Meanderings, 18 February 2023
Good morning! I hope the colors of your day are joyful and satisfying.
Photo by Cam Stockdale on Unsplash
Craig Keener’s witness to the Asbury revival:
“I thought you were praying for revival. What are you doing downstairs?”
With those words, my wife summoned me from my basement last Wednesday evening, where I was working on a very long book and neglecting what was happening on the campus of Asbury University. I teach at neighboring Asbury Seminary. And if you’ve following the news, you know that people have been streaming to the university—and now the seminary—to witness and experience what some are calling revival.
After my wife’s prompting, she and I quickly headed to the back of Asbury’s Hughes Auditorium to pray. We found the worship service that started that morning had neither stopped nor declined. On Saturday, we found seats in the balcony. The university’s 1,489-seat auditorium was packed.
On Sunday, the spirit of worship felt deeper, and I felt more aware of God’s awesome holiness.
By Tuesday, Feb. 14, long lines waited outside the auditorium, where amplifiers allowed the music to be heard. When I finished my evening class at the seminary, the overflow crowds had filled the seminary’s Estes Chapel, which seats 660, its McKenna Chapel, which seats 375, and spilled over into the building shared by the local United Methodist and Vineyard churches. (I was informed that had already begun the preceding night.)…
Hughes Auditorium feels like a holy place at the moment. But in Scripture, God’s people are his temple. Whatever other places might be special to us in some respects, we are his most sacred place, and we don’t have to be near campus to welcome and honor God’s presence.
Kirsten Powers’ take on the Don Lemon story turns it around to say “Yes, many women would say they are treated differently than men.” Read on:
According to Mediaite, sparks flew between CNN morning hosts Don Lemon, Kaitlan Collins and Poppy Harlow when Lemon said Nikki Haley shouldn’t be taking jabs at Donald Trump or Joe Biden over their ages, because Haley “isn’t in her prime. Sorry, when a woman is in their prime is in their 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.”
When his female co-hosts pushed back, Lemon said he didn’t agree with this notion and essentially said, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
It’s not a coincidence that Don Lemon — who is very much seen as in his prime at age 56 — has female co-hosts who are in their thirties, who are also seen as being in their prime. Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, both in their 50’s, are seen as being in their prime. There are very few 50-something+ women on television who look their age who are viewed as being in their prime. There are women who have success, but they aren’t seen as being “in their prime” the way their 50-something male counterparts are….
The problem here is not Don giving voice to the misogynist standards to which women are held; in fact, it’s refreshing to hear someone just matter of factly acknowledge how sexist our society is. The problem is that women are not allowed to age the same way their male colleagues are. How long do you think I would be employed if I showed up on set with a full head of grey hair, like Anderson Cooper, or just the salt and pepper that so many “seasoned” male reporters and hosts sport?
Being the most talkative person in the room may be a good way to get people’s attention, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have the best ideas.
As a neuroscientist, I’ve worked with large companies like Google and Deloitte on how to attract and retain top talent, and I’ve found that employers tend to favor extroverts.
But there are some surprising strengths that introverts bring to the table, and they shouldn’t be overlooked.
As bestselling author Susan Cain points out in her book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”: “Extroverts are more likely to focus on what’s happening around them. It’s as if extroverts are seeing ‘what is,’ while their introverted peers are asking ‘what if.’”
Don’t get me wrong: Both extroverts and introverts have wonderful qualities. But research shows that introverts may have the upper hand.
Here are four highly coveted skills that set introverts apart from everyone else:
John Hawthorne reflects on Christian nationalism:
Last week, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) cooperated with the Brooking Institute in releasing a poll focused on Christian Nationalism in the US. Using a national sample of just over six thousand people, the poll explored levels of adherence to some basic tenets of Christian Nationalism.
Similar to the excellent work of sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry in Taking America Back for God, they divide the respondents into four categories: Adherents, Sympathizers, Skeptics, and Rejectors based on their scores on a series of questions.
The topline reporting suggested that nearly three in ten Americans are supporters of Christian Nationalism. That figure combines the Adherents and the Sympathizers. I read some pushback on Twitter over the weekend suggesting that this exaggerated the role of Christian Nationalism. That’s debatable, but I get the point. So let’s focus just on the adherents.
While the adherents make up just 10% of the overall sample, their commitment to Christian Nationalism is overwhelming. Three quarters of them want America declared a Christian Nation. Eight in ten say laws should be based on Christian values. Nearly 85% say that if we move from Christian values, we won’t have a country.
Over three quarters saying being Christian is key to being American. Interestingly, just over half completely agree with the Dominion language (although only 10% disagree).
This sounds very good to me, how about you?
Earlier this week, the US' Energy Information Agency (EIA) gave a preview of the changes the nation's electrical grid is likely to see over the coming year. The data is based on information submitted to the Department of Energy by utilities and power plant owners, who are asked to estimate when generating facilities that are planned or under construction will come online. Using that information, the EIA estimates the total new capacity expected to be activated over the coming year.
Obviously, not everything will go as planned, and the capacity estimates represent the production that would result if a plant ran non-stop at full power—something no form of power is able to do. Still, the data tends to indicate what utilities are spending their money on and helps highlight trends in energy economics. And this year, those trends are looking very sunny.
Maybe the “Dones” are not quite “Done”:
While it’s still too early to understand exact predictors for why people leave organized religion, one of the biggest findings that came out of Van Tongeren’s research has to do with religion’s lingering effects. The team found that religious “dones” still resemble currently-religious individuals in a variety of ways. In other words, people who have de-identified still act in ways that more closely resemble religious individuals than their never-religious counterparts.
That’s not to say that religious dones are identical to believers, but rather that they occupy what Van Tongeren calls a “psychological middle ground” between the religious and the never-religious. Those who have abandoned their faith carry a residue that permeates their psyche, and causes them to resemble, in many ways, those who continue to follow a religious tradition. The team found evidence for this “religious residue” in everything from people’s moral attitudes to consumer behavior to personal values. On a whole, the “dones” maintained a moral framework and pro-social behavior that looked more devout than not.
What causes religion to stick with people even after walking away from the church? There are three primary reasons. The first is that religion provides a strong cognitive framework, one that’s not easy to shake. The second reason is that people — religious or not — tend to form habits that are difficult to break. If frameworks are the cognitive reason, habits are the behavioral reason why dones continue religious behaviors. (As an example, Van Tongeren points to friends who are no longer religious but who still habitually pause before a meal. “Even though they don’t practice religion, their initial instinct when they sit down is either to pray or wait for someone to offer a blessing.”) Thirdly, religious residue tends to stick because of people’s social communities. Even when people de-identify as religious, they often maintain a similar community, which means they may find themselves doing religious things, talking with other co-religionists, and using language that’s familiar to their previously-religious self.