Francis Parkman, Divided Evangelicals, and Reading Books You Disagree With: The Top Ten Articles of the Week
To help you decide what to read this weekend, here are my ten favorite articles from the last week:
10. The Wall Street Journal reported on the new jobs the adoption of artificial intelligence may create. They sound pretty awful to me.
9. One can learn a lot even from the review of a new book about how American Indians living between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries fought and what they did with prisoners.
8. Why people on the right ought to be willing to publicly condemn others on the right who participate in evil.
7. A sobering look at the dangers of the United States’ massive national debt.
6. Francis Parkman, a great historian of the conflict for North America between France and Britain, was born two hundred years ago, this year. Here’s a profile of him.
5. Author Aaron Renn argues that Americans have become apathetic about morality, explains why this has happened, and suggests what to do about it.
4. Theologian Marke Devine tries to explain one of the most significant developments in American Evangelicalism in recent years: the cultural and political schism among reformed Christians.
3. Renn also looks at why “online influencers” – some wholesome, some toxic – outdo mainstream sources of authority, including many churches, at attracting the interest of young men.
2. Americans’ trust in their public health leaders cratered during the coronavirus pandemic. This article gives a comprehensive recounting of the ways these leaders destroyed their reputation.
And now, my favorite article of the week: advice about reading books that you know in advance will conflict with your beliefs.