Happy Friday,

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

Revelation 7:9

(This week’s Friday Update is guest-written by Syler Thomas, Pastor of Community Life at Christ Church Lake Forest, where he has served for one year longer than Mike and hopes Mike never forgets it.)

I forget that God’s primary language isn’t English. I mean, I know that it isn’t (it’s Hebrew, duh), but I love hearing people speak in other languages because it reminds me that 1) English, though popular, is merely one of around 7,000 languages spoken in the world; 2) God knows and understands them all, plus the dead ones like Latin and silly ones like pig Latin; 3) God hears every prayer in every language, all at once; and 4) God does hear my prayers and does care about my problems but… 5) there is a much larger story I’m a part of, and the redeemed will be together in God’s presence one day, and it will be perfect.

Kids These Days: One of my former youth group students has an almost-three-year-old named Jack. Jack’s somewhat shy around new people, but if you ask him his favorite song, he offers it easily. He says, with a serious look on his face, “Christ is my firm foundation.” (A worthy song to be one’s favorite.) I got to sing it with him last week, me with my guitar and him with his toy guitar. He knows every word. 

It was just about the sweetest thing ever, and it reminded me of something I’ve said for a while: kids don’t have to know that “kids’ music” exists. Parents will complain, “If I have to listen to ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ one more time…” but they forget—you control the music they hear! You can play them whatever you want—up to a certain age anyway—and they’ll like what you play them. They’re like your little hostages for a time, little beautiful miracle hostages, hostage gifts from God. So great work, parents. And keep singing, Jack!

It Worked For Me: Case in point… when my oldest, Kaila, was about Jack’s age, she knew every word to ”Elevation” by U2. Not as honorable as “Firm Foundation” but close.

Quote Worth Requoting: (Speaking of children) “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” – G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

A Real-Life (Pretend) Hitman: The new Netflix movie Hit Man, starring Glen Powell and directed by Richard Linklater, is based on a true story (appearing first as a Texas Monthly article in 2001) about a Houston man named Gary Johnson who lived a double life. Most people knew him as a thrice-divorced, mild-mannered community college teacher who lived alone with his two cats. But his other job was working for the Harris County DA’s office as a pretend hitman. When they got a tip about someone wanting to hire a hitman, Gary would get the call. He’d change up his hitman persona based on the person employing him, using different accents and outfits. Over the course of about ten years, he was “hired” to kill over 60 people. 

The movie spends its time exploring the question of identity—Gary enjoyed “becoming” these different personas, so the question is: can anyone change who they are to be more like the person they want to be? But I was more interested in the idea that over 60 different people just in and around Houston hated someone in their lives so much that they tried to hire someone to murder them. In the article, Gary says it’s the logical extension of the new “American way:” the quick fix. He says that if people can pay someone to fix their TV, “why can’t they pay me, a hit man, to fix their lives?” Maybe Jesus’ connection between anger and murder in Matthew 5 isn’t so extreme.

Chicago’s Best Side: If you want to fall in love with Chicago, watch Hulu’s The Bear. Warning: it will make you stressed and there is a lot of foul language. But episode one of season three, in particular, is a one-two punch of beautiful skyscapes and sumptuous food set to inspiring music.

2 a.m. Friends: For the past two summers, I’ve been able to spend time with two guys who have a unique friendship. Each week, for the past ten years, they’ve walked about half a mile from their Nashville homes to high-five each other. They’re musicians, so they have flexible schedules, and they’re a little weird (not as weird as us theater kids, but close). Their story was covered in an Atlantic article (paywalled) and on CBS Sunday Morning. Last month, they played one of my favorite Rich Mullins songs; it’s worth watching in particular because of Gabe’s incredible hammered dulcimer skills. 

We may not all be able to do something as weird cool as walking to high-five a friend once a week, but—do you have friends you can count on, like Andy and Gabe count on each other?

Closing Prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

– Peace Prayer (attributed to St. Francis, though almost certainly not written by him)

Happy Friday, 

Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me and teach me your law.

Psalm 119:29

Some highlight parts of the Bible they cannot accept. That’s backwards. As Christ-followers, we should allow the Bible to highlight the parts of our lives it finds unacceptable. 

Speaking of Backwards: I have a friend “on death’s door.” He is past “ready to go” – anxious to leave this broken world of sin, heartache, and cancer and move more fully into God’s presence. Make no mistake: heaven is not an ethereal, mystical, vaporous never-never land. It is a real place. Indeed, it’s more real than Chicago, Nepal, or Peoria, in part because those places are unlikely to be around in 1,000 years, but heaven will be. My friend is not leaving the land of the living for the land of the dying. He’s doing the exact opposite. 

2025: There are four things to be noted about 2025: 1) It will mark the 1,700 anniversary of the Nicene Creed. (If 30^th is diamond, 40^th is ruby, 50^th is gold, and 70^th is platinum, what is 1,700^th?); 2) It’s the year NASA plans to put a human back on the moon; 3) It’s the year the Cubs will win the World Series and the Bears will win the Super Bowl (OK, maybe not); and 4) It’s the year after which each U.S. high school graduating class is projected to be smaller than the one before it. 

Quote Worth Requoting: Given that I’m hanging out with the Royals (the King says “Hi”) on a C.S. Lewis tour, it would be wrong to not cite Lewis. Today’s quote comes from Mere Christianity. It reads: “I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”

WOTW: Given last week’s debate, I considered giving honorable mention to halting, brokered, and 25^th. Given that I’m in the UK – not to play in Wimbledon but for Lakelight Institute’s C.S. Lewis tour – I considered gormless (which is British for stupid). Other nominees include sadfishing (a 2019 term used to describe those who “exaggerate their emotional state online in order to generate sympathy”) and NEETs (young people Not in Employment, Education, or Training because they are discouraged by their economic standing). I have decided to give full honors to listen, which is hardly new, but I decided to elevate it after learning that the Traditional Chinese character for the word listen is comprised of four symbols: one for ears (to hear); one for eyes (to see); one for the mind (to think); and one for the heart (to feel). It would seem we live in a society where everyone keeps turning up the volume but few listen. May we model less talking and more ear-eyes-mind-and-heart-level listening. (Note: you can see the Traditional Chinese character for listen here). 

July 5^th: It was odd to be in the U.K. on July 4^th – getting their election news, not our parades – but it made me appreciate the U.S.A. all the more. Here is Ray Charles singing America the Beautiful, and here is a reflection on our stuttering, fragile dance with freedom. 

Misc: 1) Hanlon’s razor states that we should not attribute to malice or conspiracy that which is adequately explained by stupidity (gormlessness?); 2) Just when you thought the world couldn’t make less sense, North Korea’s propaganda song about Kim Jong Un has gone viral; and 3) If you have more books on your shelves by living authors than by dead ones, you’re doing it wrong. (By the way, if you don’t have any books on your shelves, you’re really doing it wrong.)

Resources: Here is last week’s sermon, which was a fly-over of Exodus that focused on how much of it is a big arrow pointing to Jesus. Closing Prayer: Lift up our hearts, O Christ, above the false shows of things, above laziness and fear, above selfishness and covetousness, above whim and fashion, up to the everlasting Truth that you are; that we may live joyfully and freely, in the faith that you are our King and Savior, our Example and our Judge, and that, so long as we are loyal to you, all will ultimately be well. Amen. (Charles Kingsley – 1819 – 1875).

by Michael Metzger, Th.D.

 “America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but I am afraid it is not going to be a success.“

Why was Sigmund Freud (quoted above, 1856-1939) so pessimistic about our nation’s prospects?  Perhaps Freud recognized something most folks in the faith community do not.  

In his fatherly Farewell Address of 1796, George Washington referred to our new republic as an “experiment” in self-government.  Can a nation’s people be self-governed — allowed liberty with minimal constraints?  

America’s Founding Fathers felt they could, devising a “most nearly perfect solution.”  It included religion.  Freud was no fan of religion but he recognized it was central to the experiment.  

The framers’ solution looks like a triangle with three interlocking points:  

The first point says liberty requires virtue.  “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” wrote Benjamin Franklin.  As Lord Acton famously observed, “Freedom is not a permission to do what we like, but the power to do what we ought.”  

To survive, a self-governed people have to be a virtuous people.  

The second point says virtue requires religion.  “If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion; what would they be without it?” asked Franklin.  For the framers of our Constitutional republic, virtue required religion — although not necessarily Christianity.  

The Latin root religio means to “rebind.”  Without exception the framers believed that religion was essential to rebind people to virtue.

The third point in the triangle says religion requires freedom.  In his Memorial and Remonstrance, James Madison argues that Christian faith does not need political establishing: 

 “Religion — or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the Manner of discharging it 

       — can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.“

Only a freely chosen, dis-established faith can ground the virtue that guarantees freedom.  

In 19th century Vienna, Sigmund Freud recognized religion’s role but noted that Christian faith was waning in public and cultural influence, becoming a privatized affair.  So while he felt our American experiment was great and grandiose, he doubted it was going to be a success.  

He may have been right.

In his carefully researched, 2012 bestseller Coming Apart, secular sociologist Charles Murray recaps America’s great experiment.  He hopes it will succeed but recognizes that the Christian religion has been relegated to the periphery of society.  Over 80 percent of America’s elites are “balkanized” into just 882 U.S. zip codes, and most of those elites “do not have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian.” 

But Dr. Murray is hopeful.  He believes advances in genetic and neural (brain) science will replace privatized religion as a way to instill virtue.  In addition, 

. . . the more we learn about how human beings work at the deepest genetic and neural levels, the more that many age-old ways of thinking about human nature will be vindicated.  

Christian faith doesn’t need to be vindicated, but recent discoveries on how human nature works at our deepest neural levels do align with the early church’s understanding of human personality.

Murray believes the institutions aligning with neuroscience “will be found to be the critical resources through which human beings lead satisfying lives.”  In a post-Christian world, this could be a way for the church to return to renewing the great experiment in ordered liberty.  

That’s worth remembering as we celebrate America’s great 243-year experiment.  Unless our churches return to a wise, public faith, Freud might very well prove to be right.

Happy Friday,

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here and I will show you what must take place.”

The Apostle John, Rev. 4

In the last book of the Bible, Jesus commands John to come up and see what is going to take place. What follows is a 20-chapter vision that is horrific, mysterious, confusing, sublime, and helpful. Helpful how? For starters, John reminds his readers that Jesus wins. They may be suffering, but only for a time. Jesus wins! The Lamb that was slain will triumph, and those who stand in Him will attend a glorious banquet in His honor. Secondly, the view from above is different from the view below. John tells them to embrace the view from above.

Quiz: 1) What takes the largest slice out of the US budget: Defense, Social Security, Medicare, or interest on the debt? 2) Who is the first AI casualty? 3) What is the topic of “the most popular class in Yale’s history?” 4) What % of medical doctors belong to the AMA? 5) What % of text messages are opened? 6) What % of the people living in Jerusalem are Christian? 7) Has GOP support for gay marriage gone up, gone down, or stayed the same over the last two years? 8) Is military recruitment up, down, or static?

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to wet-bulb (following heat dome—last week’s new weather word—wet-bulb refers to the heat/humidity inflection point at which perspiration no longer cools the body). Full WOTW honors go to anti-disinformation, i.e., the crusade to replace one set of questionable facts with an often equally-dubious-but-officially-approved set of facts. George Orwell is not happy that anti-disinformation has become such a thing as to be recognized as WOTW. And no, I have not yet seen anti-anti-disinformation in print, but yes, I expect I will soon.

Overheard: 1) Much now depends on the exhausted middle; 2) God is not silent, but we are often deaf; 3) Antisemitism appears to be a bit like bankruptcy. It happens slowly at first and then all of a sudden; 4) Christians need to understand that loss of power and loss of status do not equate to persecution.

Great Public Theology: I am writing this before the debate, but since you’re reading it afterward, I’ll include one of the great texts of public theology to help you clear your mind. It’s Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. It takes five minutes to read.

Questions: As always, I have more questions than answers. How slippery is the slippery slope? Are we ready for the next pandemic? How come neither Tom Brady nor Tom Cruise appear to age? If I changed my name to Tom, can I join them? Should we call them fentanyl deaths, fentanyl overdoses, or fentanyl poisonings? What is the difference between the right and the far right? Will the red states keep getting redder and the blue bluer? And, if so, what happens? What is the best way I might love my neighbor today?

KK: Kevin Kelly—deemed by Tim Ferris to be the most interesting person in the world—is out with his annual list of insights. I read it every year and think it’s worth the ten minutes it takes to skim. Don’t over-expect. It’s full of things like “you’ll make better decisions if you ask yourself ‘and then what?’ for each choice” and “there is no formula for success, but there are two formulas for failure: not trying and not persisting,” i.e., good, but not Book of Proverbs good.

Answers: 1) Per this report from Congress, $ to SS is #1, but debt service just surpassed spending on both defense and Medicare; 2) Per this WSJ article, the first to lose their jobs to AI are freelancers (note: Friday Update Inc. has not let any freelancers go, though we no longer hire as many interns as planned, and both our London and Tokyo offices sit empty); 3) Per this article, the most popular class in Yale’s history is on happiness; 4) At its peak 60 years ago, the AMA represented 70% of US docs. Today, only about 10% of MDs join; 5) 98% of text messages are opened; 6) According to 2020 data, 60% of Jerusalem’s 951K residents are Jewish, 37% are Muslim, and 2% are Christian. 7) Per this NR article, support for gay marriage has declined among GOP votes over the last two years; 8) Military recruiting is down. In ‘23, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their recruiting goals.

Resources: Here is my most recent sermon. Based on God’s description of the tabernacle in Exodus 35, it’s a reflection on the importance of beauty.

Closing Prayer: O God, king of righteousness, lead us, we pray you, in the way of justice and of peace; inspire us to break down all oppression and wrong, to gain for everyone their due reward, and from everyone their due service; that each may live for all and all may care for each, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (William Temple, 1881 – 1944)

Happy Friday,

Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

The Apostle James

Why do so many Christians remain spiritually immature? Bad preaching? Shallow books? Too little prayer? Dallas Willard suggests it’s our avoidance of suffering. “It’s essential… that we accept the trials of ordinary existence as the place where we experience and find the reign of God-with-us as actual reality. We’re not to try to get in a position to avoid trials. And we’re not to catastrophize and declare the end of the world when things happen.” I agree. The trials we face are not evils to avoid, challenges to overcome, or evidence of God’s disfavor. They are the place where God and growth are to be found.

Quiz: 1) What is the leading cause of death of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45? 2) What product does the Surgeon General want to attach warning labels to? 3) What is the average age of the population of Brazil? India? China? Japan? The US? 4) What percent of Americans have tried an injectable weight loss drug? 5) What is the average US household credit card debt? and 6) How old is George Jetson?

The Ethics of Rabbi Jesus: Theologians divide the study of Christ into his life, his work, and his teaching. What did he teach on? The central focus of Christ’s teaching was Christ himself. Both what he did and what he said reinforced his claim to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus was his own most frequent subject. In terms of his ethics: 1) God Comes First, 2) Others Are Second, 3) The Way Up Is Down, 4) We Are Going To Live Forever, and 5) We Are Stewards.

Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization.” Lord Acton; 2) “I’ve been putting out fires with gasoline.” David Bowie

Worth Noting: 1) The stock market has reached an all-time high on the backs of three $3T—Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia—all fueled by AI. Nvidia is now the most valuable company in the world, suggesting that investors are all in on AI; 2) One of the chief problems with Utopians is that they malign and destroy the progress others have made in search of something better. But they do not deliver what they envision—mostly because they have a profoundly flawed view of reality, starting with their flawed understanding of the human heart; 3) As Twain noted, sometimes the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. To that end, think charity, not unselfishness. We do not surrender benefits just to work on not being selfish. We look for ways to bring joy and aid to others.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to: snaccident (as in, “Sorry, I ate all the chips. I didn’t intend to. It was a snaccident.”), the Goldilocks Zone (the 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. ideal time in which to take a nap), and heat dome (which joins atmospheric river, bomb cyclone, derecho, and thundersnow on the list of new weather words). Full honors go to Boommates, which refers to baby boomers who are sharing accommodations and rent because of high inflation and rising housing costs. (Note: I believe anytime between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. is an ideal time for a nap.)

Huper: The late Karl Barth—one of the last theologians to grace the cover of Time—declared the minuscule Greek term, huper, the most important word in the Bible. What is huper? It translates “in behalf of.” Barth was drawing attention to the vicarious work of Jesus. At the center of his teaching was not his ethics but his death, which was done huper us. Christianity is not this I do, but this He did.

Surprise: Some find Christianity unreasonable. Some find it undesirable. Until recently, Richard Dawkins—the author of The God Delusion and the one who argued that children should be “protected” from their religious parents—thought it was both. But as I have noted, after he was canceled by New Atheism, he joined others in identifying as a cultural Christian. “I’m not a believer…. But I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. Christianity seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion.” This piece reports on the recent meeting Dawkins had with his friend, former atheist turned Christian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Answers: 1) One American dies of fentanyl poisoning every 8 minutes, making it the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45; 2) Dr. Vivek Murthy has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media; 3) The average age of the population—from youngest to oldest—is: India 28.4, Brazil, 33.5, China, 38.4, the US, 38.5, Russia is 40.3 and Japan, 48.4; 4) 6% of Americans (15.5M people) have tried one of the new injectable weight loss drugs; 5) The average U.S. household has $6.2K in credit card debt and $102K in total debt; and 6) Per a 1965 episode of the Jetson’s, George was born in 2022, making him 2. (BTW, I continue to think Barney Rubble was a better actor than either Fred Flintstone or George Jetson.)

Closing Prayer: May the Father of the true light—who has adorned day with heavenly light, who has made the fire shine which illuminates us during the night, who reserves for us in the peace of a future age a spiritual and everlasting light—enlighten our hearts in the knowledge of truth, keep us from stumbling, and grant that we may walk honestly as in the day. Thus we will shine as the sun in the midst of the glory of the saints. Amen. (Basil of Caesarea, 330-379)

Happy Friday,

Teach us to number our days, that we may harvest a heart of wisdom.

Moses, Psalm 90:12

The first words that get my attention are us and our. As with the start of the Lord’s Prayer—Our Father…—Moses emphasizes that we’re in this together. But for me, the passage’s punch comes with harvest. Some translations use gain instead, but I think harvest rightly stresses that growth takes work. Growing old happens without our effort. Not so with wisdom. We don’t wake up one day to discover that while we were not paying attention, we lost weight and learned Spanish. Many of the chronologically superior are old. Not as many are wise. Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Overheard: 1) The world would be a better place if middle-aged men worried more about their blind spot than their bald spot; 2) Travel agents are making a comeback; 3) Children are our ultimate social security check; 4) It’s hard to find anyone who admits to ever supporting Defund the Police.

Worth a Click: This zero-stars YouVersion Bible app ad is well played. And this two-and-a-half-minute video is worth watching even if you’re not an English football fan.

Quiz: 1) What percentage of US employees claim their workplace is toxic? 2) What percent of the global GDP comes from the US? 3) Are post-Covid commutes longer or shorter than pre-Covid ones? 4) Technically speaking, the weekend starts at _?_; 5) The average age of those working on the Manhattan Project was _?_; 6) How many slaves are there in the world today? 7) Approximately what percentage of Americans own cryptocurrency? 8) How many US churches identify as Southern Baptist?

Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “I found out the hard way that if we don’t disciple people, the culture sure will.” Alan Hirsch; 2) “I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” Leslie Newbigin

With Comment: 1) 45% of Americans under the age of 25 believe in free speech, ‘except for hate speech.’ Which is very close to not believing in free speech; 2) The massive HEIR study shows that, while fifty years ago women were more conservative than men, today they are 15 points more liberal; 3) I’m happy to report that use of bespoke reality is dying down after many people who bespoke it a lot have realized how weird they sounded.

WOTW: Nominations include busy bragging (which I’m too busy to explain), nonlinear negative outcomes (a U of Chicago’s Existential Risk Lab term used to describe how a small change can eventually usher in a catastrophic shift), cultural reactionaryism (Rachel Ferguson’s term for the “if you punch me I’ll punch back harder” approach embraced by those who think little of the Sermon on the Mount), and religious atheism (the term showing up more and more to describe people like Richard Dawkins, who see value in religion but believe it is based on lies and nonsense). Full honors go to silicon overlords, a term I saw used in an article warning that AI is about to take over. (I’m too busy to worry about such things, not that I am busy bragging).

More on Nonlinear Negative Outcomes: The idea of a small change eventually triggering the end—which has overtones of Hemingway’s line, you go bankrupt slowly and then all at once—has led some at U of C’s XLab to suggest that AI is now a bigger threat than nuclear annihilation, climate change or biothreats. They suggest our future may be spent serving “our silicon overlords.”

Answers: 1) Per this American Psychological Association Report, over 20% of US workers claim their workplace is toxic—making them less employees than resentees; 2) Per this Financial Times piece, 25% of the global GDP comes from the US; 3) Trick question. Per this WSJ piece, work-from-home means some commutes have ceased. But for a variety of reasons many now live further away from the office, so on the days they are expected in the office, their commute is longer; 4) Another trick question. Per this piece, the weekend technically starts Friday at 5 pm, but many are clocking out earlier every day of the week, especially on Friday. As I have said before, the only people working hard anymore are you and me. And I’m not so sure about you; 5) Per this New Yorker article, the average age of the people working on the Manhattan Project—i.e., developing the first nuclear weapons—was 25; 6) According to the advocacy group, Voices for Freedom, 50 million people are currently slaves, with 71% being women or girls; 7) According to this ’22 article by Pew, 16% of Americans own crypto. I have heard it is now closer to 20%, but cannot substantiate that claim; 8) There are 47,000 Southern Baptist congregations (for comparison, the Presbyterian Church in America has 1,800).

Resources: Click here for last week’s sermon exploring trust, and here to hear The Engage and Equip podcast, in which I am interviewed about several current topics related to this newsletter.

Closing Prayer: Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside. Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (Thomas Aquinas – 1225 -1275)

 Happy Friday,

The sea is the Lord’s, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 95:5

In a creative process, we cannot duplicate, God made everything out of nothing. This includes you and me and things like time, space, fire, consciousness, sunsets, and cicadas. It’s worth reminding ourselves that we could not create a cicada if we started with all the parts. It’s also worth remembering that because he made everything, it’s all his. And he retains all rights. In the words of Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Idols: Although Christ Church has finished its Exodus-adjacent mini-series on idols, I’m still thinking about them. Before we started, I knew that: they were good things we try to elevate beyond their station, they reveal things about our heart, and they function a bit like addictions, i.e., they take more and more while delivering less and less. What I had not seen so clearly was how small, safe, and tame they are. Nor how small, safe, and tame they make us.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to aporkalypse (coined to describe the escalating destruction wrought by feral pigs), moral inversion (coined by Michael Polanyi to refer to the distortion of an ideal such that it leads to the opposite outcome, such as the way totalitarian regimes promise equality and justice but deliver oppression and inhumanity), and Metamodern (a term coined to describe the feeling that life is “random, disconnected, contradictory, aimless, and altogether void of coherent logic and purpose”—sometimes known as Monday). Full honors go to juristocracy, a term I heard in the context of the EU but seems to be relevant elsewhere.

Speaking of the Courts: I haven’t bothered to read much about the Alito/flag case, but what I think I know about it is distressing. The suggestion that things are so polarized that the spouse of the justice of the SCOTUS cannot interact civilly with a neighbor is, well, distressing. 

Quiz: 1) Coke is the number one soft drink brand in the world. Who is #2? 2) True or False? A couple is married in the US every 42 seconds. 3) What state has the lowest median age at which women marry? 4) What state has the highest median age at which men marry? and 5) Is the current US murder rate higher or lower than it was forty years ago?

Quote Worth Requoting: “Hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does to the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates…. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case…. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false become true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater…. So Jesus says love because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

FWIW: 1) Standing desks and Fitbits have become a thing because “sitting is the new smoking.” Silly me, I thought social media was the new smoking. Maybe sitting is the new social media? 2) Today’s terms you dare not say in polite company are different from when I was growing up—and George Carlin had his bit about the seven words you can’t say on TV. Today’s list is filled with words like: January 6^th, gender, vaccine, pronouns, Deep State, lab leak, border, Hamas, and migrant; 3) The WSJ ran this piece on loneliness in the workplace. I’m guessing they were feeling the sting from Dockery scooping them in the Lakelight newsletter here; 4) Speaking of words, when CNN uses the term media they mean Fox, and when Fox uses the term media they mean CNN. But neither seems to use it of themselves; 5) Unlike their ’60s predecessors, today’s campus protesters don’t seem to be anti-war; they just think the wrong side is winning.

Answers: 1) After holding second place by its lonesome for nearly forty years, Pepsi must now share those honors with Dr. Pepper. 2) False: A new US marriage begins every 19 seconds, not every 42. A marriage ends every 42 seconds; 3) Utah’s 25.3 years is the lowest median age for a woman to marry; 4) Washington DC’s 32.5 is the highest median age for men to marry; 4) Lower. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the US murder rate spiked in the late ‘80s, reached its peak in the early ‘90s, declined between the 2000s and 2014, spiked again in 2020, and has slowly decreased since then. (BTW, for the 12^th year in a row, Chicago is the murder capital of the US.)

Closing Prayer: You, O Lord, who command us to ask, grant that we may receive. You have put us on seeking; let us be happy in finding. You have bidden us knock; we pray you open to us. Be graciously pleased to direct and govern all our thoughts and actions, that for the future we may serve you and entirely devote ourselves to obeying you. Accept us, we ask you, and draw us to yourself, that we may henceforth be yours by obedience and love, who are already all your own as your creatures, even yours, O Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. Augustine, (354-430)

Happy Friday,

But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.”

Jesus, Luke 15

The father didn’t demand an exhaustive or embarrassing confession from his prodigal son. He didn’t even wait for his son to finish speaking. As soon as he started, he said, “Enough, bring me a robe and a ring. Put them on my son.” We are not only not forced to get our act together before God embraces us; all we need do is turn from pride and approach as a child. May we never make it hard for anyone to repent.

The Glory of Work: Sheri and I both enjoyed reading and then watching A Gentleman from Moscow. I’m particularly struck by the protagonist’s embrace of working as a waiter. Having enjoyed the perks afforded Russian nobility before Lenin’s takeover, he found true delight in serving, not being served.

The Quiz: 1) In which country is the church growing the fastest? 2) Give or take a trillion, how much money will change hands during the Great Wealth Transfer over the next twenty years? 3) Which cable news station has the oldest viewing audience: CNN, FOX, or MSNBC? 4) Which is higher, the number of people who use marijuana daily or the number of people who drink alcohol daily? 5) Is the average US college student older or younger than 25?

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to tsundoku (the act of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them), energy vampire (someone who sucks your energy, not your blood), negative partisanship (hating the other side more than loving your own), and like-o-meter (which is, like, when you, like, keep track of, like, how often someone uses the word “like”). Full honors go to pagan, which Louise Perry—one of the legions of elites moving closer to Jesus and the author of this First Things piece on paganism—wrote about. (BTW, that is, like, not my picture next to tsundoku in the dictionary. And suggesting as much is, like, not even funny.)

Radical Demands: Jesus does not expect us to act against our own best interests. It may occasionally seem like it, but that’s only because we misunderstand what’s best for us. For instance, we think the first will be first. He knows otherwise.

Are you a Christian? The great British preacher Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones would often ask, “Are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” He did this to flush out those who would reply, “I do not feel that I’m yet good enough to say that I’m a Christian.” Their response showed Llyod-Jones that they did not understand the Gospel. “Their answer sounds modest, but it is the lie of the devil. It is a denial of faith… We will never be good enough. Nobody has ever been good enough. The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that Jesus is good enough— and I am in Him!”

Patios > Porches: I was aware that newer home designs now often include media rooms, ginormous refrigerators, and closets the size of Montana. What I had not appreciated was that a previous generation home evolution had traded in front porches for back decks. Nor had I thought about what that has done to neighborhoods. I am seeing it now. I expect it was a Faustian bargain.

Quote Worth Requoting: “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” Calvin Coolidge

Resources: Last weekend, I touched the third rail by preaching on patriotism and politics. Should you care to listen, the message—which was from Mark 12—is here. BTW, speaking of patriotism, I very much appreciated Peggy Noonan’s piece on it in Monday’s WSJ. It’s here but behind a paywall.

Answers to the Quiz: 1) The church is growing fastest in Iran. 2) The amount of money transferring hands in the next twenty years is $84T. 3) Per this report, the median age for a viewer of MSNBC is 70, for Fox is 69, and for CNN is 67. 4) Per this AP report, daily pot use surpassed daily alcohol use in 2023. 5) Per this study from the Education Report of New America, the average age of a US college student is 26.4.

Closing Prayer: O you who are everywhere present, filling yet transcending all things; ever acting, ever at rest; you who teach the hearts of the faithful without noise of words: teach us, we pray you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Augustine – 354-430)

Happy Friday,

Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.

Jesus, Matthew 15

Many assume the 3rd-century Christian ascetics moved into the desert to escape society’s corruption. Not really. They recognized society’s temptations but feared most the pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth—i.e., the Seven Deadlies—that they knew lay deep in their hearts. Most of the Desert Fathers who “escaped” into the wilderness did so to be undistracted in their efforts to face the evil within.

On a Related Note: Evil is real, but that does not mean we need to fear it. It can lead us astray and, in some cases, cause us to suffer, so indifference is not the goal. But evil can only truly harm us if we react badly to it—e.g., by fear, worry, discouragement, refusal to forgive, bitterness, etc. Real harm does not come from external circumstances. As Jesus said, “There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him!”
 

Without Comment: 1) Per this WSJ article, after recalling more than 11,300 academic papers it published because of “wide-scale research fraud,” Wiley is closing 19 academic journals; 2) Per this World Bank piece, the global median income is $5K/year; 3) Per this Pew survey, the share of Americans who think abortion should be legal has risen 4 percentage points since 2021; 4) Per this WSJ article, 56% of people now say a four-year degree isn’t worth the cost; 5) Per this study, half of all Masters degrees have a negative ROI; 6) In this 2023 Pew Study, nearly half of all parents indicated it was “not too” or “not at all” important that their children had children of their own, but only 2% showed similar indifference when asked how important it was that their children had a successful career; 7) Per this piece, many now know the NYT almost exclusively for its games—e.g., Wordle, the Crossword, etc.; 8) Per this study, the percentage of “nones”—i.e., those who do not claim membership in any religious tradition—appears to have stopped growing in general and started to fall among younger generations; 9) The Chosen—which has been viewed by 200 million people—recently passed Baywatch as the most widely translated show in history; and 10) Per this NYT piece, France has issued scratch-and-sniff baguette postage stamps ahead of the Olympics.

Miscellany: 1) The cicadas have arrived in big numbers where I live. And while I’m not a fan, I’m thankful they don’t bite, sting, eat like a locust, smell bad, or slime up the place. (Maybe I am a fan.); 2) ChatGPT-4o is here and is stunning. I still don’t trust it—i.e., I still think of it as an intern with a high IQ and low EQ. But its EQ is improving.

WOTW: Nominees include smellmaxxing (the social-media-fueled trend in which teenage boys—AKA “young scent hounds”—wear high-end cologne), placelessness (a term meant to lament our growing lack of geographical rootedness), the Oxford Comma (which is now being discussed among those previously unaware of punctuation politics), and Silver Tsunami (which a head-hunter used to refer to the wave of Boomer retirements). Full honors go to subsidiarity—the view that “social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level possible.” I first heard it six months ago and now hear it all the time.

Quotes Worth Requoting: Given my earlier reference to the 7 Deadly Sins, I can’t resist citing Charlie Munger, the late Vice Chair of Berkshire Hathaway, who said, “The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.” I’ve also been reading Arnold Toynbee. In addition to claiming that “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”, he also contended that, “Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.”

Bono and Peterson: This 20-minute Bono & Eugene Peterson piece on the Psalms is eight years old, but it still packs a punch. We need the Psalms. In fact, we need to rehearse them until we know them like a favorite song and can flip to the right one at a moment’s notice. (As an aside, we will be rolling out ten weeks of five-minute devotions on the Psalms starting June 3. Sign up here.)

The Tao: In Can the Tao Save Western Civilization?— a long but important NR piece—Hunter Baker explains what C.S. Lewis was thinking when he wrote The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength. I’m heartened that Lewis’s thinking here is being rediscovered and thankful that Baker took to unpacking it. BTW, Baker—who is the Provost at North Greenville University—has both a PhD and a law degree, which means he’s introduced by naming four occupations: “Dr. Hunter Baker, Lawyer.”

Question: Do you think many people realize that graduation ceremonies are called commencement exercises because they mark the moment a student has finished their initial training and is now prepared to commence with their real education—and that it is to be a rest-of-their-life project?

Closing Prayer: May the Father of the true light—who has adorned day with heavenly light, who has made the fire shine which illuminates us during the night, who reserves for us in the peace of a future age a spiritual and everlasting light—enlighten our hearts in the knowledge of truth, keep us from stumbling, and grant that we may walk honestly as in the day. Thus we will shine as the sun in the midst of the glory of the saints. Amen (Basil of Caesarea, 330 – 379)

Happy Friday,

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.

Jesus, Matthew 5

I have an offer for you. If you follow me, I will fill your days with poverty, hunger, tears, and loneliness. Interested? No? Why not? I mean, how is my offer any different from what Jesus is offering? Have you read the Beatitudes lately? Have you asked yourself, “Blessed how, exactly?” The answer, of course, is that Christ’s call is framed by the promises of His Kingdom— of Heaven. Eternity and Forever. Against a culture that is all about Now! Today! This life! And, This minute! We need to live today in light of forever. Are you shining your headlights beyond the grave? Are you moving through the challenges of the day in light of the assurance of God’s victory? His Kingdom will come. His ultimate rule and reign are certain. We have no reason to fear. Eternity changes everything.

Without Comment: 1) Warner Bros. plans to release a new, Peter Jackson directed Lord of the Rings movie — The Hunt for Gollum — in 2026; 2) OpenAI is considering allowing users to create AI-generated pornography; 3) Aaccording to this Harvard report, between 1975 and 2010, the number of physicians in the U.S. grew by 150% and the number of healthcare administrators grew by 3,200%; 4) According to this report, Americans have spent much of their COVID-related savings and now hold a record $17.3T in debt; 5) The word noise and the word nausea are derived from the same Latin root; 6) Per this CDC report, 9% of US women (11.7M) struggle with alcoholism; 7) The Chosen is now the world’s most translated TV Show, with 50 versions dubbed and plans to do 550 more; 8) Per this NYT article, 80% of the grades given at Yale and Harvard are “A”s; 9) Per this AEI post, $400B was lost during the pandemic due to “improper unemployment benefits payment or outright fraud;” and 10) Per this WSJ article, YouTube accounted for 9.6% of US TV-viewing last month, second only to Disney’s 11.5%.

Matthew Homes: Here is a four-minute clip from a Chicago News station on the work being done by Renew Communities, the 501c3 started by Christ Church ten years ago. Last year, over 1,700 people volunteered for the construction of a home.

WOTW: Nominations include checkiness, which was used in this WSJ article. It describes “mindlessly, reflexively picking up a phone to peek at Instagram or to check emails when there is no real reason to;” chronologically superior, which I was called by someone who thought I was too chronologically superior to understand a diss when I heard it; and poly-pharmacy, a term those of us who are, uh, chronologically superior end up thinking about. (Poly-pharmacy asks the question, “How do meds A, B, and C interact with meds D, E, and F?”) I am giving full honors to Thick Community. We need it. In a society where commitment is whisper thin, I’m praying that thick community joins Caitlin Clark, light roast coffee, red state population growth, and jobs in cyber security on the things-that-are-trending list.

Yes! Count me among those applauding Ben Sasse/U of FL’s response to student protests. After noting that college is not daycare, the school said: 1) unpleasant speech is lawful and protected; unlawful action is not and will be stopped; 2) university leadership will say what it means and do what it says – e.g., cross the line on prohibited activities, and you will receive a 3-year suspension; and 3) our focus will remain on education, which includes helping you learn argument and persuasion not protests and violence.

We Are Not as Clever as the Algorithms: It’s not just other people who’ve fallen into an echo chamber. Unless you’re living further below the grid than Jack Reacher, the digital news you see is being curated by a complicated math equation designed to show you what all your previous news clicks have told it you want to see.

Resources: Last weekend’s Mother’s Day sermon wasn’t just for Moms. I was a bit more vulnerable than normal in explaining how the best thing we can do for others is to prioritize our spiritual growth. You can listen here.

Quote Worth Requoting: “If you want to keep your heart intact, you must give it to no one — not even an animal. Wrap your heart carefully ’round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change: Your heart will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis

 Worth Noting: There are three stabilizing institutions in society: the family, the church, and the state. As the first two have struggled, the third has grown.

Closing Prayer: Lord, I pray that you may be a lamp for me in the darkness. Touch my soul and kindle a fire within it, that it may burn brightly and give light to my life. Thus my body may truly become your temple, lit by your perpetual flame burning on the altar of my heart. And may the light within me shine on my brethren that it may drive away the darkness of ignorance and sin from them also. Thus together let us be to the world, manifesting the bright beauty of your gospel to all around us. Amen. (Columbanus 543-615)