1. Giving accurate history about Islam. I was a history major in
college, so I naturally gravitate to writing that helps us better understand
the past. Here’s a simple Vermon proverb – If you can’t or won’t study the
past, you can’t and won’t be able to really understand the present.
In that vein, I like this recent post about Islam: Does Islam Inevitably Lead to Violence?
It fits in with some of my own study on this topic (I wrote my
senior thesis on the radical Islamic origins of Saudi Arabia). Understanding
the tensions within Islam can help us better understand why things are
happening in the way that they are happening today. And, by God’s grace, it
will lead to more opportunities for the Gospel to be planted in people’s
hearts.
2. Giving accurate history about the civil rights era. Again,
present debates in the area of race relations can only be understood by being
courageous enough to regularly study and talk about the past. Especially when
it comes to this particular topic, it’s important to read primary sources—what
people actually said and did. I found Justin Taylor’s blog series interviewing
various historians a helpful pointer in that direction. Here is part
1. And it’s really worth reading the succeeding parts:
3. The TV and movie industry, for
being totally sold out to doing superhero-based shows and films. Oh man, I
never thought the secret hobby of my youth—reading comic books—would become
mainstream. It’s almost a bit overwhelming how much stuff is out there right
now. And it’s legit. I saw an episode of “The Flash” that actually has Gorilla
Grodd in it—yes, a telepathic talking gorilla! Roll your eyes all you want,
haters, but the world now belongs to pop culture awesomeness.
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