Upbeat Newsflash: Too Much Good Stuff!

I subscribe to various webpages and newsletters, trusting that others whose opinions I generally tend to respect (though do not always share) will point me to the most useful tidbits to be found amongst the vast piles of uselessness that characterizes much of the internet. I've linked to some of them already, but mostly refrained from pushing any of them too hard. But I would encourage you to subscribe to Evangelicals for Social Action's ePistle. The issue this week has many worthwhile things to check out, including an article (.pdf) about 'Jesus the Troublemaker', and the following story/link about "political charity":

“The Republican Party is the moral party and the Democratic Party is the
immoral party.” That is the answer I received in an introductory political
science class from a bright, Christian college sophomore when I asked, “What is
the difference between the two political parties?” I shouldn’t have been
stunned. Humans seem to like to think in terms of dichotomies rather than
complexities. This, of course, is not always bad, but dichotomous thinking
often trades the truth for something more comforting.

The student said this, of course, out of a commitment to a simplistic
perspective of what she believes is her political enemy, the Democratic Party, a
party that, as she sees it, stands against her ideological commitments.
Perspectives like this are myriad, and they are sustained and reinforced by the
hive mentality some media nurture. The political blogosphere is but one
place where this happens ad nauseam. Cass Sunstein, a renowned
constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago, has argued that places like
the political blogosphere have led to “ideological amplification” as people of
like mind talk to each other, complain about their political opponents, and
blithely turn those with whom they disagree into evil enemies.

Facing, and in some cases actively fashioning, our increasingly polarized
public square, Christians would do well to consider Sunstein’s call for what he
terms “political charity”. Exercising political charity means 1) one doesn’t question the motives of the opponent, 2) one respects, if she cannot support, the opponent’s deepest commitments, and 3) one deliberately works to create policies that one’s opponents can accept (see Sunstein’s brief definition). Political charity resists turning an ideological opponent into an enemy. Charity—what Jesus said defined his disciples—surely must include political charity.

Bret Kincaid
ESA Editor, Public Policy

Another website that often gets me thinking is The Scriptorium Daily, put out by some of my former professors at Talbot, now with the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. I especially appreciated this recent essay on Mother Theresa. And I suspect some fantasy/sci-fi fans/critics might also be interested in a little piece titled "Harry Potter is Dreadful and Vulgar".