Five Things I Read This Week

Five Things I Read This Week

By Zak SchmollSociety & CultureReligion & SpiritualityChristianityPhilosophy
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Five Things I Read This Week episodes

  • Episode 37 - May 26, 2018
    I like to think that we can do better. I like to think that we can make the world a better place. Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, and you would probably never get that impression from this podcast, but I think that it is important to remember that for every problem in the world, there is a solution. We may not like the solution, and it may be difficult, but there are ways to improve on problems that we see around us. That is one thing I am going to try to emphasize today.
    1. The News Isn’t Fake. But It’s Flawed. by Frank Bruni from the New York Times
    2. Better Models, not More Money: Higher Education Solutions by John Mark Reynolds from Eidos
    3. Christianity and Progress by Joseph Pearce from The Imaginative Conservative
    4. John Cleese Has a Theory on Why Political Correctness Is Rampant in Our Culture by Jon Miltimore from Intellectual Takeout
    5. Rep. Kevin McCarthy: ‘Troubling’ Amazon Removed Christian Legal Group From Its Charity Program by Robert Donachie from The Daily Signal
    All music from audionautix.com.
    36 min
  • Episode 36 - May 19, 2018

    We have a lot to talk about today, and I think that one thing that is particularly striking to me is how we never seem to listen. I've always found that it never hurts to listen to someone else. I may not accept what they say, and I often times will reject the ideas they have put forth, but listening never hurts, and it often helps. I'm going to try to demonstrate that concept through a rather random assortment of articles in this podcast.

    1. U.S. Fertility Rate Fell to a Record Low, for a Second Straight Year by Sabrina Tavernise from the New York Times

    2. Do Millennials Really Love Socialism? by Stephen Walters from Intellectual Takeout

    3. Influencing Culture through All the Spheres of Our Lives by Hugh Whelchel from the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics

    4. If The ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ Is Questionable, So Is The New York Times by Joy Pullmann from The Federalist

    5. Why Baseball Needs To Switch To Robot Umps As Soon As They’re Effective by Nathanael Blake from The Federalist

    All music from audionautix.com.

    47 min
  • Episode 35 - May 12, 2018
    Admittedly, some of the stories I'm highlighting for you this week are a little bit old. However, I didn't use a chance to talk about them on previous episodes, so I kind of put them all together here. There are many troubling trends in our culture, but I think we're going to hit on some of the biggest ones today.
    1. Here’s How Few Republicans Are On College Faculties by Walter Williams from Intellectual Takeout
    2. King Solomon, The False Mother, and Alfie Evans by Devorah Goldman from Public Discourse
    3. Iowa Bans Nearly All Abortions As Governor Signs 'Fetal Heartbeat' Law by Brianne Pfannenstiel and William Petroski from USA Today
    4. Don't Celebrate Karl Marx. His Communism Has a Death Count in the Millions by James Bovard from USA Today
    5. How To Destroy Western Civilization Without Spilling Your Latte by Tom Gilson and John Zmirak from The Stream
    All music from audionautix.com.
    47 min
  • Episode 34 - May 5, 2018

    It has been said that there is no constant in the world except change. I don't know that that's true, but I have heard it said, and there is no doubt that things change all the time. As Christians, we subscribe to a set of truths that do not change. Obviously, that can put us at odds with the world around us from time to time. How do we think about change? Let's explore that.

    1. The Liberal Arts vs. Progressive Education by Robert Stacey from The Imaginative Conservative

    2. The Civilization That Soared and Enlivened the World by Robert W Merry from The American Conservative

    3. Christian, Choose Hope in an Age of Cynicism by Jason Duesing from The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

    4. The Absurdity and Joy of Being a Local Newspaper Reporter by Teresa Mull from The American Conservative

    5. Why Humans Increasingly Are Unaware of Their Ignorance (And Why it's a Big Problem) by Barry Brownstein from Intellectual Takeout

    All music from audionautix.com.

    21 min
  • Episode 33 - April 28, 2018
    There is a lot that needs to change in our world today, and as Christians, we need to be prepared for that. There are things we can actively do to move ourselves in the right direction. Let's talk about it.
    1. The Death of Self-Education, the Death of the West by Daniel Lattier from The Imaginative Conservative
    2. The Legacy of C.S. Lewis by James E Person Jr from The Imaginative Conservative
    3. My Son Is Very Smart by Joshua Gibbs from the Circe Institute
    4. The Problem With Social Media Isn’t The Media, It’s The Social by Robert Tracinski from The Federalist
    5. 21 Books You Don't Have To Read by the Editors of GQ from GQ
    All music from audionautix.com.
    34 min
  • Episode 32 - April 21, 2018
    There are some pretty amazing trends in our world today, and some of them really blow my mind. Often times, there is one way that makes an awful lot of sense, but everyone seems to want to move in the other direction. That is kind of what we're going to take a look at today. Like I wrote about on the blog this week, as Christians, we sometimes have to stand against culture.
    1. Are We Defining Morality on a Sliding Scale? by Hugh Whelchel from the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics
    2. With Learning, Take the Scenic Route! by Andrew McDiarmid from The Stream
    3. Stanford Study: The Most Religious Kids Do Best In School by Erielle Davidson from The Federalist
    4. Going Local by George Yancey from Patheos
    5.The Mister Rogers-ification of Christianity by Grayson Quay from The Imaginative Conservative
    All music from audionautix.com.
    45 min
  • Episode 31 - April 14, 2018
    The Internet has been a hot topic all over the media in the past week, and I have a lot of thoughts about these things. As a result, even though some of these articles don't seem to obviously connect, I'm going to do my best to show these links together for you.
    1. Why We’re So Bored by the Internet by Daniel Lattier from Intellectual Takeout
    2. Can You Name a Holocaust Concentration Camp? 45% of Americans Can’t by Liberty McArtor from The Stream
    3. How the Typewriter and German Brewers Transformed America by Bhu Srinivasan from the Foundation for Economic Education
    4. The 3 Basic Ingredients Needed for Life Happiness by Annie Holmquist from Intellectual Takeout
    5. Zuckerberg Hearings Prove Government Shouldn’t Regulate Facebook by David Harsanyi from The Federalist
    All music from audionautix.com.
    36 min
  • Episode 30 - April 7, 2018
    We are back to normal on the podcast, so I've got some news for you today. It is kind of a random assortment, but education, Facebook and a very exciting project will highlight the day. Enjoy!
    1. Creativity Scores in America Have Steadily Declined Since 1990. Why? By Kerry McDonald from Intellectual Takeout
    2. Schools Once Taught Biblical Literacy. Should They Do So Again? by Annie Holmquist from Intellectual Takeout
    3. How the Government Could Fix Facebook by Julia Angwin from The Atlantic
    4. Christianity: Too Violent For Facebook by Rod Dreher from The American Conservative
    5. An Unexpected Journal
    All music from Audionautix.com
    33 min
  • Episode 29 - March 31, 2018
    I am going totally off the rails today. This is a totally different podcast, and I don't talk about anything I read this week because quite frankly I haven't read very much this week. You might ask why I haven't read very much. I have a really special project to tell you about. I'm going to give you a little bit of background on that story.
    38 min
  • Episode 28 - March 24, 2018
    I'm sorry I missed you all last week! Time kind of got away from me, and I didn't have time to record this on Friday night. As a result, I have a combination of articles of things I read last week as I was preparing for that podcast as well as things I read this week. I didn't want to throw out the great stuff I found last week, so we are back and better than ever!
    1. University Kicks InterVarsity Off Campus for Requiring Its Leaders to Be Christian by Relevant Staff from Relevant Magazine
    2. A Tragic Abandonment of Identity: The Secularization of America's Religious Colleges and Universities by Arthur Goldberg from Public Discourse
    3. The Triumph of Emotion Over Reason by Zachary Yost from The American Conservative
    4. The Media’s Double Standard on Privacy and Cambridge Analytica by Patrick Ruffini from Medium
    5. I Would've Aborted a Fetus with down Syndrome. Women Need That Right by Ruth Marcus from The Washington Post
    All music from audionautix.com.
    31 min

About Five Things I Read This Week

From the publisher's feed

The Founder of Entering the Public Square, Zak Schmoll, likes to read and likes to talk. Join him as he talks about the best articles written around the Internet in the past week about religion,…