Greetings from a much-needed Thanksgiving break.
This year I’m thankful for Caitlyn, our kids, my job, and the top-ranked Oregon Ducks. To be clear, I’m still as cynical and pessimistic as ever when it comes to sports; after all, I’ve been conditioned to expect the inevitable gut punch accompanying unmet expectations. But this season has been a fun ride. And while players like Dillon Gabriel, Jordan James, Matayo Uiagalelei, and Bryce Boettcher are big reasons why, a lot of the credit has to go to head coach Dan Lanning.
Lanning arrived at Oregon from the University of Georgia nearly three years ago. His story is compelling, from begging his way into a graduate assistant position at Pittsburgh to coaching linebackers at Memphis to eventually helming the defense for Georgia’s undefeated 2021-22 national championship team.
Since arriving at Oregon Lanning has recruited at a high level and brought a distinct culture to the team. He’s lost just five games in three years. And he’s coached this year’s Ducks to an 11-0 record heading into the final conference game of the season, against archrival Washington.
He also does stuff like this.
So thank you, Dan Lanning, for coaching the most fun Oregon football team since 2014’s Rose Bowl champions.1 I tip my hat to you, you genius and maniac.
And now to a veritable feast of reading recommendations…
Between Faith and Fight: What Motivated Latino and Black Christian Men to Back Trump (Christianity Today)
The biggest story from this year’s presidential election is the shift of voters of color from the Democratic to Republican column. Perhaps there’s something unique about Donald Trump’s appeal to voters on the margins, and these voters won’t be drawn to future Republican nominees. But for the moment, a real political realignment seems to be taking place.
As Harvest Prude reports in her story for Christianity Today, Christian voters of color were among those more drawn to Trump’s vision of politics in government. Or, as she recalls via a story from Samuel Rodriguez—president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference—Trump’s appeal may be simpler:
After the assassination attempt [against Trump], Rodriguez met with a Hispanic pastor who had voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. This time, the pastor told Rodriguez he’d support Trump. According to Rodriguez, the pastor was persuaded by memories of the economy under the Trump administration, plus sheer admiration for the way the Republican candidate handled the shooting. “I’m all in,” he said.
Rodriguez noticed how Trump’s response to the assassination attempt captured the attention of certain men who weren’t particularly politically engaged. They had been focused on stretching their paychecks, providing for their families, and dealing with economic headwinds, and once they started following the campaign, the message resonated.
Voters say no to school vouchers (Deseret News)
“School choice” has become a shibboleth in education policy, with advocates arguing parents should have more say about where funding for their kids is spent. The concept of school vouchers is not new, but it is central to ongoing debates over public and private education.
Kelsey Dallas notes that, at least in this month’s elections, the results for school vouchers were clear—and not in the way school choice advocates had hoped for:
Three ballot initiatives on school choice failed on Election Day, raising questions about what the future will hold for supporters of public funding for private education.
The pro-school choice camp had previously been reveling in a number of recent wins, including a 2022 Supreme Court ruling saying that Maine could not exclude religious schools from a state-funded tuition assistance program. Now, it’s regrouping after this month’s defeats.
From ‘The Benedict Option’ to ‘Living in Wonder’ — Rod Dreher’s latest spiritual quest (Deseret News)
Rod Dreher is a polarizing figure. On the one hand, he is a keen observer of the conservative movement in the western world, not belonging to any particular faction yet seemingly finding something familiar in several. At the same time, Dreher’s support for the illiberal government of Hungary’s Viktor Orban is concerning, as is his recent statement justifying potential Russian aggression in Europe:
His latest book, Living in Wonder, is the subject of a thoughtful review from Mariya Manzhos. The book, according to Manzhos, exhorts Christians from all traditions to reject contemporary habits and seek out the mystical in our midst:
Dreher makes the case that the world is full of the wondrous and the strange — we’ve just become anesthetized to it. He exhorts other believers to rediscover awe and transcendence in a post-modern culture that prioritizes scientific avenues for knowing.
Materialism and technology have sapped life of enchantment, he argues, distancing us from the more transcendent dimensions of faith — mystery, beauty and the sense of the sacred. This erosion has left people feeling disconnected and empty, yearning for a deeper, more meaningful relationship with the world. In this spiritual vacuum, according to Dreher, younger generations have turned to counterfeit expressions of the transcendent: psychedelics, witchcraft, astrology and the occult.
Religious faith, he believes, begins with the experience of awe and wonder. Ultimately, it’s when fueled by the transcendent that our faith can infuse our reality, however grim, with meaning.
“True enchantment is simply living within the confident belief that there is deep meaning to life, meaning that exists in the world independent of ourselves,” he writes. For Dreher, there is an urgent need for Christians to rediscover this. Both political and cultural renewal, he believes, are downstream of a renewed spiritual connection with God.
What Happens When Sports and Church Conflict? (Common Good)
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the influence of youth sports—especially travel leagues—on families, including those involved in church communities. I even wrote something about it earlier this year.
So I was excited to see this symposium on the subject featuring a variety of voices, including Paul Putz at Baylor’s Faith and Sports Institute:
The life of the Christian should happen in community with a local church body. But I don’t think this expectation suggests some sort of hierarchy, where the church is in competition with work or school or sports. Rather, the church should encompass all of those aspects of our lives. When we worship together on Sunday, we are not leaving behind the parts of ourselves that are formed and shaped throughout the week, and when we leave Sunday worship and are sent out into the work week, we are being the church out in the world.
I believe that sports can be a spiritually formative space. We can worship and experience God in the midst of athletic competition. But if we begin to think that faith formation in sports happens on its own, separated and outside the context of a church community — the body of Christ — we are moving away from the fullness of the Christian life.
Flourishing by being faithful (WORLD)
Jordan Ballor (of whose affiliations with the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics I am only slightly jealous) has an insightful and hopeful piece on the future of Christian higher education:
Faithfulness does not in itself guarantee success, at least in earthly terms. But there are also times when the Lord responds to the efforts of His people with blessings. And so it is possible to do well by doing good, and when this happens, we see how the world ought to work and God’s graciousness, even in the face of sin and brokenness.
Christian colleges and universities ought to vigorously embrace and live out their particular callings and find sustenance in the traditions on which they were founded. For some, this will mean the rediscovery of their Baptist or Methodist roots. For others, this will mean continuing to live out the convictions of Roman Catholic, evangelical, or Pentecostal traditions. And for others, it will require the hard work of renewing lapsed commitments to the Reformed, Presbyterian, or Lutheran confessions.
As Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Reformed politician, theologian, and founder of the Free University of Amsterdam once put it, these characteristics are nonnegotiables for Christian institutions: “Always and everywhere the university is to be bound to God and to God alone, whenever and wherever God reveals His wisdom, His will, and His ordinances, or makes these knowable through investigation.”
Steering Through the Headwinds (CCCU)
Speaking of Christian higher education, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities has a series of reflections on the past, present, and future of these institutions. Those interviewed include current and former university presidents and administrators, including John Brown’s president, Chip Pollard:
My hope is that the CCCU will continue to be the winsome, joyful, committed, and thoughtful voice for Christian higher education. That the CCCU remains a broad tent of different denominational and interdenominational schools committed to the same core theological beliefs and advocacy positions. That students, faculty, and staff will thrive and flourish in their calling. That the CCCU remains an effective advocate to ensure our religious freedom, which allows us to fulfill our missions in harmony with our deeply held Christian convictions.