Worth Reading - 2/5

in
“The Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, made a number of very good points about the moral and spiritual dangers of consumerism in a recent talk. And from a certain perspective he’s right when he says that consumer society is a “mechanism for distributing unhappiness.” As he says, “When money rules, we remember the price of things and forget the value of things.” Sentamu is on less sure ground in his assertion that “The whole of consumer society is based on stimulating demand to generate expenditure to produce economic growth.”

Economist George Riesman observes that Adam Smith and other 19th century British economists see the basis both of “economic activity and economic theory in the fact that man’s life and well-being depend on the production of wealth.” He goes on to compare this view, unfavorably, with Mercantilism which, thanks to “the influence of Lord Keynes,” has come to dominate how many people, including many Christians, think spontaneously about our economic not in terms of “the production of wealth, but the production of consumption.””

2. My article on the difference between markets and consumerism at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics:

“In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ urges the crowd to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) Again, the message is not the renunciation of the material world, but pursuit of God in all of life.

Greed is a pursuit of personal gain that neglects the common good and places ultimate value on the material prosperity. It results in serving money as a master and excessively valuing possessions on earth, which Christ cautions against (Matthew 6:19–24).Greed and contentment cannot coexist.”
“According to the court opinion, Alyce Conlon worked at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (IVCF) in Michigan as a spiritual director, involved in providing religious counsel and prayer. She informed IVCF that she was contemplating divorce, at which point IVCF put her on paid—and later unpaid—leave. Part of IVCF’s employment policy is that “[w]here there are significant marital issues, [IVCF] encourages employees to seek appropriate help to move towards reconciliation” and IVCF reserves the right “to consider the impact of any separation/divorce on colleagues, students, faculty, and donors. ”

4. A Parable for the unemployed and underemployed:

“The theme of work recurs and reverberates throughout the Christian scriptures. We see it from the very beginning in Genesis 1, where human beings are created in God’s image and blessed with the call: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” The call to work appears again in a more specific form with the creation account of Adam and Eve, in which Adam is “placed in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” and Eve is created to be Adam’s co-laborer (Ge. 2:15, 18). The import of these early accounts for our understanding of work is of foundational import: work is not a result of the Fall into sin, but an aspect of God’s created purposes for human beings.”

Worth Reading - 2/4

in
“For me, it’s when I cry.

When I start to tear up, I know the moment I’m in with one of my children is hugely important in their theological education. This is because I am most likely to shed tears in three different situations: when they’ve sinned, I’ve sinned, or we’re facing a tragedy.

It is in those three types of moments that you and I need to be most mindful of the theology we are teaching our children, be it intentional or not. As I’ve said before, I think we make the theological education of our kids harder than it needs to be, but that does not negate the importance of it, especially in these pivotal moments.

The three most important times to teach theology to your kids is when they mess up, when you mess up, and when the world is messed up.”

2. The problem of turning inward. A look at why Dutch Reformed Christianity hasn't grown, despite a mandate to take the gospel to "every square inch"

“A religious community focused only on its own survival in a hostile environment may already have lost the battle, and this is where the efforts of Kuyper’s followers perhaps fell short. If we genuinely believe that the redemptive story contained in the Bible is not just our story but the world’s story, then we have reason, not to keep it to ourselves, but to proclaim that news with urgency and enthusiasm and to live accordingly. A political ceasefire may serve the proximate good of intercommunal peace, but it can never be a substitute for the biblical command to preach the Gospel to the world, whose salvation ultimately depends on it. Different confessional groups may agree to disagree for the present, but the followers of Jesus Christ must manifest a confidence that the truth that sets us free is everyone’s truth, and not just a subjective truth peculiar to our own community. We should, in short, not be content to turn inward defensively but ought always to reach out to the larger world. If we lose confidence in the transforming power of the Gospel, we run the risk of losing ground in a conflict we may forget is still being waged, even under formal conditions of a political ceasefire.”

3. An article from the Economist on why sometimes sports teams have perverse incentives to lose:

“DANNY BLANCHFLOWER, the eloquent captain of the all-conquering Tottenham Hotspur side of 1961, famously remarked that “the great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory.” He was probably wrong: at least when it comes to the boardroom, the game is first and last about money.”

4. Voices from the left side of American politics often complain about "Big Oil" and other political interests contributing to political causes. Notably, this is only when the contributions are not in their favor. There is some evidence that outside interests are playing into the political left's war on fossil fuels:

“The Environmental Policy Alliance, a Washington-based group that researches funding and agendas of environmental activist groups, reports that “one of the founders of Marcuard is also the chair of Russian-owned giant Rosneft.” Not only is Rosneft a “giant,” it also is the world’s largest oil company. Rosneft, readers will recall, benefited greatly from the Russian government’s auctioning of the privately owned Yukos oil company after Yukos’ billionaire owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested and placed in a Russian prison for 10 years. The chairman of Rosneft’s audit committee is Hans Jorg Rudloff, the aforementioned founder of Marcuard who also serves as its director and president. Additionally, Marcuard’s website lists Hoskins as a director and vice president.”

5. More money for public education is no more than part of the solution. In fact, it may not be the biggest part of the solution.

Worth Reading - 2/3

in

1. Can students have too much tech? There appears to be a negative correlation between the availability of technology to lower income students and their success rates:

“More technology in the classroom has long been a policy-making panacea. But mounting evidence shows that showering students, especially those from struggling families, with networked devices will not shrink the class divide in education. If anything, it will widen it.

In the early 2000s, the Duke University economists Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd tracked the academic progress of nearly one million disadvantaged middle-school students against the dates they were given networked computers. The researchers assessed the students’ math and reading skills annually for five years, and recorded how they spent their time. The news was not good.”

2. Teaching in college has become wild and woolly as only challenging previously held positions seems to be acceptable:

“When I was in Wichita the other weekend, I gave my talk about how Dante saved my life, and then took questions from the audience. A young woman who looked like an older undergraduate, or perhaps a young graduate student, asked me why I trusted anything Dante said, since he used his poem to get revenge, of a sort, on the people who had wronged him in life. She called Dante a “sociopath.”

I didn’t understand her question. It seemed so … ridiculous that I didn’t know how to answer it. I had just spent an hour talking about the spiritual grandeur and moral depth of the Commedia, and how it transformed my life, and she wanted to know how I could take any of that seriously because Dante was cross with the people who exiled him. Where do you even begin with that?”

3. The issue of pollution is still with the developing world, and there is little being done about it:

“This year, industrialized countries will spend $10.4 billion helping poor countries cut carbon emissions and brace for the impact of climate change. Meanwhile, the world shells out tens of billions a year combating infectious diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis,spending which continues to rise.

What hardly anyone’s spending on is pollution—even though it’s the most lethal force on the planet, killing nearly 8.9 million people in 2012, the last year for which there was data.”
“I didn’t hear the phrase “human trafficking” until well into my 20s. (I’m now in my mid-30s.) Initially, I brushed it off because I could not bear to carry in my mind the reality of such atrocities. But awareness is the most important step to engagement, and it’s this first step where many of us get stuck.

The words of Dr. Diane Langberg, member of Biblical Theological Seminary’s Global Trauma Recovery Institute, are instructive here: “The things we cannot bear to hear about are the atrocities that he/she has had to live through.”

When this sinks in, we have no choice but to repent of our passivity and beg God for the strength to engage in what is close to his heart. Often the next question becomes, where do I begin? ”

5. Term of respect or sexist hegemony? CUNY bans the use of titles because they infer gender:

““Mr.,” “Mrs.” and “Ms.” are being shown the door at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

In a new policy that has sparked debate among academics, school staffers have been advised to refrain from using gendered salutations in correspondence with students—and instead use a student’s full name, according to an internal memo sent out earlier this month.

The directive pertains specifically to administrators’ written interactions with students and prospective students, said Tanya Domi, a school spokeswoman. But the memo says the policy should be “interpreted as broadly as possible” and was sent to all faculty at the Graduate Center.”

Worth Reading - 2/2

in

1. At First Things last week, John Murdock examines the link between misanthropic beliefs and some forms of environmentalism:

“As I was rallying for life with several thousand other Texans at our state capitol, a few dozen pro-choicers insisted on parading through with “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology” banners while screaming “Keep Your Rosaries, Off our Ovaries!” That’s pretty standard irreligious stuff, but at the West Cost March for Life, marchers were subjected to a chant with a different wrinkle: “Save the Earth, Don’t Give Birth!” It’s a particularly unfortunate slogan, for it risks obscuring the connections between welcoming the unborn and caring for creation—connections long noted by heroes of the pro-life movement and well worth remembering today.”

2. A modest proposal that would allow conservatives to steal the march on maternity leave from fiscal liberals:

“You will almost always hear someone intone that America is the only advanced country that doesn’t “have” maternity leave, when, in fact, that’s not true: many companies offer paid maternity leave. To conservatives it is frustrating — and even scary — when progressives do not seem to grasp the difference between something existing and something being made mandatory.

The main problem with the idea of mandatory paid maternity leave is basic economics: Maternity leave of any kind is basically a tax on hiring women, paid leave even more so. And more generally, all labor regulations make hiring people more expensive, depressing employment, as is evident in my home country of France.”

3. The Wall Street Journal shares an opinion about what to do about climate change. The best way to reduce impact, they say, is to decrease poverty:

“In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. Some indicators are worse, but some are better. That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or not a problem. It definitely is. But the narrative that the world’s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpful alarmism, which prevents us from focusing on smart solutions.

A well-meaning environmentalist might argue that, because climate change is a reality, why not ramp up the rhetoric and focus on the bad news to make sure the public understands its importance. But isn’t that what has been done for the past 20 years? The public has been bombarded with dramatic headlines and apocalyptic photos of climate change and its consequences. Yet despite endless successions of climate summits, carbon emissions continue to rise, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, China and many African nations.

Alarmism has encouraged the pursuit of a one-sided climate policy of trying to cut carbon emissions by subsidizing wind farms and solar panels. Yet today, according to the International Energy Agency, only about 0.4% of global energy consumption comes from solar photovoltaics and windmills. And even with exceptionally optimistic assumptions about future deployment of wind and solar, the IEA expects that these energy forms will provide a minuscule 2.2% of the world’s energy by 2040.”

4. An old blog from Carl Trueman, discussing the trouble with the internet and the democratization of knowledge:

“This is where the democratization of knowledge which the web has fuelled is so damaging. Now anybody can spout on anything and find an audience, no matter how hateful or inept or ignorant they are. After all, cyberpsace dissolves the difference between a large, credible denomination, say The Presbyterian Church in America, and some survivalist nutcase out west who gathers with his wife and kids every Sunday and has a webpage entitled `The Presbyterian Church in America (Reconstituted).’ In webworld, both apparently have an equally legitimate existence and an equally legitimate right to be heard. On a more prosaic, and less harmful level, webpages and blogs allow any Tom, Dick or Harriet, regardless of qualification, to hold forth on just about anything. And this is where it all gets so incredibly messy and even, in the technical sense, deconstructive.”

5. A thought-provoking book review from Trevin Wax dating to October 2009, which discusses how the German people could have supported the horrors of the holocaust:

“The Enlightenment myth is dying a painfully slow death, painful because it is taking so long for people to figure out that it is a sham. The idea that humans are progressing in a continually upward ladder of freedom and power marches on in the 21st century, much like it did at the beginning of the 20th.

Two world wars and the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians have still not eradicated the Enlightenment myth. We continue to believe that now, at the dawn of the 21st century, civilized people are incapable of the atrocities committed during World War II.

But we are wrong. We deceive ourselves.”

Worth Reading - 1/30

in
“I’ve messed up at work plenty of times and have had to pay a price to make things right. I’ve had to make amends with coworkers, call customers, or stay late at night to fix my errors.

No one, however, has had to pay the price quite like Washington, D.C. meteorologist, Tucker Barnes. The WTTG-TV weather man predicted a monster spring storm would hit the capital. Instead, the area just got just a dusting of snow and rain.

Barnes’ punishment was played out on live TV the next day, as he was forced to take a “timeout” in the corner of the studio. “Finally, someone takes responsibility for their actions,” boomed the voiceover. The hilarious stunt was further enhanced by Barnes’ calls from the corner. “I don’t know why you guys have to do this to me,” he said. And, “How long do I have to stay here?”

You might not have to sit in a corner, but the results of your mistakes are often no less publicly humiliating. Loss of position, pay, or prominence are all common results of getting it wrong. Paying a price for mistakes is a long-standing principle in the workplace.”

2. The challenge of work-life balance from Joseph Sunde:

“So let us be wary of over-working, yes, but let us be just as wary of cramping the scope of our service with arbitrary divides and misaligned attitudes. This will require hard work and careful discernment, but it will also demand an economic imagination not limited by the various legalisms, expectations, and entitlements now promoted by law, culture, and the raw forces of individualism.

Let us pursue “balance,” yes, but one born first and foremost by obedience to God and submission to the profound mystery of his call over our lives.”

3. Joe Carter from the Acton Institue shares some thoughts and a video that question whether some slave redemption programs are effective:

4. Over at The Gospel Coalition, Richard Mouw considers whether government is a result of the fall:

“The Kuyperian insistence that the political sphere was a part of the creational design is especially interesting in this regard. Like any Calvinist, Kuyper insisted that under sinful conditions governments have a God-ordained ministry of the sword. In a fallen world, political authority has a remedial function. For one thing, it holds our sinful impulses in check with the threat of punishment. I might be inclined to drive ten miles per hour over the speed limit, but the awareness that I might have to pay a fine if caught by a patrol car keeps me in line.

But government also exercises the ministry of the sword. It doesn’t just threaten punishment—sometimes it actually punishes. The police and military arms of the state are empowered to apprehend criminals and administer justice by the use of force. Thus the apostle’s admonition: “If you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4). ”

5. My latest post at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics about bringing back rest and recreation in our theology of work:

“We can rest from our work because we know that God will meet all of our needs, and that a pattern of rest is woven into the fabric of the created order.

Confidence in God’s providence should encourage us to rest and to enjoy our recreation for the glory of God. It is this assurance in God’s goodness that allows us to set boundaries around our work, so that we do it for the glory of God, but we don’t do it restlessly as if everything depends on us.

Our faith in God’s sustenance of our well-being permits us to restfully play to the glory of God, just as we can work to the glory of God.”

Worth Reading - 1/29

in

1. Richard Mouw discusses the importance of grace in public debate and relates the tragedy of Christians failing to be gracious:

“The real issue for me has to do with the proper weapons for intellectual warfare. As a participant in many dialogues—ecumenical and interfaith—I have often encountered criticisms from fellow evangelicals who tell me that we do not have the leisure for the “niceties” of polite discussion with people with whom we disagree. Not infrequently I have been told that we have to get on with the urgent “battle for the truth.” What I find ironic about those preachments is that if we are genuinely contending for the truth, then we must pay careful attention to whether we are being truthful in our characterizations of people with whom we disagree. It seems odd to be willing to distort the truth out of a concern to score points in a contest for truthfulness!”

2. Studies continue to reinforce the significance of reading to children of all ages for future reading skills:

“‘A lot of parents assume that once kids begin to read independently, that now that is the best thing for them to do,’ said Maggie McGuire, the vice president for a website for parents operated by Scholastic.

But reading aloud through elementary school seemed to be connected to a love of reading generally. According to the report, 41 percent of frequent readers ages 6 to 10 were read aloud to at home, while only 13 percent of infrequent readers were being read to.”
“No, if we are earnest about setting students up for success, we should focus on reforming K-12 education, returning the responsibility of funding and management wholly to the state and local governments, empowering communities to offer better, more efficient education and to rise to higher standards, to ensure their children will graduate with at least the basic skills they need to get a good job and support themselves.

They say the best things in life are free; but this isn’t true. The best things, the most valuable things, are the ones you work and pay for on your own. Free community college will rob future generations of not just a quality education, but the underrated yet lasting satisfaction of earning it themselves.”
“Ending extreme poverty by 2030 is the BHAG – the big, hairy audacious goal – of our generation. While skepticism abounds, momentum is on our side, with poverty rates falling in every region of world.

Unfortunately, these trends still have little to no impact on the lives of a critical and chronically marginalized subset of the extreme poor around the world, those living on less than 60 to 70 cents per day. At BRAC, where I work, we call this subset the “ultra-poor.” Microfinance and other market-based interventions don’t generally reach them. Predominantly women, they face chronic food insecurity, malnutrition, gender discrimination and often abuse. They also bear the brunt of climate change— especially in rural areas where inclement weather and the increasing frequency of storms can hurt agricultural yields and contribute to malnutrition — not to mention countless other external challenges.”

5. Why do we tolerate the SAT and ACT? There is growing opposition to these exams as college entrance requirements:

“I don’t need more reasons to loathe the SAT and the ACT, America’s sorry excuses for college entrance exams. They are scary, narrow time-wasters. But thanks to Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, I now know those tests are expressly designed to keep every bit of wonder, humor, passion and religion out of the learning process.”

Worth Reading -1/28

in

1. I am the chief of sinners in this regard, but there is evidence that productivity at work is actually increased when people take vacations:

“If you’re thinking about workplace productivity, vacations and naps probably don’t come to mind. In fact, they may seem to be the very definition of “counterproductive.”

But research shows that taking a break from work—whether it’s a noontime snooze or a week or two off—makes you more refreshed and productive when you come back.

The problem is getting Americans to believe it.”

2. Your expectations as to what you will be expected to remember strongly impact your ability to remember, according to a recent study:

“We found that in some cases, people have trouble remembering even very simple pieces of information when they do not expect to have to remember them,” said Brad Wyble, assistant professor of psychology at Penn State.”

3. If you didn't see it on Monday, consider taking a look at my post on the concerns Christians should consider when using Social Media:

“One of the main limitations of electronic communication is the lack of tone. This means that e-mails between people who are generally unfamiliar with each other have a strong potential to be misread and misinterpreted.

It is no mystery that losing the facial expressions, body language that you get with a face to face conversation. Even the cue of a tone of voice is missing from electronic communication. These make communicating electronically a perpetual danger.”

4. An interesting article (with lots of pictures) about National Geographic's continued efforts in cartography:

5. A video of a lecture discussing C.S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism. It is long, but from what I've watched so far, well worth the time to finish:

H/T @joecarter and @ActonInstitute

Worth Reading - 1/27

in

1. How hard is it not to tell a lie? Here is an account of someone who stopped telling all lies, even little white ones. This is worth reading:

“I didn’t realize how often I lied until I stopped lying completely.

It wasn’t an intentional decision. Two summers ago I did my first ten-day silent meditation retreat, and we were required to sign five vows to join the program, including a vow of honesty. I didn’t know this until I arrived. But when you’re about to begin ten days in silence, signing your name on a vow not to lie does not feel like a bold step. At the end of the retreat, however, we were told the vows, which also include no killing and no stealing, now apply to the rest of our lives.

I’ve always been a literal person, often to a fault. I have the opposite curse of a flaky person – if I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it, even if it no longer serves my interests. Having learned that I just agreed not to lie for the rest of my life, I decided to give it a try.”

2. There is a close tie between human trafficking an online pornography usage. Here is a brief video that highlights the link and encourages people not to use internet porn:

3. A long-ish piece, but an interesting perspective on the benefits of working in an office. It may be there is a future for traditional employment patterns and office work:

“For decades now, the office has suffered a lousy reputation. It’s a cubicled Hades of demoralized proletarians; it’s a glassed-in pasture of innocent cows that at any moment could get carted off to the abattoir. We saw this dim view played out over and over again in the pop culture of the last half of the 20th century, whether in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit or “Dilbert” cartoons or Office Space, the cult film from 1999 that culminated in Ron Livingston taking a baseball bat to a fax machine. (And in this century, of course, we have Dwight Schrute’s stapler entombed in a Jell-O mold.) Saval chronicles these visions and dozens more in Cubed, ultimately implying there’s an irresolvable tension between white-collar workers and management: You may love your work, but the company you work for will never love you back; your office may be designed for maximal autonomy and self-determination, but you are not, in the end, autonomous and self-determining. Offices are factories in drag, their indifference to your life reflected in their most basic unit of design, the cube. Even if management is experimenting with the latest design fads (volleyball pits between desks! Workbenches! No assigned workstations at all!), its efforts will inevitably regress back to the cube. No matter how much lipstick you put on it, the cubicle, with its burlapped walls and push-pinned art, will inevitably be the office pig.”
“As a historian, I appreciate the sympathetic, but not hagiographical portrayal of King. “Selma” depicts King as a man driven by faith, but struggling with personal doubts. He is a man whose life was saturated with the biblical worldview, but was also marred by moral failure. In both of these respects, he was not unlike many biblical figures such as Moses, Abraham, David, and Paul. Furthermore, the movie helpfully shows that King was not a solitary prophet; others surrounded him and played crucial, if lesser-known roles in the movement. Coretta King, Ralph David Abernathy, and especially John Lewis receive well-deserved attention in this movie.

I also appreciate that the movie does not depict a uniform Civil Rights Movement. As Walter pointed out in his earlier review, there was tension and competition between groups like King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and other organizations not mentioned in the film. The Civil Rights Movement further fractured in the years following the March on Selma and especially King’s murder three years later, and not all of the fractures were as influenced by Christianity as the SCLC was during King’s lifetime.”

5. Last week some of the faculty at Southeastern participated in a casual conversation about the Church and the issue of marriage and divorce. It is worth the time to watch  this video, recognizing that every question could not be answered fully in this forum.

Worth Reading - 1/26

in

1. Peter Leithart reflects on the importance of paper books and the advantages they have over e-readers:

“Naomi Baron’s Reading Onscreen argues that the value of digital reading depends on the kind of reading you’re doing: “digital reading is fine for many short pieces or for light content we don’t intend to analyze or reread.” But “eReading is less well suited for many longer works or even for short ones requiring serious thought.”

In part, Baron’s point is simply empirical. She cites many studies that indicate how people distinguish reading onscreen from reading a book. For instance, “Ziming Liu at San Jose State University compared reading behavior onscreen versus in hardcopy. Study participants (graduate students and working professionals) devoted more time to browsing and scanning, and to reading selectively, when working onscreen than when reading print. Subjects also reported that their onscreen reading was less in-depth than with hardcopy.””

2. Some tips on studying, based on a study that indicates simple re-reading is insufficient:

“The majority of students study by re-reading notes and textbooks — but the psychologists’ research, both in lab experiments and of actual students in classes, shows this is a terrible way to learn material. Using active learning strategies — like flashcards, diagramming, and quizzing yourself — is much more effective, as is spacing out studying over time and mixing different topics together.”

3. Bit by bit, monks are working to preserve Iraq's Christian history. This post is from NPR:

“There have been Dominican monks in the city of Mosul since about 1750. They amassed a library of thousands of ancient manuscripts and say they brought the printing press to Iraq in the early 1800s. Rattling around in a box, Michaeel brings out Aramaic typeset.

As an Islamist insurgency roiled Mosul in 2008, monks smuggled their library out, bit by bit, to the Christian village of Qaraqosh. Last summer, when ISIS was inching closer, Michaeel took action. He prepared everything and put the collection in a big truck at 5 a.m.”

4. An interesting history of the crock-pot and gender roles, from the Washington Post:

“Seventy-five years ago today, an inventor named Irving Nachumsohn received a patent for the first commercially successful electric slow cooker. A few decades later, his device was more than just a beloved accessory in millions of American kitchens. The Crock-Pot was also seen as evidence that consumer goods could no longer be sold just to housewives but also would need to serve the needs of working women as well. Some credit the Crock-Pot and other home appliances with helping increase the number of women in the workforce.

The history of the slow cooker, whose sales have been booming recently, reflects a still-raging debate about how consumer appliances have changed — and failed to change — the gender balance at home as well as at work.”

5. Anne Bradley tackles the thorny question of stewardship and education:

“We often talk about the specific nature calling, and it’s helpful to recall here that each individual is gifted in and inspired by different things. No two students will follow exactly the same path, and it would be a mistake to assume that a single policy can address needs as different as the individuals receiving the education.

Instead of trying to solve the dilemma of education with charity, let’s look at it as an investment in the students and hold them – and ourselves – to a higher standard.”

Worth Reading - 1/23

in

1. A blogger at the Economist discusses recent assertions that the determining factor for a person's right to religious liberty is whether it impacts someone else. 

“Justice Ginsburg signed on to Justice Alito’s opinion but wrote separately to emphasise that Mr Holt’s demand is fundamentally different from the claim put forward in last year’s controversial Burwell v Hobby Lobby case. In Hobby Lobby, owners of a crafts store sought, and received, by a 5-4 vote, an exemption from the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act. As evangelical Christians, David Green and his family members asserted that they could not, in good conscience, pay to supply their employees with birth control devices and drugs they considered to be abortifacients.

For Hobby Lobby, Justice Ginsburg filed a fiery, full-throated dissent. Her central contention was that the majority refused to consider “the impact that accommodation may have on third parties who do not share the corporation owners’ religious faith””

2. Justin Taylor shares a time lapse, computer animated video of human development in the womb in honor of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:

Life is truly wonderful! In fact, the development of human life in the womb is just amazing. Did you know that everything about you - including how tall you would be, the color of your eyes, and the color of your skin-- was all determined at the time of fertilization?

3. Joe Carter at Acton covers the recent case where a baker is being sued over refusal to create an anti-gay cake. This brings into question whether religious liberty is the issue as much as an attempt to promote a worldview is at play:

“It is important to remember that these anti-discrimination laws are exemptions to the general rule. Except for the protected classes, business owners, et al., are allowed to discriminate (i.e., refuse to do business) with people for a variety of reasons. For instance, a landlord is not required to rent to a pornographer or a Klansman. In general, sexual orientation (however it was made known to a business owner) has been one of thousands of factors that are unprotected by antidiscrimination laws.

People who claim that legislation to protect sexual orientation is merely seeking to provide the same protections that are afforded to other people are incorrect: they already have the same rights everyone else has, i.e., the right to be protected against discrimination on the basis of their race, gender, and other protected categories. It is necessary that we are clear that seeking to make sexual orientation a protected class are seeking a special exemption that is not afforded to millions of other criteria.”

4. This video from the International Justice Ministry demonstrates why the rule of law is so important, and why it is so hard for the poor in many countries to get justice:

Uploaded by International Justice Mission on 2013-08-19.

5. How can an imperfect man be a leader in his home? Challies considers on his blog:

“We don’t lead because we are worthy, but because we are called. You don’t lead because you are worthy, but because you are called. And, my friend, you have been called— commanded and called by God himself. If you are a husband, you have been called. If you are a father, you have been called. You have been called to lead—you and no one else. You have been called to lead despite your sin and your failure, despite your fear and apathy. There is no backup plan, there is no one to lead in your absence, no one better suited, no one better qualified.”

Worth Reading - 1/22

in

1. Seven reasons to teach your kids Church History, from The Gospel Coalition:

“Ask my four children what their father loves and ranking high on the list after “Jesus, our mom, baseball, and the Georgia Bulldogs,” might just be “dead people.” Why? The fact that I teach church history notwithstanding, I think it is important that my children—beginning at a tender age—understand the richness of the faith I am commending to them from Scripture. (And yes, they know the hero of that book is back from the dead.)

Presuming they have been listening, my kids can tell you something about Luther, 95 Theses, and a church door in Wittenburg. (They even pronounce the “W” as a “V” because they think it sounds like an insect). They can tell you all about Calvin and his nasty confrontation with William Farel. They can tell you that William Carey is the father of modern missions (and they’ll likely remind you he was a Baptist). They can tell you that Spurgeon smoked an occasional stogie and that a man with the funny name of Athanasius won the day at a meeting called the Council of Nicaea (they’ll probably get the date right too—that’s AD 325).They know an important battle took place at a bridge called Milvian (or as my 6-year-old son calls it, “Melvin”). They have even learned that those folks who show up on our porch on select Saturdays with their Watchtower magazines in hand are modern-day Arians. I was 30 before I knew that much.

By no means should church history supplant teaching your family the Bible. Family worship and God’s Word must come first in your home. But the benefits of teaching them something about the key figures and movements from the rich heritage of the church are myriad. Here are seven reasons why we should teach our children church history.”
“I have many thoughts about Pope Francis’ comments about family size, birth control, and rabbits, made yesterday during an interview with reporters as the Holy Father returned to Rome from his trip to the Philippines. But a couple things in particular stick out now that the virtual ink has begun to flow and Francis’ words are being taken apart and reassembled all over the Internet to fit various agendas and narratives.

It is true that the Pope’s comments have been (predictably) mangled in much of the media coverage of them. He didn’t use the word “breed”; he didn’t say that having three children “is about right.” My mantra after one of these papal interviews is usually: read what he actually said. Many times the shock (and, in some quarters, horror) stirred by sensational headlines dissipates when folks read what he actually said.”

3. At the Imaginative Conservative, Joseph Sobran discusses the reading of old books:

“When I was young, I bought the whole set of Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World, intending to read them all. But somehow I never got around to more than a few of them. Ditto the works of Dickens and Balzac.

I’m a voracious reader, but most of what I read is the most perishable kind of literature, journalism. After all, journalism is my racket, and that means keeping up with things that will soon be forgotten. So I start the day with several newspapers, but seldom finish it with a classic I haven’t read before.

In Mark Twain’s famous definition, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read. Gulp! But those daunting all-time must-reading lists are a little misleading. It can take years to master a single great author. Much of what we “know” about the classics is what we’ve heard about them in advance, and we may not get beyond their reputations until we’ve read them several times.”

4. My own post on three vital relationships for every seminarian, here at Ethics and Culture:

“This is always an exciting time on campus. The energy level that the students bring to campus can be sensed as we sing together in chapel, see people in the library, and interact on the walkways.

At the same time, when new members are introduced into a community, there are always periods of adjustment as the new faces (and sometimes the returning ones) try to figure out how to relate to people around them. What does it look like to be a seminary student?

I think there are (at least) three categories that need to be discussed along these lines for beginning students. There are three basic, and new, relationships that an incoming seminary student needs to develop.”

5. The importance of prayer in the workplace, from the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics:

“Fluorescent lights flicker on as bright chunks of sunlight slip through cracks in the blinds. The aroma of brewing coffee wafts though the air amidst quiet conversations between co-workers serenaded by the chirps of awakening computer monitors.

It’s morning in corporate America.

What are your morning office rituals? Perhaps you check your inbox, chat with coworkers, or head straight to the coffee pot. Maybe you choose to spend a few minutes alone in the quiet of your office or cubicle.

These still moments are a precious commodity to savor before the onslaught of the workday.

We all have rituals and routines in the office. These rhythms shape the outcome of our days. Think about the last time you missed your morning cup of coffee. Most likely the quality of your workday suffered!

Rituals and routines matter and yet Christians often disregard what should be the most important workplace habit: prayer.”

Worth Reading - 1/21

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“I have plenty of hesitations about heeding various calls to “work-life balance,” mostly because they tend to dismiss or downplay the reality that “work” is often a lot less work than “life.”

Parents of young children have a keen sense of all this, of course. Indeed, it’s the reason so many of us would prefer to retreat to the “workplace” when the dirty diapers and toddler tantrums begin to beckon.”

2. At Desiring God, Kim Ranslaben discusses the reason parents are more significant impediment to getting graduates on mission than other barriers:

“My husband and I sat with a couple dozen college students one night to listen to a missions’ mobilizer answer their questions about going overseas after college. The first question was one we’ve heard many times: How do you go about raising money when you’re just about to graduate from college? I know the young man probably got a little confused when his question was met with a smile and a shaking head. The mobilizer told them that money wouldn’t be their problem, and instead he asked the students to guess the primary barrier to them going to the mission field after college.

Answers like student loans, lack of training, and fear were all met by another shaking head. As the room grew silent, the mobilizer’s eyes met mine. I smiled because I knew the answer very well: it’s me.

The number one barrier these young men and women face in trying to take the gospel overseas is often parents just like me.”

3. Turns out the "Boy who came back from heaven" didn't. What does this mean for the Christian publishing industry?

“Last week, Tyndale House Publishers stopped production of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven after Alex Malarkey, the boy in question, announced that he had made up the tale. Cheeky jokes about the family’s surname aside, this is a serious matter that shouldn’t go gently away, but rather stand as a reminder of what it means to speak for and about God, the Christian life and the kingdom at hand.

Years ago, when author James Frey was taken to task for his composites of characters and situations in his jarring book A Million Little Pieces, the publishing world - both Christian and mainstream - erupted in a debate about truth: what it means to tell it, and how it should be told. Sadly, this was not a lesson to which those behind The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven paid attention. Eager to offer a vision of the afterlife that was well suited to the commercial evangelical machine, Tyndale allowed a 6-year-old and his father (mostly his father, Kevin Malarkey) to speak about ecclesiology with flippant idealism and day-dreamy cliché, dangerously undergirded with a misinterpretation of Christ’s saying about praise from “the mouths of babes.””

4. What should we do with the news about the discovery of an ancient fragment of the gospel of Mark? Craig Evans urges us to wait and be patient for more information.

“In 2012 Daniel Wallace, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, mentioned in a public debate that researchers had found a fragment of the earliest copy of the Gospel of Mark. This weekend, another scholar, Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, reconfirmed the existence of the fragment.

This text was written on a sheet of papyrus that was later reused to create a mask that was worn by a mummy. Although the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs wore masks made of gold, notes LiveScience, ordinary people had to settle for masks made out of papyrus (or linen), paint, and glue. Given how expensive papyrus was, people often had to reuse sheets that already had writing on them.”

5. A 12 minute video on a woman who was redeemed from modern slavery:

Worth Reading - 1/20

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1. Does the scale of the universe disprove religion? This is the argument of some, and yet Hugh Hunter disagrees in a recent post at First Things:

“The argument from scale is aimed at a religious person who believes that to God, we human beings are, to use Everitt’s catchall term, the “jewel” of creation. Or to follow the literary metaphor, Everitt’s target thinks that mankind is the protagonist in this universal drama. The problem is that our best science reveals that we collectively play the role of Cornelius, arriving on the scene in a fraction of the last million of the universe’s billions of years, and occupying one bit of one solar system of one galaxy among trillions of others.

Anyone can see that if Shakespeare had intended to make Cornelius the main character of Hamlet, he would have given him a bigger and more important role to play. The fact that he did not do this tells us something about Shakespeare, namely that he did not regard the character Cornelius as the “jewel” of Hamlet. Everitt’s reasoning transfers the same observation to the case of God. If God regarded us as jewels, as protagonists, he would have given us more time and more room on life’s stage. But it seems obvious that God did not do this. Everitt concludes that God does not regard mankind as jewels or as protagonists, and theists who believe that God is the sort of being who does regard them that way are mistaken.”

2. National Geographic sent someone to the mountains of China to document the culture of some of the remote inhabitants:

“Large heads bowed, snow coating their thick hides, plumes of steam swirling from their frosted nostrils, they’re primordial beasts genetically inured to intense cold. A wooden sleigh called a chana is attached to each horse by long pine poles and a curved yoke. The design of the sleigh—the width of a horse’s ass, the length of a human body, with two curl-tipped runners—has not changed for centuries.

Our chana driver, Norbek, a rough-cut Kazakh as impervious to the cold as his horses, adjusts the leather straps with bare hands. He has loaded the two sleighs with our backpacks, cross-country skis, and sacks of hay for the horses. Bundled in down parkas, mittens, and insulated pants and boots, we are about to sled into the Altay Mountains of central Asia.”

3. Parachuting Beavers into the wilderness. This is short, but entertaining and true:

“The year was 1948, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game had a problem. A people problem. They were moving into the western portion of the state, which had been wooded wilderness for centuries. And they were clashing with some of the original inhabitants—particularly beavers.”

4. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord. They also communicate the puniness of humans. Here is a video that highlights some of the beauty of the latest NASA picture that is going around.

First & Last photo by Cory Poole: https://www.facebook.com/CoryPoolePhotography Super-high resolution image of Andromeda from Hubble (NASA/ESA): http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/ Music is 'Koda - The Last Stand': https://soundcloud.com/kodachrome/koda-the-last-stand Space is crazy,

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1. Today is the celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is his famous, "I have a dream speech" in full:

2. This is a link to King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." If you have not read this, it is worth taking the time to read this six page PDF.

3. Russell Moore asks whether seeking to glorify God is, in and of itself, a hate crime? This is a discussion of the degree to which the privatization of religion violates the fundamental nature of religion itself.

“The Bible’s argument is not that all the food and drink ought to be “taken over” by coercively Christian manufacturers and distributors. In fact, the argument is exactly the reverse.

Paul is telling believers to eat the food sold in the marketplace without having to interrogate about its religious pedigree, and only to refrain from eating something if it would cause a problem of conscience for someone else.

The “glory of God” is about living with thankfulness, in ways that are consistent with the ways of Christ. Christians believe they glorify God by loving our neighbors, by serving the poor, by helping the sick and the lonely, by showing honor and kindness to everyone.

The fact that some would find this statement controversial demonstrates ignorance of a basic tenet of mere Christianity, ignorance with public consequences.”

4. Walter Strickland reviews the recent movie, "Selma":

“Selma is a reliable and compelling account of a three month vignette of the larger civil rights movement. Since the basic framework of the historical account is depicted, I am not particularly interested in mulling over the amount of artistic license taken in the dialogues with Dr. King and President Lyndon B. Johnson, and between Coretta Scott King and Malcolm X, although it would be a fruitful study. My purpose is to draw our collective attention to the influence of the Christian faith in the Selma story, the “foot soldiers” of the movement, and the tensions between black civil rights organizations.”

Worth Reading - 1/16

in

1. Does free speech include the right to offend? Are some people advocating a double standard by supporting PC speech codes and demonstrating outrage at the Charlie Hedbo attack? The question is more complex than this article allows, but there are some interesting questions raised herein.

“The unanimity of outrage expressed on Twitter, the unthinking allegiance to the cause of the hour whatever that cause might be, the social positioning of writers struggling to be the most pure, the most righteous, the most moving in their indignation — all of these things remind me of other scandals, of other rages, in which the targets were not Islamic terrorists but men and women who disagree with elements of liberal dogma.”

2. This is an opinion piece in the NY Times that explains the difference between populism and true conservatism. It is worth every minute of the read:

“Conservatism is famously anti-utopian, understanding life’s imperfections and the limitations of politics. Knowing this, those on the right shouldn’t become enraged or forlorn when the world itself doesn’t fully conform to their hopes. Conservatism considers one of the cardinal virtues to be prudence. And no conservative — certainly no one familiar with the magnificent history of the Constitution — should be opposed to compromise per se. Whether or not accommodation is wise depends on whether an agreement nudges things in the right direction.”

3. Here is an introductory piece in the Baptist Press on the criteria for canonizing the 66 books of the Bible:

“Some scholars today cast doubt over the canon of Scripture — those 66 books that the church has long held to be the complete written revelation of God. They justify their views by claiming: 1) that surviving texts of the Old and New Testaments are corrupt and therefore unreliable or 2) that early church leaders deliberately excluded certain books for personal or political reasons.

As Craig L. Blomberg responds in his book “Can We Still Believe the Bible?”: “... there is not a shred of historical evidence to support either of these claims; anyone choosing to believe them must do so by pure credulity, flying in the face of all the evidence that actually exists.””

4. And people say English is confusing:

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1. Peyton Manning has always impressed me as a classy guy. Certainly not perfect, but consistently kind, well-intentioned, and engaged in helping others. Here is an account of some of his charitable activity:

“Everybody knows what Peyton Manning does for the community. We know it in Indianapolis, where since 1999 he did so much for the children’s hospital at St. Vincent that in 2007 they renamed the place after him. They know it in New Orleans where he grew up and in Tennessee where he attended college, and they are seeing it now in Denver where he plays for the Broncos.

But nobody knows what Peyton Manning does for the community. Not all of it. Not close.

Because that’s the way Manning wants it.”

2. The PhD as a path to poverty. This story is altogether too common, so folks should think about what they get their degrees in and why:

“Professor Bolin, or Brianne, as she tells her students to call her, might as well be invisible. When I arrive at the building at Columbia College in Chicago where she teaches composition, I ask the assistant at the front desk how to locate her. “Bolin?” she asks, sounding puzzled, as she scans the faculty list. “I’m sorry, I don’t see that name.” There is no Brianne Bolin to be found, even though she’s taught four classes a year here for the past five years. She doesn’t have a phone extension to her name, never mind an office.”

3. An apology for paper books. They may be better for your health:

“There’s something simple and special, however, about reading a classic paper book that e-books seem to lack. Recently, I was reading before bed while I drank a cup of chamomile tea, and I found that it not only relaxed me, but I fell asleep almost immediately, I slept soundly through the entire night, and I woke up feeling refreshed. I found myself pondering events and scenes in the book, the imagery glowing in my mind in place of my typically exhausting anxieties. I’m going to believe it wasn’t a coincidence: Putting aside my phone — which, in addition to texting, has access to the cyclical, distracting spirals of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat — and focusing on a tale that took me outside of myself, somehow, inexplicably, helped me feel better on many levels.”

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1. Tim Challies discusses being an ordinary Christian. This is a timely topic with the release of Merida's latest book, etc.:

“I’ve got a feeling that the people who do the most for God are those who are most content to be ordinary. Some of them remain unknown and unnoticed through their entire lives. Others are elevated and admired. But I suspect that the ones we love the most are the ones who can be satisifed with either a profile or invisibility, with either much or little—whatever God gives. There is beauty in that. I want that.”

2. Here is my review of Tony Merida's book, published last week on my blog:

“Don’t read this book unless you are prepared to have your practice of faith challenged. When he titled this book Ordinary, Merida wasn’t describing what your ordinary life is, he was describing what your ordinary life ought to be.

It turns out that the biblical definition of ordinary is a lot different than how most of us normally life. According to Merida,

“Ordinary is not a call to be more radical. If anything, it is a call to the contrary. The kingdom of God isn’t coming with light shows, and shock and awe, but with lowly acts of service. I want to push back against sensationalism and ‘rock star Christianity,’ and help people understand that they can make a powerful impact by practicing ordinary Christianity.””

3. I picked up much the same topic as Challies in my post last week at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics:

“Sometimes we imagine that changing the world requires stupendous feats, monumental courage, or superhuman endurance. We cheer heroes that devote their lives to particular issues and wish to ourselves that we could make a difference like they do.”
“So Tony wrote Ordinary in order to “identify some ‘ordinary things’ that ordinary people like us can do, and if we do them with gospel intentionality (speaking and showing the gospel), then we can make an extraordinary impact.” (p. 9) The introduction addresses the Bible’s testimony on the gospel-social justice nexus and the tendency we evangelical Christians have to sensationalize everything we do in the name of Jesus. The book then unfolds in five concise, easy-to-read chapters that address the key topics of ordinary living as a Christian: neighbor love, hospitality, orphan care, advocacy for the voiceless, and humility. In the conclusion, Tony exhorts us to take up this way of life, which is consistent with God’s character and plan for history.”

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1. How much would you pay to have your constipated goldfish unstopped? Would you pay several hundred dollars?

“A goldfish lover from Norfolk paid hundreds of pounds in vets’ fees when his pet became constipated.

The owner took his ailing fish to Toll Barn Veterinary Centre in North Walsham where vets told him it was constipated and an operation would cost about £300.”

2. It is important to remember that Kindergartners are human beings, too.

“I once heard a wise professor of education remark to his class that behind every educational approach stands a picture of the human being. “But many of you,” he said, “will teach for thirty years or more, and no one will ever ask you what image you hold – what picture of the human being shapes your education.”

What image stands behind American education today? Is it a mechanistic picture or a human picture? The Common Core State Standards are rolling out in state after state, redefining much of American education. Designed to help students prepare for college and the workplace, they are also purported to cultivate creative and critical thinking and problem solving. While these are important goals, it is unlikely that the standards will advance them.”

3. Kevin DeYoung the refusal of Stuart Scott, recently-deceased ESPN host, to engage internet critics:

“As a Christian–and I don’t know anything about Scott’s religious beliefs or lack thereof–we know that living for God’s pleasure and living in God’s pleasure are even better and more freeing than living for our kids. And yet, Scott is definitely on to something. Criticism hurts. Unfair attacks on our character are, well, no fair. But let’s not make it worse by our pride. Most folks, even those closest to us, aren’t fixated on us–either to applaud us or condemn us. And those who are have their own problems. Why get upset when people we don’t know and have never met think we’re dirty rotten scoundrels? The internet critic fires his missive and goes back to whatever life he was living before. Don’t let him (or her) have a place in your life he doesn’t deserve.”

Worth Reading - 1/9

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1. Trevin Wax interviews the pastor who just preached the world's longest sermon on record. The entire Bible in over 53 consecutive hours:

“My wife leads the kid’s ministry at our church, and there was an activity she was doing with the kids that involved Guinness World Records. I remember thinking, “I wonder what the longest sermon ever preached was.”

First, I love to preach and anytime God’s Word goes out, it accomplishes something and so the longer I preach, the more opportunity for the grace of Jesus to be shared and make an impact in someone’s life. Secondly, I’m really competitive and so I thought it would be pretty cool to have a world-record! As I investigate with Guinness, they do not have a category for “Longest Sermon Marathon,” but they sent back the “Longest Speech Marathon” as an alternative.”

2. The recent attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hedbo is sobering. This is evidenced particularly when comics like Conan O'Brien interrupt their usually jovial monologues to deliver straight up content:

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“I like to think I know a little about business writing, yet I still fall into a few word traps—not to mention a few cliché traps.
Take the words “who” and “whom.” I rarely use “whom” when I should; even when grammar check suggests “whom,” I think it sounds pretentious, so I use “who.”

Then I sound dumb.

Just as one misspelled word can get your resume tossed onto the “nope” pile, one incorrectly used word can undermine your overall message. Whether that’s fair or unfair, it happens-so let’s make sure it doesn’t happen to you.”

2. Standing on principles sometimes means we defend people we don't agree with. Such is the case with the recent Charles Hebdo attack:

“Our principles will be tested in the defense of unsympathetic victims. The old complacency and condescension (“Oh, her skirt was too short.” “Oh, he could hardly help it.”) will not be enough.”
“We learned how to do form and redaction analysis, a method of study that assumes the author of a biblical text is motivated by a theological agenda rather than by reporting what he had seen. We simply “knew” that the book we were holding in our hands did not have a direct connection to the apostles whose names were associated with the Gospels and Epistles.

For me, this dose of higher criticism was nearly lethal. Any sense that the Bible was divinely inspired and trustworthy, or that the creeds had metaphysical gravitas, started to seem implausible. The best I could muster was that, somehow mystically, perhaps Jesus was the Christ, existentially speaking. I was approaching something close to New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman’s own story of losing faith.”

4. Aaron Earls (@WardrobeDoor) shares a nice meditation on the purpose of difficulties in our Christian lives:

“There is no shine with sandpaper. There is no palace without power tools.

Anything of value takes hard work and we as human beings are no exception. In fact, we are the prime example. We take work and God will not be content until He has finished with us.

Philippians 1:6 is both a comforting and terrifying promise, “I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.””

5. The Art of Manliness shares some study tips for Collegians (male and female) as the semester gets ready to begin again:

“When 160,000 undergraduates in the University of California system were asked to name the obstacles that impeded their academic success, the students listed things like work, stress, and depression. But the number one reason, which was given by 33% of the students, was that they simply didn’t know how to study.”