The rest of January's reads

Here's the rest of January's reading since the last post:

The absolute best things I read this week were Rachael Denhollander's testimony against serial abuser Larry Nassar, and her follow-up NYT op-ed and CT interview. Her words are so, so powerful: honest about the brutality of her experiences, as well as the institutional failures that enabled it and its lasting impacts, open about the cost of coming forward and seeking justice in the face of these corrupt institutions, and all of it steeped in a full-bodied, theologically rich gospel understanding that balances God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness with His unwavering demands for justice. Without being hyperbolic, this woman is the voice the evangelical church needs to hear right now; while so many ostensible leaders are bowing their knees to Baal and other gods for a reaching grasp at power, she is planted firmly on God's Word, bearing a cross few of us can imagine and speaking passionate truth nonetheless.
Rachael Denhollander, CNN, Full Victim Impact Statement
Rachael Denhollander, New York Times, The Price I Paid For Taking On Larry Nassar
Morgan Lee & Rachael Denhollander, Christianity Today, My Larry Nassar Testimony Went Viral. But There’s More to the Gospel Than Forgiveness.

Several pieces on the inadequacy of the modern sex ethic:
B D McClay, The Week, 'No' is Not Enough

Lili Loofbourow, The Week, The female price of male pleasure

Gracy Olmstead, Washington Post, Divorcing sex from love hasn’t made sex more fun, more safe or less complicated
An interesting conversation between Alyssa Rosenberg & Christine Emba at WaPo, Why are Americans having such bad sex?

Also, Russell Moore discusses on his site how to react When Someone You Admire Does Something Disgusting

I read a lot of responses to Rod Dreher's awful comments on not wanting poor people in one's neighborhood or poor immigrants in one's country, including:

Jemar Tisby (who is heroically restrained here after being directly attacked in one of Dreher's responses), The Witness, Of Sh*tholes and Section 8: A Response to Rod Dreher
Alexander Wilgus, The American Conservative, The Benedict Option & Section 8

Patrick Gilger, America, Is the Benedict Option based on Christian principles—or white middle-class ones?
Mary Pezzulo, Patheos, Of Sh*tholes, Poverty and Rod Dreher’s Errors
Judy Wu Dominick, Life Reconsidered, Why the Affluent Need the Poor (not a direct response, but an older piece the author shared as her reaction)

Some pieces criticizing the system of overarching liberalism:
Damon Linker, The Week, An ominous prophecy for liberalism
Adrian Vermeule, First Things, Liturgy of Liberalism
Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy, Debating the Actual Crisis of Liberalism

Several miscellaneous vaguely political pieces:
Robert Joustra, Comment, The Politics of The Good Samaritan
Stephanie Summers, Center for Public Justice Review, Awaiting The King: An Interview With James K. A. Smith

Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo, The antisocial politics of Trump

Kaitlyn Scheiss, Christ & Pop Culture, The Church Much Offer the World More Than Mere Authenticity

Daniel Cox, 538, Are White Evangelicals Sacrificing the Future in Search of the Past?

Michael Wear has another good earnest-but-trolly piece in Christian Today (sic, did he pitch this to the wrong email or what), on What Barack Obama's Christianity can teach white evangelicals

More political pieces, specifically dealing with where people live and why:

Sarah Jones, New Republic, Telling Rural People To Move Won't Solve Poverty
Sean Illing & Nikole Hannah-Jones, Vox, “Schools are segregated because white people want them that way"
The great Emma Green, in The Atlantic, on the end of Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans and its impacts on their churches: 'An Assault on the Body of the Church'

Ronald C White has a fascinating review of the fragments of Lincoln's personal notes in Harper's, including his lawyerly arguments against slavery and theological musings on God's will in the Civil War: Notes to Self

Some local politics: David A Graham, The Atlantic, The Baltimore Police Department is Badly Broken

Political in a different way (I have no affection for or even much knowledge of Jordan Peterson, but I thought this was a good piece) – Conor Friedersdorf, on how we talk past one another and caricature our opponents' arguments in The Atlantic: Why Can't People Hear What Jordan Peterson is Saying?

On the subject of how our political attentions are distorted, and the deleterious effect of social media on public discourse, these two pieces go well together: 

Nicholas Carr, Politico, Why Trump Tweets (And Why We Listen)
Zeynep Tufecki, Wired, It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Era of Free Speech

And more technology-everything-is-terrible, but with much extra terrible:
Samantha Cole, Vice Motherboard, We Are Truly Fucked: Everyone Is Making AI-Generated Fake Porn Now

Jake Meador, Mere Orthodoxy, The Politics of The Last Jedi

Tyler Huckabee, WaPo, The radical – but gentle – faith of Mister Rogers

A couple pieces approaching the pro-life from different angles, one apologetic and one practical:

Karen Swallow Prior, CT, How Poetry Might Change the Pro-Life Debate
Lyman Stone, Institute for Family Studies, One Way to Boost Fertility: Babysit Other People's Kids

On the other hand, there's death. The first piece here (on the history and complications of the "brain death" designation) is simply incredible. 

Rachel Aviv, New Yorker, What Does It Mean To Die?
Gilbert Meilander, First Things, A Complete Life

Kate Bowler, NYT, What to Say When You Meet the Angel of Death at a Party

Andrea Palpant Dilley, CT, Kate Bowler: I Reject the Prosperity Gospel but I Still Crave What It Promises

A few more somewhat philosophical pieces:

Charles Taylor, The Immanent Frame, Ethical Journeys
Olivia Goldhill, Quartz, The idea that everything from spoons to stones are conscious is gaining academic credibility

Chris Krycho, Mere Orthodoxy, Faithful Extension and the Question of Human Origins

A few articles about drugs:

Matthew Loftus, NY Post, Sorry: Sometimes drugs are vital to escaping depression
Dan Diamond, Politico, First There Was Prince. Now Tom Petty. When Will America Finally Wake Up to the Opioid Crisis?

Miscellaneous Christian-specific stuff:
Thomas Kidd, TGC, When Christians Began Speaking of 'The' Antichrist
Stephen Witmer, Desiring God, The Secret Small Churches Know Best
Caleb Lindgren, CT, Translating the N T Wright and David Bentley Hart Tussle

A really interesting (and LONG) interview of Ross Douthat by Tyler Cowen on Medium: Ross Douthat on Narrative and Religion

And to close, a big part of why I'm doing this is to keep better track of what I'm reading, so here's Julie Beck, in The Atlantic, on Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read