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
- I Helped Create the Milo Trolling Playbook. You Should Stop Playing Right Into It (Ryan Holliday, The Observer): “It was a masterful bit of trolling that admittedly felt a lot more meaningful and exciting when I was younger than it does to me today: We encouraged protests at colleges by sending outraged emails to various activist groups and clubs on campuses where the movie was being screened. We sent fake tips to Gawker, which dutifully ate them up.” Fascinating. Highly recommended.
- Meet the Pastor Who Challenged Africa’s Oldest Dictator with Surprising Success (Ann Thompson, Christianity Today): “Last summer, Mawarire led national protests against the government, including calling for everyone to stay home from work for a day; hundreds of thousands did. Mawarire was arrested in July and charged with inciting public violence. After thousands rallied to support him and a court tossed the charges, Mawarire and his family fled to America. The pastor returned to Zimbabwe alone last week.”
- Remind me what was so great about trade? (Tim Harford, Financial Times): “…there are two ways to make cheese in the UK: the obvious way, using cows, and the indirect way, by making cars and then trading the cars in exchange for cheese. The British cheese industry is, in a very real sense, directly competing with the British car industry. Protect one with a tariff, and you hurt the other.”
- The Preacher and the Sheriff (Nathaniel Rich, NY Times): “The police said that Victor White III, while detained in the back seat of a locked police car, his hands shackled behind his back, had committed suicide by shooting himself in the back with a handgun that an officer had not found during an earlier search.”
- Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All: How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots From Afar (Rukmini Callimachi, NY Times): “Investigation documents from Europe show that a growing share of attacks bear signs of contact with the Islamic State’s stronghold, even though the attacker was initially described as acting alone.”
- The Comforts of the Betsy DeVos War (Ross Douthat, NY Times): “It’s not that liberals aren’t genuinely worried about everything that makes Trumpism potentially abnormal and un-republican and authoritarian. But a more normal threat to a deep-pocketed interest group’s preferences still turned out to be a more natural rallying point than the specter of creeping Putinism.”
Why Do You Send This Email?
In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.
Disclaimer
Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it).
Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.
Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.