Merely Asking Tough Questions Won’t Do Much Good

“Weak teachers want asking tough questions to be enough because it deflects their own moral responsibility to speak the truth and places it back on students. Tough questions can unsettle a student from complacency and make him pliable, but tough questions are incapable of forming a student. What forms a student is tough answers.”

-from Asking Tough Questions Is Not Enough, my latest for CiRCE

Ted Lasso’s Secret? He’s An Evangelical

Ted Lasso only makes sense as an evangelical, though the writers of the show refuse to admit it. It’s not just the blend of optimism and humility which make him an evangelical (not just generically Christian, but Midwestern evangelical in particular), but the fact he is obviously patterned after the most famous Christian television character of all time:

Same haircut, same mustache, same Oxford and sweater combo. Both characters are constantly smiling, constantly positive, constantly mocked by everyone else. They both have the same goofy sense of humor. “Sorry is not just the most exciting board game ever devised, it’s a word I need to hear from you!” and, “That sounds salty, but you seem sweet. I’m going to call you kettle corn,” are both Ned’s lines, but they could just as easily come from Ted. And their names even rhyme, for crying out loud.  

Why not out Ted, then? Why not let him pray with the team before a game?

Simple answer: Christians have spent the last fifty years reading their own lives into the lives of fictional secularists who populate current films and television shows, but secularists have a really hard time getting over the Christian faith of a fictional character. Why? Lack of practice has withered their ability. It takes a healthy imagination to see yourself in your enemies.

On Getting COVID And Losing My Sense Of Taste And Smell

“After testing positive for COVID last week, I entirely lost my sense of smell and my sense of taste. The symptoms which prompted me to get tested were too mild to even mention, but when I tasted my coffee the following morning and found it as odorless and tasteless as tap water, my first thought was, ‘Please, God, not that,’ although I suspect my guardian angel’s first thought was, ‘Oh, he’s needed something like this for quite awhile.’ As usual, my guardian angel was right.”

-from On Getting COVID And Losing My Sense Of Taste And Smell, my latest for CiRCE

Talking With My 12-Year-Old Daughter About The Rich

“Camilla: Is it good to be cosmopolitan?

Gibbs: Being cosmopolitan will not save your soul, but it is good that some people are cosmopolitan. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke says it is good for the church to have a few wealthy, well-travelled bishops. Cosmopolitan bishops are easier for rich people to respect, which makes it easier for rich people to come into the church. It is also much harder for a wealthy, well-travelled bishop to be intimidated or compromised by a rich layman. I think these are good arguments. I am glad that some people are cosmopolitan.”

-from Talking With My 12-Year-Old Daughter About The Rich, my latest from CiRCE