Happy Friday,
What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?
Psalm 116:12
The word “return” should remind us that we are stewards, not owners. Per Kuyper, “There is not one square inch in the entire universe about which Jesus Christ does not say ‘Mine!’” We are expected to invest His assets—i.e., our time, talent, and treasure—per his instructions. Much depends on it. One day we will all offer an account.
It’s Time: Speaking of His goodness to us, why not jump-start Thanksgiving by making a list of all you should be thankful for? It will change your mood.
Worth Noting: 1) Applications to MBA programs are up; 2) we appear to be moving towards the legalization of “sex work;” 3) if Barna is right, millions of Christians will sit out next week’s election; 4) per this chart, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) now packs more economic punch than the G7; 5) per this WSJ piece, we are spending 40x more per vote in this election than the UK and Germany recently spent on theirs; 6) bottled water has an expiration date, not because the water goes bad, but because the bottle eventually does; 7) not that long ago, those who died graduated to glory. Today we pass, slip away, lose the battle, or succumb; 8) as a pastor, presiding at a funeral is less stressful than officiating at a wedding because when I’m speaking at a funeral, I can be sure I’m participating in God’s will; 9) after 98 years of publishing a “Christmas” catalog, this year Neiman Marcus released a “Holiday Book;” and 10) over 70 percent of Americans are concerned about election violence and the future of democracy.
Not Exactly: Many believe that the first sexual revolution occurred in the ‘60s when sex was separated from marriage. But in From Shame to Sin, University of Oklahoma classics professor Kyle Harper argues that the first revolution didn’t happen in the 1960s; it happened in the 60s. That’s when early Christians challenged the Roman Empire’s practice of granting powerful men the right to sexually dominate whoever they pleased (e.g., slaves, women, other men, and even children). The Christian sexual revolution platformed the radical idea that sex belonged within the bounds of a consensual, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, both having equal dignity before God. By elevating marriage and chastity, early Christians transformed the meaning of sex and dignified the people who engaged in it.
Quotes Worth Requoting: “If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families.” David Brooks.
LBRIA: Alongside TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read), I hope to codify LBRIA (Long But Read It Anyway). I toyed with QLBDYAFTONARTP (Quite Long But Do Yourself A Favor, Turn Off Netflix And Read This Piece), but that seemed preachy, so LBRIA it is. My first entry is Abraham Cho’s piece, Rewriting Our Scripts, which alerts us to the numerous ways we are shaped.
For the Overachievers: Given recent calls to dismiss democracy, free speech, etc., I’m also recommending Paul Kingsnorth’s essay about modernity’s trajectory. Here’s a snippet: “We believe in nothing… even the ideas which arose to replace all the religions in the age of enlightenment. Reason, progress, liberalism, freedom of speech, democracy, the enlightened rational individual, the scientific process as a means of determining truth: everywhere, these ‘secular’ beliefs which were supposed to replace religion worldwide are either under fire or have already fallen.”
3.25: The Bible contains 1,189 chapters, so if you want to read through it in a year, you’ll need to read 3.25 chapters/day. My advice is to read 4/day to cover the days you miss. The YouVersion Bible App can help a lot.
WOTW: Honorable mention goes to declinism (the sky-is-falling narrative many are drinking deeply of right now), Captagon (the street name of an increasingly popular, mostly Syria-generated amphetamine), and therapeutic suicide (think Canada). Full honors go to the Thanksgiving Effect, a term coined in 2018 after a whistleblower at Cambridge Analytica disclosed that by triangulating the T-Day cell phone locations with the polling preferences of 50M Facebook users, the company learned that Thanksgiving gatherings were shorter when extended family members held different political views. (It turns out that where your smartphone is located between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning correlates with who you will vote for. It also turns out that people are freaked out when they realize how much companies can learn about them by analyzing their online data.)
A Big Week: Before next week’s Update hits your inbox, the nation will process a big event. I’m referring, of course, to my birthday. I turn 64 on Wednesday—which, as all cool people know, is the new 57. (Note: like my granddaughter, I read ahead of my age. I think I read at a 67-year-old level. Some days, 68.)
Elon, Tech, & Human Nature: Many who rightly marvel at Musk’s most recent accomplishment assume science and tech will soon fix all our problems. Not so. The human condition is not so easily repaired. Among other things, this means that while our bombs are getting bigger, our hearts are not.
Resources: Here is my hour-long interview with Dr. Robert P. George, one of the country’s premier conservative academics and experts on the First Amendment. Here is a link to a free audio or digital copy of my new book, On the News: How and Why the News Has Changed. How It’s Changing You. And What To Do About It. Feel free to send it to a friend.
Closing Prayer: God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself in your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted. Amen (Ashton Oxeden, 1808-1892)