“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.
“Why Tom Holland Changed His Mind About Christ” – Justin Brierley interviews Tom Holland on The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God Podcast: “Whether modern westerners realise it or not, their world has been shaped by the Jesus revolution of 2,000 years ago. Popular historian Tom Holland is a notable voice who has been reminding his secular peers of the Christian waters they swim in and why it matters. In this ‘third act’ of the documentary series Justin charts how the Christian story shaped us. He hears from Tom Holland on why he changed his mind about Christianity alongside thinkers, historians and converts on why atheist accounts of history often fail to explain why we believe in equality, dignity and human rights.”
“Black + Evangelical” – A new documentary from Christianity Today and Wheaton College: “Black + Evangelical is a feature-length documentary that profiles the history, struggles, and contributions of African American evangelicals. Taking us to the crossroads of faith and racial identity, Black + Evangelical is filled with candid interviews and eye-opening portraits of the resilient men and women who find themselves straddling the often clashing worlds of Black and white evangelicalism in America. Black + Evangelical challenges us to hear anew the voices of these men and women whose unique theological and social journeys have much to say about challenges faced by today’s church.“
“Quo Vadis?: The struggle to live in truth today” – Anne Snyder in Comment: “How do we act in a reality we cannot name? This question has become the haunting motif of my days. Everywhere I go, I hear a looping disorientation: spikes of urgency, sharp and vertiginous, followed by long stretches of quiet in which daily life hums along and the world seems, on its surface, fine. Especially in democracies grappling with their own fragility—pressed by rising populist revolts and their push for recognition, shadowed too by ecological distress that flares and fades from view—there’s a rhythm of crisis and forgetting that leaves many of us grasping for bearings reliable enough to make discernment, and the committed action that flows from it, possible. The air is thick with world-historical questions of moral urgency, but they circle in a whirlpool of inconclusion. Is it time to draft a new Barmen Declaration? Is Trump evil, or just a narcissist with instincts honed for leverage? Are we witnessing the long-overdue judgment of a corrupted elite, or the uncoiling of something more ancient . . . and dark? How do we stay human with AI in our midst?“
“Smartphone Gambling is a Disaster” – Jonathan Haidt at After Babel: “In The Anxious Generation, Chapter 7, we looked at the long decline of males in school, work, and relationships. We drew on Richard Reeves’ important book Of Boys and Men, but we also extended his analysis by including the long rise of the digital world in boys’ lives. We argued that boys today face a push-pull dynamic: pushed out of a real world that often feels hostile, and pulled into a virtual world that feels more rewarding and controllable, but that is designed to addict and exploit them. As we were writing The Anxious Generation, Richard launched the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) to deepen the research on boys’ struggles, and determine what can be done to help them thrive. Jon and Richard (who previously co-authored a book on free speech) recognized that we needed to work together to understand how changes in the real and virtual worlds are reshaping boyhood. To kick off that collaboration, we asked Isaac Rose-Berman — an AIBM fellow who writes the newsletter How Gambling Works — and Jonathan D. Cohen, a historian and the author of Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling, to examine one of the most powerful new temptations: mobile gambling, in particular sports betting. Together they lay out why modern online gambling is uniquely dangerous for young men and what parents and policymakers must do next.”
“Are AI sermons ethical? Clergy consider where to draw the line“ – Deena Prichep at Religion News Service: “On any given Sunday, churchgoers settle into pews as a clergy person takes an ancient holy text and figures out what it has to say about our lives today. But how would worshippers feel if they found out that sermon was written by Artificial Intelligence? While it’s hard to measure how widespread faith leaders’ use of the technology is, in an online survey of senior Protestant clergy by Barna Group last year, 12% described being comfortable using AI to write sermons, and 43% said they saw its merits in sermon preparation and research. ‘It’s like a mini research paper you have to prepare every week,’ said Naomi Sease Carriker, pastor at Messiah of the Mountains, a Lutheran church in Burnsville, North Carolina. ‘And some weeks … life is just a lot.'” Carriker said clergy tend to talk about AI in hushed tones. But recently, during one of those busy weeks, she opened up ChatGPT. She plugged in the Bible reading for the week, along with a few blog posts on the passages she particularly admired.”
“An Intro to Saint Gregory of Nyssa and His Last Work: The Life of Moses” – Jesse Hake at Theophaneia: “My five year old daughter speaks with reverence about a ‘family tradition’ involving the two of us walking down the Greenbelt trail near our home to The Tiger Eye coffeeshop where she loves to get a small cotton candy ice cream. It’s hardly a family tradition as we’ve been in this home only two or three years. And for my part, I quietly long for the day when she matures beyond that ice cream flavor choice for herself. However, it is a simple local outing that I enjoy with her and that we have done as a whole family a few times. Recently, when my three kids and I were all indulging in this ‘family tradition,’ we noticed several shelves of books labeled ‘Free Library’ up above us on the covered porch where we were sitting. My youngest asked me to find a book for her, so I searched for a while and found a book of poems that she got excited about. We were throwing away ice cream cups and napkins as we got ready to go, when my oldest daughter, who just graduated from high school, reached up to pull a book off the shelves that I had not noticed. She said, ‘Dad, isn’t this a saint that you love to talk about?’ Sure enough, it was a copy of The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa—the HarperCollins Spiritual Classics edition printed in 2006 with a forward by Kentucky novelist Silas House.”
Music: Bob Dylan, “Pressing On,” from Saved.
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Matthew Erickson 