Eight Videos I Enjoyed This Week

Here are eight nuggets of truth from the Internet that point, ultimately, to God.

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This week, as most weeks, I’ve listened to hours of interviews, listening for subtle ways in which human life, secular wisdom, and empirical science point to God. Hopefully, these links provide you with some weekend listening and insight into the inputs of my thinking and writing.

1. Ali Abdaal Interviews Cal Newport on Lifestyle Design, Slow Productivity, and Contrarian Writing

Many interviews feature creative and intellectual people, but I especially appreciate interviews that dig into the practicalities of creative and intellectual life. Having read Ali Abdaal’s book Feel Good Productivity this week and been influenced by Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, this interview gave me insight into how they think and talk about the profession of an independent creative or writer.

Abdaal left behind a career in medicine three years ago, to his Pakistani “mum’s” chagrin, but Cal Newport continues his academic job as a professor of computer science while publishing books at breakneck pace, newsletters, podcasts, et cetera. They discuss how to design a lifestyle instead of merely letting one’s lifestyle be dictated by institutions and social pressure, but also how and when to leave institutions behind and go independent. While Abdaal found that his day job as a doctor was not essential to his success on YouTube but probably a hindrance, Newport continues to find convergence and cross-pollination between his academic work and his popular writing, as well as mainstream prestige.

Apart from the mainstream prestige, I feel similarly to Newport; I continue to see a convergence between my academic work and my online writing, which has helped me in moments of doubt about my Ph.D. I also, as an Aristotelian, appreciate the way the conversation starts with lifestyle and design and works backward to the job and career path necessary to arrive at that or facilitate it.

2. Alain de Botton on the Necessity of Psychotherapy

Alain de Botton is near the top of my list of secular sympathizers with Christianity. One of his greatest strengths is his emphasis on the psychological; directing his work more toward a secular audience, De Botton encourages self-knowledge and healing, through psychotherapy, from the traumas of childhood. Better than anyone else, De Botton articulates in this talk the legitimacy of using the word “trauma” to describe the imperfections of each of our childhoods that shape our present psychology and personality.

For any Christian seeking to understand the misery of our condition, De Botton’s new book, on which the talk is based, A Therapeutic Journey, is essential reading. I also highly recommend his Status Anxiety (also a TV show) and Religion for Atheists (which is also important for Christians).

3. Ayishat Akanbi: The Voice We Need to Hear on Racial Matters

Ayishat Akanbi is the voice we need to hear on racial matters. Black, female, lesbian, creative, philosophical, and gentle, she is impossible to accuse of any kind of insensitivity on the subject. However, based on her spiritual journey, she was led away from racial consciousness and “wokeness” toward a philosophy of friendship, love, and understanding across differences.

Ayishat Akanbi’s voice continues to persuade me that Christian sensitivity and alertness to injustice do not need to lead to sympathy with a racially progressive perspective.

4. Alain de Botton and Ayishat Akanbi Call for a Revolution of Love

Now, one of my favorite videos ever includes both of the previous two speakers, De Botton and Akanbi. In a way that is almost entirely removed from the culture war, the two discuss life in an incredibly humane and deeply Christian way, even though neither is a Christian. But the most moving moment is Ayishat Akanbi’s response to the question from an audience member about whether we should even love racists, rather than condemn them as evil. I have time-stamped the link to that question and Akanbi’s answer in the video embedded above.

5. Paul VanderKlay: Evaluating Jordan Peterson Theologically Doesn’t Get at Why He’s an Effective Evangelist

Perhaps thanks to its length, the title of this video says it all. Gavin Ortlund and Glen Scrivener try to argue, from the gospel-centered perspective, that Jordan Peterson is off the mark in important ways. But with Paul VanderKlay, I believe this is an exercise in missing the point. As VanderKlay has said elsewhere, the closest comparison to Jordan Peterson in a prior generation is Billy Graham. Peterson is the modern public theologian, filling theaters if not stadiums, interacting with politicians, and bringing the Christian religion to bear on public life. To critique him for the very reason he is so effective, that he does not explicitly profess Christian faith, is to fail to learn the lesson we need to learn from Peterson’s success.

6. Four Tumors in the Gospel-Centered Movement

This is an interesting one. CREC pastor Brooks Potteiger, elder Robert Murphy, and former “gospel-centered” church planter Joshua Haymes discuss their take on what was missing in the gospel-centered movement (think, “The Gospel Coalition”). I shared their perspective to a “T” when I wrote two articles early last year: “Whatever Happened to Reformed Theology?” and “Federal Vision, NA”: In an attempt to keep the gospel at the center, that movement downplayed the moral and political implications of Christianity in order to remain relatively non-partisan. This began to break through the election of Donald Trump and was shattered through 2020, on account of both racial politics and COVID-19 responses.

I continue to hold, with the discussants in the podcast, that “gospel-centered” ended up to mean downplaying the law of God and our bodily, temporal life, what they identify as functional antinomianism and gnosticism. However, my perspective began to shift last year when the same critiques of “gospel-centered” came from members of the chaste, gay Christian community and Side B theological movement. Nate Collins wrote that “white, North American evangelicalism as a whole tends to operate with a Fall/New Creation anthropology.” (I wrote about that here.) Then, with the hosts of Communion and Shalom, I discussed how “rejecting gay identity to find your identity in Christ” is effectively gnostic, denying the reality of our natures and bodily life, with all its other features than the fact that we are Christians.

This means that when the guys in the video come to their critique of “toxic winsomeness,” I have to jump ship. While I agree that downplaying elements of Christianity to appeal to outsiders, particularly those with morally progressive leanings, is a mistake, I do not think that that is the only reason to be winsome. There is a winsomeness I see in Side B that is combined with holding fast to Christian orthodoxy. It comes in following the law of God at great cost to oneself, showing the world that Christianity is not anti-gay. (Most of the “Red Pill” Reformed or Federal Vision folks have been strongly anti-Revoice and Side B, condemning it as “gay Christianity.”)

7. “I’m Going to Try Being Gay for a Bit”: Romesh Ranganathan

While we’re on the subject, a friend and I have been trading comedic videos back and forth that skewer the idea that we can just change our sexual orientation. This is the latest I’ve come across. Trigger Warning: It includes discussion of, and coarse jesting about … well, you can guess what.

It’s important to pay close attention to comedy, there is no greater test of truth than what people laugh at!

Which means that I have to add to this list…

8. Dave Chappelle’s New Comedy Special, The Dreamer

Chappelle’s latest special is filled with truth-bombs. I also found it very moving.

Watch it on Netflix.