Category: Links

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 4

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the Charleston depart­ment:
    1. Why A Black Church? (Emma Green, The Atlantic): the last para­graph was like a punch in the gut.
    2. In this mov­ing Youtube clip, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims for­give the shoot­er in court and call upon him to repent. It sounds as though sev­er­al of them were actu­al­ly there when the shoot­ing hap­pened and inter­act­ed with the shoot­er in the hour before­hand.
    3. The Charleston Shoot­ing is the Largest Mass Shoot­ing in a House of Wor­ship Since 1991 (Sarah Pul­liam Bai­ley, Wash­ing­ton Post): this is an infor­ma­tive overview of the his­to­ry of mass vio­lence at reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions in the US. I noticed one typo in the arti­cle — it refers to 176 deaths when I am pret­ty sure it should have referred to 176 vio­lent inci­dents lead­ing to 74 deaths in 2014.
    4. Black Amer­i­cans Are Killed at 12 Times the Rate of Peo­ple in Oth­er Devel­oped Coun­tries (Nate Sil­ver, FiveThir­tyEight): this is prob­a­bly the most depress­ing thing I read on a day of read­ing depress­ing things.
    5. The sto­ry of the lady who bust­ed the shoot­er is a more encour­ag­ing one. “It was God’s way of putting her in the right place at the right time, the Gas­to­nia woman said.”
  2. From the clar­i­ty is impor­tant depart­ment: Is Mor­monism Chris­t­ian? (Roger Olson, blog): Olson, a the­olo­gian, gives a very thor­ough and help­ful answer to the ques­tion. It’s real­ly long, so if you just want the sum­ma­ry jump to the last para­graph.
  3. From the mis­un­der­stood research depart­ment: The Real Les­son of the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment (Maria Kon­niko­va, New York­er): inter­est­ing for sev­er­al rea­sons, among them the fact that we walk past the site of the exper­i­ments reg­u­lar­ly.
  4. From the sin is per­va­sive depart­ment: All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploit­ed Labor (Gillian B. White, The Atlantic): even the most con­sci­en­tious com­pa­nies are unable to keep their prod­ucts oppres­sion-free.

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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 3

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the everyone’s a crit­ic depart­ment: The Media Loves The Gates Foun­da­tion — These Experts Are More Skep­ti­cal (Juli­a­Bel­luz, Vox). This piece nev­er men­tions God, but I found it the­o­log­i­cal­ly fas­ci­nat­ing for three rea­sons:
    1. This arti­cle reminds me that no mat­ter how much good you do there will always be crit­ics. Jesus was per­fect and the world nailed him to a cross.
    2. This arti­cle reminds me that it is far eas­i­er to crit­i­cize than to accom­plish. The arti­cle left me far more impressed with the Gates than with their crit­ics. And I reflect­ed upon the fact that the crit­ics are unwit­ting­ly stor­ing up judg­ment for them­selves in heav­en where they will be mea­sured by the same stan­dards they apply to Bill and Melin­da Gates (Romans 2).
    3. But Bill and Melin­da do not get off scot-free. This arti­cle also reminds me of Isa­iah 64:6 — our right­eous deeds are like filthy rags before the Lord. These crit­i­cisms (at least those which are well-found­ed) are mere hints of the lim­i­ta­tions God sees in the right­eous deeds of Bill and Melin­da Gates. All of us need Jesus — even our most moral friends.
  2. From the respond­ing to crit­i­cisms depart­ment: On Con­ser­v­a­tive Reli­gious Activism, The Num­bers Speak For Them­selves (orig­i­nal­ly Wash­ing­ton Post, but bet­ter-for­mat­ted at RNS)  Peo­ple some­times claim that Chris­tians spend too much of their time and mon­ey fight­ing polit­i­cal bat­tles rather serv­ing the poor. This op-ed pro­vides num­bers to rebut the claim. A relat­ed arti­cle by a non-Chris­t­ian jour­nal­ist explains why many peo­ple believe the charge despite the data:  Ver­i­ly I Say Unto You: Chris­tians Care About the Poor (Megan McAr­dle, Bloomberg  View).
  3. From the self-decep­tion depart­ment: If You Use Face­book to Get Your News, Please — For the Love of Democ­ra­cy — Read This First (Cait­lyn Dewey, Wash­ing­ton Post): Nan­cy sent me this inter­est­ing arti­cle about how Facebook’s fil­ter­ing algo­rithms sub­tly rein­force our bias­es. In relat­ed news, Ezra Klein at Vox explains Why The Most Informed Vot­ers Are Often The Most Bad­ly Mis­led.
  4. From the laugh­ter is good depart­ment: Dil­bert meets an Inter­net star. The last pan­el kills me. Yesterday’s strip about brain­storm­ing was insight­ful­ly fun­ny as well.

Sug­ges­tions for a bet­ter title/frequency/best day to send the email on/articles to consider/etc are wel­come. My cur­rent plan is to send out an email with 3–5 top­ics every Fri­day.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and 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 will 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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 2

In the time of King David, the Bible says that 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.

To that end, I share articles/resources I have found help­ful recent­ly in think­ing about broad­er cul­tur­al and soci­etal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). I’m think­ing I’ll send these rough­ly once a week. May these give you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

  1. From the depress­ing depart­ment: Hot Girls Want­ed (Ken­neth More­field, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): a sober­ing review of a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary (from Sun­dance) about the “ama­teur” porn indus­try. Read it if you have a hard time explain­ing why pornog­ra­phy is a bad thing. Pre­pare to be bummed.

  2. From the faith and pol­i­tics depart­ment: Is Oba­ma Real­ly a Chris­t­ian? (David French, Nation­al Review): this is the most detailed arti­cle I have read about Pres­i­dent Obama’s faith.

  3. From the high­er edu­ca­tion depart­ment: I’m a Lib­er­al Pro­fes­sor, and My Lib­er­al Stu­dents Ter­ri­fy Me (Edward Schloss­er, Vox): the arti­cle is bet­ter than you might expect from the click­bait title. It’s a cri­tique of the cur­rent prac­tice of iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics at Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ties by some­one sym­pa­thet­ic to iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics.

  4. From the learn­ing to think clear­ly depart­ment: The Land of We All (Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire): this essay teas­es out the impli­ca­tions of this insight: “Think­ing can not be done cor­po­rate­ly. Nations and com­mit­tees can’t think. That is not only because they have no brains, but because they have no selves, no cen­ters, no souls, if you like. Mil­lions and mil­lions of per­sons may hold the same thought, or con­vic­tion or sus­pi­cion, but each and every per­son of those mil­lions must hold it all alone.” Warn­ing: the for­mat­ting is hor­rid. It is worth read­ing any­way. Either use the Read­abil­i­ty book­marklet, an app like Pock­et, or just cut and paste it into a text doc­u­ment on your com­put­er.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and 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 will 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.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 1

[this was an email I sent to the stu­dents in Chi Alpha @ Stan­ford]

In the time of King David, the Bible says that the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). That’s a wor­thy goal — to under­stand our times and know how to live wise­ly in them. We need to learn how our faith inter­acts with the world.

To that end, I’m going to try some­thing: for the next few weeks I’ll send out three to five articles/resources I have found help­ful in think­ing about nation­al, glob­al and the­o­log­i­cal issues (be sure to see the dis­claimer at the bot­tom). My hope is these read­ings nudge you into con­tin­u­ing the tra­di­tion of Issachar. If these emails are well-received then they may become an ongo­ing thing.

So here’s the first batch:

  1. The Spir­i­tu­al Shape of Polit­i­cal Ideas (Joseph Bot­tum, The Week­ly Stan­dard): many mod­ern polit­i­cal ideas are derived from Chris­t­ian the­o­log­i­cal con­cepts.

  2. What ISIS Real­ly Wants (Graeme Wood, The Atlantic): the key to under­stand­ing ISIS is under­stand­ing their faith, par­tic­u­lar­ly their escha­tol­ogy. A take­away for Chris­tians — your escha­tol­ogy mat­ters (so get it right).

  3. Evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tants Are The Biggest Win­ners When­ev­er Peo­ple Change Faiths (Leah Libresco, FiveThir­tyEight): this is the most inter­est­ing take I’ve seen on the Pew Forum study that filled the news recent­ly. If cur­rent trends con­tin­ue until they reach an equi­lib­ri­um point, then evan­gel­i­cal­ism will become the largest reli­gious iden­ti­ty in Amer­i­ca (fol­lowed by either the reli­gious­ly unaf­fil­i­at­ed or the Mor­mons depend­ing on whether fer­til­i­ty is fac­tored in).

  4. God’s For­ev­er Fam­i­ly: The Jesus Peo­ple Move­ment in Amer­i­ca (Lar­ry Eskridge, Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press): a schol­ar­ly his­to­ry of an oft-over­looked Great Awak­en­ing — the Jesus Peo­ple revival among the hip­pies. It is full of delight­ful anec­dotes, includ­ing this charmer: one cou­ple “began to talk to their friends about Jesus and even went so far as to name their dog ‘Repent’ so they could stand in the city’s parks and shout the canine’s name and their mes­sage at the top of their lungs.”  (p 148). The book is avail­able online through Stan­ford’s library sys­tem — the link will take you right there.

Sug­ges­tions for a bet­ter title / arti­cles to con­sid­er / best day to send the email on / etc. are wel­come, as is feed­back on the idea as a whole.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read stuff (and may there­fore share stuff) from all over the ide­o­log­i­cal map. I read wide­ly in part because I aspire to pass an ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and more gen­er­al­ly because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand.” I encour­age you to adopt a sim­i­lar per­spec­tive.

Also, for the first few install­ments I’ll prob­a­bly reach far­ther back than nor­mal for some arti­cles that stand out in my mem­o­ry. As time goes on I imag­ine the links will become more and more recent.