One Little Word Newsletter - August 15, 2022
A tribute to David McCullough, healthy patriotism, and why it's better to grow up in church
Hello friends. It was a busy, but wonderful week, filled with faculty meetings. This is my first time working in academia so I’m really learning a lot and loving this life. My colleagues here, veteran academics, have all been incredibly welcoming. This week is the first week of semester and thus the first week of teaching. Here we go!
I had a wonderful time preaching this Sunday at Tate Springs Baptist Church for my friend Jared Wellman. I preached from Genesis 2-3 on Adam as part of his “Great Lives” series. Speaking of creation, The Gospel Coalition published a short excerpt from The Characters of Creation in which I offer four things creation teaches us about God.
My latest for World talks about the Biden administration’s attempt to take away free lunch from low-income children at a Christian school because the school refuses to change their long-held beliefs on sexual and gender identity.
What I’m Reading:
David McCullough, one of my favorite historians, died last week. It’s a tremendous loss for the country. McCullough was a giant, really, who brought history to the masses with his incredible attention to detail and beautiful prose. He also was able to tell history, not as one single thread, but a series of threads, not as one story, but many. Oh and he loved America while also not glossing over her deep flaws. Not sure my favorites, but I think these are my top McCullough reads:
Mornings on Horseback (Teddy Roosevelt)
Path Thru the Seas (Panama Canal)
The Great Bridge (Brooklyn Bridge)
But alas I hate picking my favorite David McCullough books because they are all so good. And they are especially good if you listen to them on audiobook, with him narrating them. He had a wonderful voice. I also loved his specials on the presidents for PBS. All of that to say that I loved this tribute by Samuel James and this one by David Rikfin for The Washington Post. Listen to this:
People often ask me if I’m working on a book,” he continued. “That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It’s like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It’s almost like hypnosis.
Ahh man, I've probably spent too much time here on David McCullough, but I'm not sorry.
Speaking of historians, John Wilsey wrote up a great column about healthy patriotism and ordered love for country. I love this quote:
Healthy love of country is a rightly ordered love, not intruding upon the loyalties owed to superior loves, and also not being neglected in favor of inferior loves.
Dustin Messer has thought-provoking column on the virtuous use of power.
And once again Brian Mattson is spot on here with this commentary on the Christian virtues of gentleness and respect, which have strangely fallen out of favor. BTW you should subscribe to Brian’s substack. You just should. A quote:
Just as you would not care to eat an entire plate of salt and pepper, so your media diet—or worse, your media output—should not consist of mockery of people and ideas you hate.
This is a helpful article that draws from the Baylor Religion Survey and shows that “childhood religiosity predicts a variety of positive outcomes.” In plain language that means growing up in church is better for kids than not growing up in church
And one more. Noah Rothman, in Commentary, has a reasonable take on the lack of trust in our institutions.
Books I’m Reading
So for my classes, I’m doing a ton of reading. I’m working through Embodied: Living as Whole People in a Fractured World by Gregg Allison to prep for my classes in the fall, and I highly, highly recommend it. I’ve also started the novel, The Nightengale by Kristin Hannah and I’m loving it so much. It’s WWII fiction set in France. The writing is exquisite, the story somber and yet hopeful, and the narration on the audiobook is good.
Lastly, I want to leave you with a feel good video. It’s Little League and a pitcher lost control of his pitch and hit the batter in the head. What happens next will make you feel better about the next generation: