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 hitting the paywall. 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 that you did not receive a Square Inch Newsletter in your inbox yesterday. I like to imagine that you sat on your phone or computer all afternoon, hyperventilating like an addict, hitting the “refresh” button on your email client or your Substack app screaming, “Where is it!?”
Well, you probably didn’t even notice. And that is quite okay!
The story is that for the first time in 47 years I actually got seated as juror in a criminal trial proceeding. They are sort of picky about confiscating phones, so I couldn’t very well sit in the box tapping out a newsletter with my thumbs. Besides, the defendant deserved my full attention. I’m sure you understand.
I want to tell you a bit more about that later, but first I want to briefly write about something else.
Blake Callens wrote a really interesting and helpful essay entitled, “How Commercial Incentives Break Christian Social Media.” (Note: Link corrected!) He expertly outlines the various online “tribes” and how the social media ecosystem seems to inexorably create feedback loops. The greater the number of followers, the more financial success; to get greater numbers of followers, one is incentivized to be as hysterical as possible and/ or to cozy up to other like-minded groups and tickle the ears of their followers, and never criticize them. Rinse and repeat.
I don’t need to rehash his whole essay, but I definitely recommend that you read it so that you may understand how Christian social media works.
And then—listen: you can attest that I am terrible at self-promotion—I want to remind you that The Square Inch Newsletter does not live, move, or have its being in that increasingly toxic ecosystem. I operate very well outside of the various “silos" (or, more often, “ghettos”) that are engaged in a nonstop food fight for followers. There are pros and cons to that. On the bright side, I have managed to maintain my intellectual independence; I do not have institutional pressures to write positively about something I am not actually positive about or to write negatively about things I am not really negative about. I am not locked into a “side” or hogtied to a bandwagon. I have the freedom to speak my own mind. And I would not trade that for the wide world.
On the downside, it means, necessarily, fewer followers and fewer subscribers and fewer avenues to generate more. It means living a very lean—albeit happy—existence. It sounds romantic, I know: the independent writer standing athwart the “system” in the name of integrity! But romanticism must be tempered occasionally by this thing called “reality.” So here’s some real talk. The cost of living increases we have seen are eye-popping. Our dollars have less purchasing power in every aspect of life, and I have very few ways of increasing the amount of dollars available.
One of those ways is to convert more of you to become paid subscribers. And in the interests of full disclosure, I am not talking about a Charlie Kirk TPUSA kind of following. I don’t want his $5 Million mansion, which he’s obtained by grifting checks from grandmothers he’s scared witless about the end of the world. I am talking about, say, two hundred of you. If I had two hundred more of you decide that reading all of the Square Inch content was worth $7.95 a month (or discounted at $79.95 per year), it would go a long way to making this publication solvent for the long term.
And, truthfully, you don’t even need to feel obligated to read all of it (I have admittedly been writing a lot). You can support something you think should exist even if you don’t take full advantage of that thing. Look at it as loving your neighbor: maybe someone else needs The Square Inch more than you do.
I thank all of you for subscribing to this newsletter, and I am profoundly grateful to those of you who pay for your subscriptions. Now, about that jury trial.
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