Category: Links

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 99

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

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

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 98

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. Preemie Lambs Successfully Grown To Term In Artificial Womb (Jason Kottke, personal blog): what an amazing age we live in. These artificial wombs are transparent, so this fifteen second video of a lamb in one is definitely worth watching.
  2. In ‘China’s Jerusalem’, ‘anti-terror cameras’ the new cross for churches to bear (Alice Yan, South China Morning Post): “Government officials came to the churches and put up ­cameras by force. Some pastors and worshippers who didn’t agree to the move were dragged away.… Some people needed to be treated in hospital after fighting the officials.”
  3. Rod Dreher’s Monastic Vision (Joshua Rothman, New Yorker): “The most successful people nowadays are flexible and rootless; they can live anywhere and believe anything. Dreher thinks that liquid modernity is a more or less unstoppable force—in part because capitalism and technology are unstoppable. He urges Christians, therefore, to remove themselves from the currents of modernity.”
  4. The Crucible of the Application Process (Dillon Bowen, Quillette) — “This essay is about my experience with the [elite grad school] application process—specifically how I was repeatedly encouraged to alter my applications to conform with far-Left political ideology.” Recommended to me by an alumnus.
  5. A baptism, then a murder confession (The Christian Chronicle, Bobby Ross Jr): “Lucinda Wilson might have gotten away with murder. Except that she became a Christian and confessed to her crime. Now 48, Wilson has served 20-plus years of a life sentence for the capital murder of her ex-fiancé’s girlfriend, Margaret Morales.”
  6. The Survivor’s Guide To Adulthood (Wyatt Hong, Yale Daily News): “Many of you will leave college as I did, believing that you will change the world, but you will soon discover that the truth is the reverse. The world will change you. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be frightening.” Recommended by a student as “a thoughtful, well-written piece.” The author is a Stanford grad in med school at Yale. 
  7. I learned today that the National Chi Alpha Ministry Center is on Pinterest. I knew about the Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, but somehow I never expected Pinterest.

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 97

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The benefits and harms of marijuana, explained by the most thorough research review yet (German Lopez, Vox): “the bottom line is that marijuana does pose some harms — particularly for people at risk of developing mental health disorders, pregnant women, those vulnerable to respiratory problems, and anyone getting into a car. And while some of these harms may be overcome by marijuana’s benefits or curtailed by consuming pot without smoking it, the evidence shows that weed’s reputation as a safe drug is undeserved.”
  2. What do slaveholders think? (Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Aeon):  “The contemporary traffickers and slaveholders I spoke with are not motivated by a love of injustice. They are instead driven by cultural inertia, a desire for profit or, more frequently, a need for basic sustenance…. The terms used here – slavery and slaveholder – never crossed the lips, nor perhaps even the minds, of the men I spoke with.” The author is a sociologist at the University of San Diego. 
  3. The Crisis of Western Civ (David Brooks, NY Times): “These days, the whole idea of Western civ is assumed to be reactionary and oppressive. All I can say is, if you think that was reactionary and oppressive, wait until you get a load of the world that comes after it.”
  4. Charles Murray’s ‘Provocative’ Talk (Wendy M. Williams and Stephen J. Ceci, NY Times): two Cornell professors “transcribed Mr. Murray’s speech and — without indicating who wrote it — sent it to a group of 70 college professors (women and men, of different ranks, at different universities)… the 57 professors who responded to our request gave Mr. Murray’s talk an average score of 5.05, or ‘middle of the road.’” This, of course, is the speech which faced a backlash resulting in a professor needing a neck brace. Fascinating.
  5. This Is About That (Andrew Wilson, Vimeo): this 3.5 minute video starts slow but ends strong. A meditation on the relationship between marriage and the gospel. Recommended.
  6. Intersectionality Is a Political Football; Here’s Why It Doesn’t Have to Be (Chris Martin, Heterodox Academy): “Progressives have adopted an overambitious model of intersectionality in which everyone lies on axes of oppression, and I will explain this model’s three flaws. Conservatives generally believe that intersectionality is useless, but I explain how intersectional scholarship can be useful to researchers, regardless of whether they are liberal, centrist, conservative, libertarian, or eclectic.”
  7. Here’s the Million-Dollar Answer to How Persecuted Christians Persevere (Sarah Zylstra, Christianity Today): “Researchers grouped responses to persecution into three categories: survival, association, and confrontation…. ‘Evangelicals are divided between those who are willing to take up arms and those who view witness and non-retaliation as the responses to which the Bible calls Christians,’ the report stated. They tend to be more skeptical of the interreligious dialogue favored by Catholics and mainline Protestants, and more likely to pursue evangelization.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 96

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. A Face-to-Face Request Is 34 Times More Successful than an Email (Vanessa Bohns, Harvard Business Review): “you need to ask six people in person to equal the power of a 200-recipient email blast. Still, most people tend to think the email ask will be more effective.”
  2. What Would Jesus Disrupt? (Mya Frazier, Bloomberg): “As the product takes shape and Foust prepares to move from the concept phase to fundraising, a more explicitly spiritual question begins to nag at him: ‘How do you raise money like Jesus?’ Foust has attended Crossroads for five years, but his evangelical faith began when he was a child growing up in a devout household on a tree farm in Paris, a town in northeast Ohio. He’s heard from other entrepreneurs how brutal fundraising can be. You’re going to have to sell your soul, they warn. You’re going to have to lie.”
  3. Five Stages of Spiritual Awakening (Dave Ferguson, Christianity Today): Interesting article, although I dislike the labels he chose. I would term them (1) yearning for meaning, (2) experiencing regret, (3) acknowledging need, (4) perceiving Christ’s love, and (5) receiving eternal life. It’s worth asking where your friends are on this journey and engage them on that topic.
  4. Why Prison?: An Economic Critique (Peter Salib, Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law): “If our jewel thief must pay $100,000 to be optimally deterred but has only $50,000 in cash, the chosen monetary sanction must merely be capable of making him worse off by the equivalent of another $50,000. As such, this paper does not endorse any particular nonmonetary sanction. History presents a startling array of options, including: flogging, pillory, running the gauntlope, tarring and feathering, branding, and many more. Modern judges have concocted similarly creative sanctions, including: forcing criminals to publicly carry embarrassing signs, mandating that they sleep in doghouses, or requiring them to undergo unwanted haircuts. If one objects to all of these, as-yet unimagined punishments could be substituted.” This is very long. Skim the table of contents and jump to any parts you find interesting.
  5. Social ecology of similarity (Bahns, Pickett & Crandall, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations): “Dyads were significantly more similar on attitudes, beliefs, and health behaviors in the large campus than in the small colleges sample. Our findings reveal an irony—greater human diversity within an environment leads to less personal diversity within dyads.” In other words, smaller universities lead to more diverse friendships.

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 95

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. ‘You Can’t Give In’: Monty Williams On Life After Tragedy (Chris Ballard, Sports Illustrated): “He puts on a good face, but talking about what happened, as he does over the course of the next three days, often pausing for minutes at a time, remains difficult. ‘I just couldn’t understand it,’ he says. ‘And never will. But my faith in God never wavered. Just, sometimes your faith and your feelings don’t line up.’” This is the pick of the week. Very powerful. 
  2. When Character No Longer Counts (Alan Jacobs, National Affairs): “What is required of serious religious believers in a pluralistic society is the ability to code-switch: never to forget or neglect their own native religious tongue, but also never to forget that they live in a society of people for whom that language is gibberish. To speak only in the language of pragmatism is to bring nothing distinctive to the table; to speak only a private language of revelation and self-proclaimed authority is to leave the table altogether. For their own good, but also for the common good, religious believers need to be always bilingually present.” Including for the summary paragraph. That’s gold. 
  3. Counting The Cost: DR Congo Demonstrates Difficulty of Measuring Martyrdom (Sarah Zylstra, Christianity Today): “Why do calculations of Christians killed for their faith worldwide each year range from 1,000 to 100,000? The reason largely comes down to one country: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).” Many surprising pieces of information. Worthwhile. 
  4. Book Review: Seeing Like A State (Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex): “Peasants didn’t like permanent surnames. Their own system was quite reasonable for them: John the baker was John Baker, John the blacksmith was John Smith, John who lived under the hill was John Underhill, John who was really short was John Short. The same person might be John Smith and John Underhill in different contexts, where his status as a blacksmith or place of origin was more important. But the government insisted on giving everyone a single permanent name, unique for the village, and tracking who was in the same family as whom. Resistance was intense.” This is long and amazing. 
  5. China’s Success Explains Authoritarianism’s Allure (Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg View): “…if there is a powerful system on the world stage, many of us will be drawn to it and seek to emulate it, without always being conscious of the reasons for those attractions. This process is actually not so different from how neoliberalism attracted greater support during the 1990s, when it was perceived as the major victor on the world stage.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 94

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. Sorry, but if you’re a Christian, you need to go to church. Regularly. (Paul Prather, Lexington Herald-Leader): “You might see yourself as a terrific baseball pitcher. But if you only throw baseballs in your backyard at a plywood cutout, you won’t progress. You’re not even really playing baseball. To discover the full extent of your abilities, to understand the true game, you need a catcher, a coach, infielders and outfielders — and even someone standing in the batter’s box ready to swat your best fastball right back at you.”
  2. Reviewing Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option” (Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy): The Benedict Option is a much-discussed book which lays out a strategy for Christians in the modern world — deliberate withdrawal from some aspects of culture, deliberate engagement with others. This is one of the most insightful reviews I’ve read.
  3. Just Who Are These ‘People of Faith’ Anyway? (John Stackhouse, Christianity Today): “The Theravada form of Buddhism, still the dominant version of that religion in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, does not venerate a deity. The Chinese traditions of Confucianism and Daoism do not, either. Many forms of belief in the supernatural do not require faith so much as knowledge of the divine and of the correct practices to align oneself with it in order to best negotiate the world.”
  4. Can Religious Charities Take the Place of the Welfare State? (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “Keister [a professor of sociology at Duke University] has argued that religious engagement is closely associated with financial generosity—in a recent paper, for example, she found that those who attend religious services every week give nearly three times as much as those who don’t.”
  5. Read the above in conjunction with How Utah Keeps The American Dream Alive (Megan McArdle, Bloomberg View): “The vast welfare infrastructure from the Mormon Church naturally makes it easier to have smaller government. Perhaps that could be replicated by other communities. But the values of the Mormon Church may create a public that simply needs less help. That’s harder for another community to imitate. I’m not sure this key ingredient is available in a secular version; I think religion might only come in religion flavor. How the heck is some state government supposed to get people to marry, and stay married?”
  6. In Europe, cohabitation is stable…right? (Brad Wilcox and Laurie DeRose, Brookings): “It is easy to see why some conclude that marriage per se does not matter. But here’s the thing: marriage is itself strongly associated with family stability. U.S. children born to cohabiting parents are twice as likely to see their parents’ relationship end compared to children born to married parents…”
  7. Does it pay to get a double major? (Christos Makridis, Quartz): our very own Christos analyzes whether getting a techie plus a fuzzy major yields a higher salary than getting either alone.
  8. Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware (Jason Koebler, Vice): “It’s quite simple, really. John Deere sold farmers their tractors, but has used software to maintain control of every aspect of its use after the sale.”

    Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 93

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. Yes, You Can Please Your Heavenly Father (Kevin DeYoung, Gospel Coalition): “Over and over, more than a dozen times in the New Testament, we [are clearly taught that our actions can please God]. We ought to be generous. We ought to be godly. We ought to love and live a certain way because it pleases God.”
  2. Breaking Faith (Peter Beinart, The Atlantic): “As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.”
  3. Sorry, But The Irish Were Always ‘White’ (And So Were Italians, Jews, and So On): (David Bernstein, Washington Post): The author makes intuitive and compelling arguments. He is a law professor at George Mason University. 
  4. The Experience of Discrimination in Contemporary America: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample of Adults (SocArXiv): note that this has not yet undergone peer review and that the dataset has some limitations. Having said that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such research about how frequently people feel discriminated against. Table 2 on page 11 is where the most interesting information can be found. Difficult to summarize but provocative. 
  5. Related: White Evangelicals Believe They Face More Discrimination Than Muslims (Emma Green, The Atlantic): “White evangelicals perceive discrimination in America in vastly different terms than all other religious groups, including their minority peers.” 
  6. The recent nationwide threats against the Jewish community seem to have been perpetrated largely by a 19 year-old dual-citizenship American-Israeli Jew (Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post) with a small subset stemming from a reporter stalking an ex-girlfriend (Eric Levenson and AnneClaire Stapleton, CNN). A useful reminder that our assumptions are often wrong. 
  7. The Fake Kidnapping Scandal That Almost Destroyed A Megachurch Pioneer (Luke Harrington, Christ and Pop Culture): “…it turns out the culture wars weren’t invented last week. The U.S.’s religious and cultural landscape of the 1920s was rocked by no shortage of its own conflict, with factions of evangelicals, fundamentalists, mainline Christians, and secularists all vying for power, and McPherson had managed to make enemies of most of them.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 92

Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time? Luke 12:56

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. On Political Correctness (William Deresiewicz, The American Scholar): a long and thoughtful article. “Selective private colleges have become religious schools. The religion in question is not Methodism or Catholicism but an extreme version of the belief system of the liberal elite: the liberal professional, managerial, and creative classes, which provide a large majority of students enrolled at such places and an even larger majority of faculty and administrators who work at them. To attend those institutions is to be socialized, and not infrequently, indoctrinated into that religion.… I say this, by the way, as an atheist, a democratic socialist, a native northeasterner, a person who believes that colleges should not have sports teams in the first place—and in case it isn’t obvious by now, a card-carrying member of the liberal elite.”
  2. Similar: Is Intersectionality a Religion? (NY Mag, Andrew Sullivan): “It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained — and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., ‘check your privilege,’ and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. The sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.” 
  3. Consistent Vegetarianism and the Suffering of Wild Animals (Thomas Sittler-Adamczewski, Journal of Practical Ethics): argues that “…wild animals have worse lives than farmed animals, and that consistent vegetarians should therefore reduce the number of wild animals as a top priority.”
  4. What Christianity in China Is Really Like (Colin Clark, Gospel Coalition): “First and foremost, house church leaders aren’t underground because of the extent of governmental meddling, but because of the mere fact of it…. Extend all the apparent olive branches you want, but Jesus Christ is still the head of the church, not the TSPM and not the CCC.”
  5. Why the courts were wrong to rule against a florist who declined service to a gay wedding (Robert Vischer, America Magazine): “The florist, Barronelle Stutzman, had served the gay customers, Robert Ingersoll and Curt Freed, many times over a number of years, including by providing flowers for birthdays and other personal events; she objected only to providing flowers for their wedding. The court declined to recognize such a distinction, finding that a refusal to provide services for a wedding between members of the same sex amounts to discrimination based on sexual orientation.” The author is the dean of a law school and this is one of the more thoughtful and comprehensive pieces I have seen on this issue. Related: UW Madison Students On Religious Freedom (YouTube): I am skeptical of videos like this (how many people did they interview and cut out?), but it definitely reflects a tendency many college students have — they instinctively support religious freedom when it’s not for evangelicals.
  6. Dreaming of life without the GOP? Welcome to California—where things are far from perfect (Conor Friedersdorf, LA Times): “We’re a case study in what a political community looks like when Republicans wield little or no power — and an ongoing refutation of the conceit that but for the GOP, the United States would be free of dysfunction.”

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 91

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

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

Things Glen Found Amusing

Why Do You Send This Email?

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

Disclaimer

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

Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 90

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

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Story of Those Little Communion Cups, Whatever Those Are Technically Called (Luke Harrington, Christ and Pop Culture): “If you’re wondering, there’s actually never been a disease outbreak traced back to the common communion cup. Nor is it likely to occur, given the particulars of the ceremony—silver and gold don’t constitute a hospitable environment for bacteria, and neither does an alcoholic beverage. And if you come from a tradition, as I do, that believes Jesus is actually present in the wine (and the bread), it seems pertinent to point out that that guy is in the business of healing disease, not spreading it.”
  2. Chance the Rapper, Christianity, and Blackness (Ernest Ezeugo, New America): “For disenchanted Christian millennials—specifically those of color—Chance’s profound faith is a reminder that there is a place where we belong, because it was made for us, labored over for us, bled over for us, no matter what the rest of it looks like.”
  3. Black Churches Matter: Research Ties Attendance to Positive Outcomes (David Briggs, Christianity Today): “Several new studies build on past research to continue revealing how faith is associated with positive outcomes for black Americans amid the realities of discrimination and economic, political, and social inequality.”
  4. Some Groups of People Who May Not 100% Deserve Our Eternal Scorn (Scott Alexander, Slate Star Codex): this is a fun list including celebrities who speak out about politics, people who compare events to Harry Potter, and pundits who failed to predict Trump.
  5. How Pro-Life Movement Was Born A Liberal Cause (Charles Camosy, Crux):  “The controversy over abortion originated as a conflict between two different groups of liberals.  For that reason, it has not followed the political trajectory of other socially conservative movements.” The title is not a typo, by the way.
  6. The true story of Army medic Desmond Doss, the soft-spoken Christian superhero (Terry Mattingly, On Religion): “Working alone, Doss – who refused a weapon, because of his Seventh-day Adventist convictions – lowered at least 75 injured men over a 400-foot cliff during the World War II Battle of Okinawa. He collapsed several times during that night, but kept going with these words on his lips: ‘Please Lord, help me get one more.’ A Japanese soldier later testified that he aimed at Doss several times, but his rifle kept jamming when he tried to fire.”
  7. Van Jones’ Excellent Metaphors About the Dangers of Ideological Safety (Jonathan Haidt, Heterodox Academy): the link has a compelling video of Van Jones talking about how to deal with offensive words. There is a transcript, but the verbal delivery is powerful. It’s under five minutes and well worth your time. 

Things Glen Found Entertaining

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.