-at-the-mouth hatred for anyone. She loves everyone; she just did not want to violate her conscience. What’s the lesson here? There are many. But to focus on just one, this story is a reminder that no amount of cultural sophistication or intelligence will absolve the Christian from being seen as a backward-thinking bigot.” This is correct. 
    • Related: An interview with Isabella Chow (Allie Stuckey, Twitter) — this is a 4 minute video.
    • Kind of related: The State of Hate (David Montgomery, Washington Post): “In thinking about my interview, I was struck by just how little he had disputed the SPLC’s claims about the frankly disquieting positions he has taken. To some extent, it was similar to my experience at the FRC and ADF. They simply saw those positions as admirable, or at the very least defensible, expressions of truth — whereas, to the SPLC, they were expressions of hate.”
    • Vaguely related: David French on the price of public engagement (Twitter)
  2. What Is It Like to Be a Man? (Phil Christman, The Hedgehog Review): “I live out my masculinity most often as a perverse avoidance of comfort: the refusal of good clothes, moisturizer, painkillers; hard physical training, pursued for its own sake and not because I enjoy it; a sense that there is a set amount of physical pain or self-imposed discipline that I owe the universe.” Very well-written. Everyone will likely find parts they resonate with and parts they reject. The author is a lecturer at the University of Michigan and based on his CV seems to be a fairly devoted Episcopalian.
  3. Ask and You Shall Evangelize (Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Gospel Coalition): “‘Modern selves are so internal,’ Keller said. ‘In the old days if you were convinced of the truth, you changed yourself. Now we adopt the truth as accessories that fit in with who we want to be.’” A good article on the nature of effective witness in contemporary Western society.
  4. Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? (Kate Julian, The Atlantic): “I mentioned to several of the people I interviewed for this piece that I’d met my husband in an elevator, in 2001. (We worked on different floors of the same institution, and over the months that followed struck up many more conversations—in the elevator, in the break room, on the walk to the subway.) I was fascinated by the extent to which this prompted other women to sigh and say that they’d just love to meet someone that way. And yet quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. ‘Creeper! Get away from me,’ one woman imagined thinking.” The article is vulgar in places and premised on flawed assumptions… and still manages to be fascinating and insightful. 
    • Related: How the GOP Gave Up on Porn (Tim Alberta, Politico): “We know that the ubiquity of porn is a problem: Even as experts debate the science of addiction and the link between consumption and destructive behavior, there is surefire sociological evidence of its exacerbating influence on those most susceptible—people predisposed to violence, for instance, or misogyny or child abuse. There is also consensus that it has, in plenty of cases, contributed to abusive relationships and the fracturing of families. And that’s just where adults are concerned.”
  5. The Best Way To Save People From Suicide (Jason Cherkis, Huffington Post Highline): “Motto didn’t take long to write the first letter a patient would receive. He knew what he wanted to say, hitting upon two sentences—37 words—that felt just right: ‘It has been some time since you were here at the hospital, and we hope things are going well for you. If you wish to drop us a note we would be glad to hear from you.’” This is an engrossing article. Recommended.
  6. Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Advancement in Political Science (Amy Catalinac, PDF hosted at Harvard): “Of the political scientists of my generation I know well, successful ones do all of these things automatically, and those who have been less successful do many fewer of them.” Very straight talk on how to get a tenure-track job. From my outside vantage point, this seems like excellent advice for social scientists of either gender.
  7. The dramatic implosion of ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ is a lesson — and a warning (Christine Emba, Washington Post): “The next time we’re tempted toward too-formulaic thinking, we’ll know to take it with a grain of salt. After all, life is rarely so pure.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have an eye-opening (and dismaying) read: What The Media Gets Wrong About Israel (Mattie Friedman, The Atlantic). (first shared back in volume 5): “one of the most important aspects of the media-saturated conflict between Jews and Arabs is also the least covered: the press itself. The Western press has become less an observer of this conflict than an actor in it, a role with consequences for the millions of people trying to comprehend current events, including policymakers who depend on journalistic accounts to understand a region where they consistently seek, and fail, to productively intervene.”

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.