The Friday Update - Message Discipline

Happy Friday,

We’re never commanded simply to worship. We are commanded to worship God. The directive is not given because God needs our encouragement, but because our lives only work when our loves are rightly ordered.

T-Day Warm-Up

Several hundred years ago, after 17th-century British Bible commentator Matthew Henry was mugged, he wrote the following in his journal: “Let me be thankful: first, because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took all I had, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

Word of the Week

Honorable mentions go to halfpinion (a “truism” that sounds profound but is only partly true), post-atheism (Jonathan Rauch’s term for our current cultural moment), and sonder (John Koenig’s suddenly trendy word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, meaning “the sudden realization that everyone around you has a story as deep as your own”). Full honors go to polycene era—Thomas Friedman’s label for our time, marked by multiple moving parts and competing truth claims, but few clear right or wrong answers. (BTW, after backronym earned honorable mention last week, a Minnesota reader sent his favorite: IOWA = “I Owe the World an Apology.”) I wouldn’t take shots at Iowans if I didn’t know they could take it. On a recent visit there, I saw two signs they’d posted on themselves: “Iowa City — All our creativity went into the name,” and “Iowa — Come for the corn, stay because you missed the exit.”

Matthew 6:25

When I was 30, more thirty-somethings believed in UFOs than in the Social Security system. Most were convinced they’d never collect a penny. Many of those people are now cashing their SS checks. It’s worth remembering that Chicken Little squawks more often than the sky falls.

Peter Thiel on AI and the Antichrist

Peter Thiel has been sharing his eschatological reflections lately—in Oxford halls, WSJ pages, and Hoover Institution podcasts. Having finally listened, I’ll admit he’s more thoughtful than expected. For starters, I share his concern that many will willingly surrender freedom to an anti-Christ figure promising security. I already know some trading away life for a false sense of financial safety.

Without Comment

1. The NFL remains the biggest sports league and one of America’s most influential entertainment forces.

2. Support for legal marijuana is declining, with about 64% of Americans in favor.

3. The median age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40, up 7 years in 5.

4. Grocery spending drops 7% in households where a GLP-1 user does the shopping.

5. One in 25 Americans has had a near-death experience.

6. Surveys show Millennials and Gen Xers have a more favorable view of ethical non-monogamy, making it the single most preferred relationship type among those generations.

7. According to this study, internet porn is becoming more violent.

Mamdani’s Discipline

Though I’m deeply skeptical of his ideas, I admire the mayor-elect’s message discipline. It mattered little what he was asked; what he repeated was: 1) Free and fair busing; 2) Free childcare; 3) Rent freezes; and 4) Government-run grocery stores. In a similar way, Paul seldom moved off his talking points – i.e., the glory of Christ and the Gospel of Grace. I could use more of that kind of message (“Hey look, a squirrel”) discipline.

Go To Church

Harvard’s Center for Human Flourishing finds that regular church attendance extends life: 1) For women 40+, weekly attendance is as beneficial as an annual mammogram. 2) For 20-year-olds, attending more than once a week adds an average of 7 years to life expectancy. (see here)

Favorite RR Joke

In light of Mamdani’s election, here’s my favorite Reagan-era Cold War joke:

Q: What would happen if the USSR took over Saudi Arabia?
A: For the first few weeks, nothing—then they’d run out of sand.

Quotes Worth Re-Quoting

1. “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” — Bob Dylan

2. “Each generation will reap what the former generation has sown.” — Chinese Proverb

3. “Not yet.” — Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Director of Engineering for Machine Intelligence, when asked, “Does God exist?”

Overheard

1. Some days you win simply by crawling faithfully.

2. We need to lower our opinion of our own opinions. (At least, I’m of the opinion you should lower yours.)

3. You cannot gain virtue by deciding to be virtuous.

Resources

1. Click here for my interview with Jonathan Rauch, a gay Jewish atheist intellectual who believes America needs more Christianity in its politics.

2. Click here to listen to last week’s sermon on Revelation 4–5—two chapters N. T. Wright calls among the most important in the Bible.

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. May my body become your temple, lit by your perpetual flame burning on the altar of my heart. And may the light within me shine on others, driving away the darkness of ignorance and sin. Thus together may we manifest the bright beauty of your gospel to all around us. Amen.” (Columbanus, 543-615)