Happy Friday,
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7
According to the Bible, evil is more vexing, ugly, pernicious, disruptive and insidious than we think. Consequently, those who ignore it do so at their peril. But that is not the big story. The Bible spends far less time telling us to fear evil and far more time telling us to love God and others. As Augustine explained, we need to be shaped by his majesty and might. Right living follows right thinking, and right thinking follows rightly ordering our loves and fears.
Name Five: Can you name five ways the world is better today than it was ten years ago?
Rise: Since I’ve been talking down Rings of Power, let me suggest an alternative. Sheri and I enjoyed Rise, the story of the Antetokounmpo brothers, who overcome enormous challenges on their way to the NBA. I suspect producers took some liberties with the facts, but even if they did it’s a great story. As an aside, I am still watching Rings of Power and will have more to say about it after the last episode.
Problems Hiding in Plain Sight: Over the last few years, I’ve been rehearsing the plight of men – e.g., deaths of despair, falling graduation rates, chronic unemployment, escalating addictions, spiking incarceration rates, friendlessness and loneliness, etc. In the last few months, the topic is getting more attention. Former National Review editor Jonah Goldberg has two podcasts on this recently. You can click here to listen to his interview with Richard Reeves about Reeve’s new book, Of Boys and Men, or here to listen to his interview with Nicholas Eberstadt on his updated book Men Without Work. Finally, you can click here for the SNL skit about men and their lack of friends.
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Without Comment: 1) Sales of religious books rose 21.9% last year to $1.42 billion; 2) One-third of childless adults report that climate change is the reason they are not having children; 3) There is currently $1.6T in U.S. student debt, which is the size of Canada’s economy; 4) 1,833 people died in Hurricane Katrina. As of Wednesday, 109 people had died in Hurricane Ian; 5) Had Apple’s new iPhone 14 been built in 1991, it would have cost $101,000,000; 6) America’s national debt has exceeded $31T for the first time.
It Seems to Me That: Many of our problems could be solved by a Third Great Awakening. I say this not only because the Awakenings were followed by stronger economies, increased savings, fewer addictions and greater acts of charity, but also because I’m anxious for people to fill up their lives with more God, family and friends so there is less room for politics.
News Rule #4: NR4 = Pay for your news. 1) Over the last thirty years, newspapers and news stations have lost eighty percent of their ad revenue; 2) To cut costs they offer less reporting (which is expensive) and more opinion; 3) They also sell access to readers; and 4) The easiest ways to drive up readers is by: Telling people what they want to hear and/or by making them mad. If you want news that is not designed to make you mad, you have to pay for it.
What Things are Better? Most people can name ways the world is worse but struggle to list any in which it is getting better. It’s important to have an accurate assessment. In Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting, Ronald Bailey and Marian Tupy use data from the UN, WHO and World Bank to show that many things are improving. For a summary of their argument, click here.
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Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare. Thomas Sowell; 2) We live in an era of weakly-reasoned but strongly held beliefs. Carey Nieuwhof; 3) Jesus is not one option among many – a way to find meaning and direction alongside other equally valid options. What Jesus gives us in himself is definitive – the truth, the life. There is (literally) an eternity of difference between Jesus saying ‘the’ and ‘a.’ Tim Keller
T → t → pt → ?: After moving from Truth to truth – i.e., from capital “T” objective, universal Truth to small “t” “you have your truth and I have my truth” truth – we have been sliding into post-truth, where “anything is ‘thinkable,’ but nothing is decidable.” This is unsustainable. We can only hold reality at bay for so long. It eventually punches back.
From the Corner Office: This week’s podcast features last week’s Forum, in which I interviewed three CEOs about what they’ve learned about life, themselves and faith. You can listen here.
Closing Prayer: May God the Father, and the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ, build us up in faith and truth and love, and grant us our portion among the saints with all those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for all believers, for kings and rulers, for the enemies of the cross of Christ, and for ourselves we pray that our fruit may abound and we be made perfect in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Polycarp – 69 – 155)