Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
Kevin Vanhoozer blends music and creativity with theology:
Flush from the success of the mission, he decided, “I don’t have time to apply to seminaries, I want them to apply to me.” So he designed “an inversion or parody of the recommendation form,” he says, with questions such as, “What are the strengths and weaknesses of the seminary?” He promptly dispatched 60 forms.
“Professors didn’t get it,” Vanhoozer now laughs.
Except for one. Vanhoozer’s eyes light up as he describes it. John Frame, then a professor in the honors program at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, wrote back. On the form, under “Weaknesses,” he scrawled,“Totally depraved.” For a Calvinist theologian, it was a wickedly funny joke. Vanhoozer loved it.
Caffeine + alcohol = instant success and controversy:
Criticism of Buckfast wine has little to do with its 15 percent alcohol content, which is only slightly stronger than some table wines. Instead, critics cite the combination of alcohol and caffeine, which the Food and Drug Administration has already addressed in the United States. In Scotland, there is heightened concern about the demand from younger drinkers, some of whom seem to use Buckfast as a convenient alternative to mixing alcohol with energy drinks and caffeinated soft drinks. “There is no doubt that caffeine-alcohol mixers make wide-awake drunks,” added Mr. Simpson, a medical doctor. “You are more likely to drive, and there is much more of a sexual risk. If you drink enough alcohol you eventually become comatose, but if you combine it with caffeine you can go through a fairly aggressive phase before you become comatose.”
What if every baseball field was exactly the same?
In a sport where stats and metrics and player comparisons are so heavily fetishized, you would think uniform field shape would be important. But baseball is a crazy old sport with a number of crazy old quirks that are impractical and stupid, but have been around for so long that they essentially define the game’s personality at this point.
The “grammatical rules” of discussing the Trinity:
(A) The triune God and creation
1. As the infinite Source of all things, God totally transcends the creation.
2. Yet God’s otherness is not remote from creation. God’s being is also Word – infinitely self-communicating, infinitely accessible.
3. And God’s being is Spirit – infinitely reaching out, infinitely gathering, infinitely opening creatures to God’s self-communication.
Christianity Today seeks to describe how to find the dwelling place of the Trinity:
Recently, some theologians have extended the concept to created realities. Other theologians, however, worry that the extending goes too far. When the idea is used outside its traditional contexts, it loses meaning, they argue.
Meghan’s Daum’s piece about campus sexual assault activism isn’t as flawless as it seems:
If there’s someone to criticize here, why does Daum place her demands uniquely on rape victims themselves? To be sure, the national conversation around campus violence is limited and flawed and dangerous in so many ways (although not, I believe, for the particular reasons Daum suggests). Why doesn’t she ask the national press why it’s not covering the issue at an elementary school in Idaho, or at a community college in Mississippi? Why doesn’t she ask senators why they’re not expanding civil options for victims who aren’t in school? Or ask the Obama administration why it continues to criminalize survivors who are of color, undocumented, and/or trans? Or ask white, wealthy, able-bodied student survivor activists — who receive the bulk of media attention and institutional support — why some are failing to step back, make space, and work to center the voices of marginalized survivors in their schools?
How do Christians respond to Caitlyn Jenner?
This is one person’s interpretation of theology and how Christians should respond to transgender identity. There are also many, many, examples of Christians welcoming members of the trans community. Jenner herself identifies as a Christian and has at times been a regular church attendee. But these reactions also point to the challenges ahead as transgender issues—and individuals—become a more prominent part of culture.
This liberal professor is frightened of his liberal students:
I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to “offensive” texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students’ ire and sealed his fate. That was enough to get me to comb through my syllabi and cut out anything I could see upsetting a coddled undergrad, texts ranging from Upton Sinclair to Maureen Tkacik — and I wasn’t the only one who made adjustments, either.
Kayne West challenges the definition of what embodies true music:
The birth of the canonical long-playing album has been hugely important to Kanye West. The strength of West’s albums has defined him as a critic’s darling, and the importance of “the great album” format allows West to join in on a kind of “rock” authenticity and seriousness. This shows that while post-countercultural music critics might be listening to dance music and hip-hop, the philosophy of rock-influenced seriousness remains.
Science isn’t perfect and that’s okay:
When people talk about flaws in science, they’re often focusing on medical and life sciences, as Horton is. But that might simply be because these fields are furthest along in auditing their own problems. Many of the structural problems in medical science could well apply to other fields, too.