About 2006, during a hallway conversation, a work colleague leaned forward and said in a low voice, “What really frightens me are all those evangelicals out there, trying to take over.” I looked at her a moment, and then I leaned forward just as conspiratorially. “What would you think if I told you I was one of those evangelicals?” I watched as, figuratively speaking, her head started to explode with what she believed and the person she’d known for more than 20 years. It wasn’t embarrassment; it was the contradiction between an unfounded stereotype and the person she knew. Perhaps she could be excused because she was a former journalist. Stephen McAlpine has a post this week about something similar, and he (unintentionally) describes what my day-to-day work experience was like. Read Okay, Thought Leaders: It’s Time to Stop Bagging Out “Average Church Members”.
Inconvenient Truth of the Week: The UN has maintained a presence in Gaza for a long time through UNRWA. It’s now known that at least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 horror in Israel. Many, many more are members of Hamas (and would Hamas allow the UN to operate in Gaza otherwise?). The Jewish military noted that it has not been in a single UN office, school, mosque, or any other UN site in Gaza without finding weapons. Hillel Neuer at The Free Press describes the UN’s terrorism teachers.
I’ve seen one or two brief news brief-type mentions, but no significant coverage in our hometown newspaper. Farmers are rebelling in Europe, and in France they nearly strangled Paris with blockades until the French government made some concessions. Michel Lind at The Free Press discusses the new road warriors, and Gavin Mortimer at The Spectator explains why irate farmers are now heading to Brussels.
More Good Reads
Writing and Literature
Where has all the money gone? – The Secret Author at The Critic Magazine.
5 Reasons Marketing is Hard for Writers – K.M. Weiland at Writers Helping Writers.
St. Louis’s Prankster Police Reporter – Laura Shimel at Missouri Historical Society.
Faith
Evangelicals Need a Constructive Vision – Patrick Miller at Mere Orthodoxy.
Will My Children Forsake the Faith? How Mothers Instill the Truth – Michele Morin at Desiring God.
American Stuff
10 Things You Should Know about American Criminal Justice – Matthew Martens at Crossway.
Prioritize the civilization that has always been over the nation that never was – The American Mind.
Poetry
On Brutalist Architecture – Adam Sedia at Society of Classical Poets.
There’s a Certain Slant of Light – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Darwin, Bureaucratese, and the Decline of Poetry – Aaron Ames at The Imaginative Conservative.
Swimming Against the Stream – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative on the poet Regina Dereiva.
Bewilderment My Bow: A Review of Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.
Life and Culture
What Do American Universities and Communist Political Systems Have in Common? – Michael Mandelbaum at American Purpose.
American Miseducation: A New Documentary – Olivia Reingold at The Free Press.
British Stuff
British Museum interim director backs Parthenon Marbles loan plan with Greece – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.
Winter Serenade – Jon Schmidt /The Piano Guys
Painting: Cottage Interior with Woman Reading a Letter, oil on canvas by William Harris Weatherhead (1843-1911).
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