IDENTITARIAN, NOT CHRISTIAN:

If It Were Me, I’d Try Not Helping the Christian Nationalists (Jake Meador, 3/08/24, Mere Orthodoxy)

[T]his has been a persistent problem in the Christian Nationalism discourse virtually since it started. There are really two types of “Christian Nationalist”: When the term is used by basically anyone to the left of The Gospel Coalition, it is being used as a scary sounding word for “non-libertarian socially conservative Christians.” And that’s not a great definition, not least because there’s very little that today’s non-libertarian socially conservative Christians are saying that we haven’t been saying for decades. What’s more, using the label in that way represents utterly normal Christian beliefs you find across church history as being somehow uniquely pernicious and dangerous in some brand new way.

That said, when many people more to the right use the term, they have something specific in mind. Stephen Wolfe’s (no relation to William Wolfe) The Case for Christian Nationalism isn’t arguing for a pro-life, pro-natural marriage Christian liberalism. He is, rather, echoing interwar European right ideas about natural greatness, hierarchy, and political power. […]

So: The Christian Nationalist political project, as defined by Stephen Wolfe, Andrew Isker, and Andrew Torba and their close associates is a) Nazi-adjacent, b) seeks to retrieve such political tradition as the Confederacy and the interwar European right, and c) routinely engages in anti-Semitic and anti-Black racial speech. These are the core ideas and practices that define the movement.

IS hE NOT AMUSED:

Does Jesus Have a Sense of Humor?: Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is like us in every way except sin. This includes having a sense of humor. (Austin Ruse, 5/08/24, Crisis)

There are three questions to consider. Does Jesus have a sense of humor? Does Jesus express this sense of humor by actually laughing? Does Jesus deliberately make others laugh?

There are other scenes in The Chosen that have irked the grumpsters.

Jesus reads the soul of the Samaritan woman at the well. She invites Jesus and His guys to stay in her home at Sychar. Told that one of the rooms is haunted, Jesus smiles and playfully says, “I’ll take that one.”

Yet another scene shows Jesus coming up behind His dear friend Lazarus. Lazarus is one of Jesus’ closest friends. Recall that Jesus weeps when Lazarus dies, and He raises Him from the dead. In this scene, Jesus comes up behind His best friend and pushes Him, just like guy friends do. Utterly charming. Utterly human.

We must admit, none of these instances are biblical. G.K. Chesterton argues that Jesus shows His entire humanity in Sacred Scripture with the exception of mirth. It certainly seems that Red Letter Jesus did not express humor.

But how would this be possible? He is fully human, and He certainly could not be one of those drab, humorless people whose humorlessness is a stark deficiency. Are critics arguing that Jesus is one of those?

Does Jesus express this sense of humor by smiling and even laughing? The proposition is that on this earth Jesus did not smile or laugh in the company of children, who were plentiful around Him. Is this remotely possible?

Are we to believe that He did not smile or laugh at the sight of cats wrestling or a monkey leaping. Nature can be very funny. It is hard to believe that He did not take joy in His creation even unto laughter.

If He doesn’t find His Creation amusing it can only because He’s not paying attention.

ACCEPTING HOW GOOD WE HAVE IT:

The Hidden Power of “Thank You” (Loren Marks, David Dollahite, Joe Chelladurai, Laura McKeighen, March 8, 2024, Public Square)

Our recent research as social scientists indicates that for many, “Gratitude is a divine emotion.” Although we did not ask directly about gratitude, many participants spontaneously discussed gratitude in their spiritual lives and their relationships.

Gratitude, however, is far more than an emotion. Over the past twenty-three years, our in-depth interviews with about 200 exemplary, marriage-based families for the American Families of Faith National Research Project have indicated that gratitude seems to frequently serve as a “gateway virtue,” a proverbial on-ramp to a freeway of other positive attributes and relational processes. In short, gratitude seems to be a catalyst for other “goods or values.”