Podcast: The new season of Living and Effective—the podcast collaboration of Christianity Today and the Christian Standard Bible—is now available. It’s all about grief, the prosperity gospel, and the power of God’s Word. Check it out here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Kindle Deal: Jesus Loves Me: Celebrating the Profound Truths of a Simple Hymn by Calvin Miller. $2.99.
Seven of the best articles I came across this week:
1. Matthew Lee Anderson – How Pornography Makes Us Less Human and Less Humane. The inescapable availability of pornography, and the corrosive “pornification” of all other forms of media, means that the most pressing challenge for Christians is rediscovering what purity feels like.
2. Austin Gohn – We’re All Truman Now. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism represents a significant turning point in the conversation around digital technology. It’s not just that these technologies distract us from what’s important to us. It’s that they extract what’s important to us so that they can make predictions about us.
3. Sophia Lee – Jesus at the Border. “What I saw churches doing at the border was nothing short of a miracle: They weren’t serving just because the Bible commanded it—they did it because they were first touched by the love and compassion of Jesus Christ.”
4. Hannah Nation and EF Gregory – Love from the Margins: Lessons from 4 Pastors in China. The power of perseverance comes from the Holy Spirit, not from social position or privilege. We recently asked four Chinese house church pastors what we should know about loving our cities from the margins.
5. Jennifer Walter – Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains It Doesn’t Matter. Intriguing research here, for sure, but I do wonder about differences in types of literature. It’s one thing to hear or read a story, but another to do serious academic work. I have a hard time with audiobooks if they’re academic, but I love listening to a memoir or a novel.
6. Jonathan Rogers – Making Friends with the Inner Critic. Instead of thinking of the inner critic as your enemy, think of the inner critic is a friend who means well but needs to be told to shut up every now and then.
7. Paul Krause – An Invitation to Augustine’s “City of God.” I’m reading a new translation of this work, making my way through it slowly in its entirety for the first time. This article provides a good overview as to the book’s impact on the world.
