Dance With The Ladies

No.234: October 26, 2024

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before the paywall, so please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

I apologize for the delay for this week’s Square Inch Newsletter. I was traveling all day Thursday, and again all day Friday. For such a short trip I didn’t bother bringing my computer, and while I could have typed it all out with my thumbs on a phone screen, I decided to just wait and put it out on Saturday.

I had a lovely, if brief, time in Chicago for the National Review annual Buckley Prize Dinner. I was able to reconnect with a few friends and make a few more. I found myself sitting literally in the front seat of the ballroom just below the dais where the big shots were speaking. Cool, except that the floodlights were blinding me just as much as the speakers! (My host is one of those “platinum” sponsors or whatever they call it—hence the prime seating.) Anyway, Father Robert Sirico received the Buckley Prize and gave a lovely speech. He was introduced, appropriately, by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—fitting to have two Michiganders!

And, of course, a big highlight was finally getting to meet the great Charles C.W. Cooke. I hadn’t realized how tall he is—might have a couple of inches on me!

Plans just might be afoot to get Charlie out to Montana—one of the two states he’s never visited. He’s famously a rollercoaster aficionado and I told him I’d take him up the best rollercoaster in the world: the Beartooth Highway. Oh, and maybe we’d talk theology and philosophy and try to get him to abandon his atheism, too. I’ll make sure to let him know so I don’t ambush him!

Another highlight was getting a couple of the younger female NR staff writers (I won’t say who) to dance with me at the afterparty. I hate rooms where all the gentlemen are standing around talking and the dressed-to-the-nines ladies are standing around needing a dance partner. I’m sure somebody got photo evidence, but it’ll just have to live in my memory. Great fun.

I do not have a lengthy essay for you today, so I will do a potpourri of things that caught my attention.

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On the flight home last night I managed to catch the last few innings of Game 1 of the World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers. And, wow. All I will say is every kid in America for the past approximately 150 years has stood on a neighborhood field with a bat in his hand imagining this scenario. They even say it out loud: Bottom of the ninth, two-outs, bases loaded. Then they faux swing the bat and suddenly their voices become those of the announcers: it’s a long drive, deep to the outfield! It’s GOOOONNE!

You know what? Not one kid in the past 150 years ever grew up to actually do that in real life.

True story. There has never been a walk-off grand slam in the history of the World Series. Until last night. With two outs in the bottom of the tenth, the Yankees intentionally walked the bases loaded so their lefty could face a lefty: Freddie Freeman. On the first pitch Freeman destroyed the baseball, sending it sailing into the night in right center. Freddie Freeman did what every kid has dreamt of, yet never actually did. Well-done. So was the “bat flip” that was just a “bat drop.” Epic.

And I am constitutionally incapable of crying for the Yankees.

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There is apparently a new documentary causing a splash in evangelical-world, some kind of exposé of David Platt and his megachurch. I cannot bring myself to get terribly worked up about that sort of thing. The bigger and more influential your church is, the bigger target you are for criticism. Maybe the criticisms are valid, maybe not. But it isn’t my lane. The only thing I know about David Platt is that I once read his extremely popular book Radical and deeply disliked it for theological reasons. Stifling pietism, sub-biblical understanding of nature and grace, and deeply manipulative of well-meaning people to give up perfectly good, God-glorifying pursuits for a very narrow understanding of Christian vocation. The book was enough for me to criticize, and others can take up the issues about his church leadership.

If you’re looking for a strong antidote to Platt’s brand of “radicalism,” TruthXChange just dropped David Bahnsen’s keynote address from the symposium in August. It is well-worth every minute of your time:

My only advice for pastors: keep your church small enough to really be a pastor to people, and stop trying to build massive platforms. You are not, in all likelihood, some unusual visionary who is going to change the world. If you think you are, that’s the very first sign to stop trying.