Year In Review 2022
No.140: December 30, 2022
Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This publication is free for now, but please consider clicking on the button at the bottom to become a paid subscriber to enjoy this along with Monday’s “Off The Shelf” feature about books and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.
Dear Friends,
We have nearly made it another trip around that blazing ball in the sky, so let’s go out with a bang! Time for a now-annual Year in Review from The Square Inch Newsletter.
For starters, 2022 was a big year because The Square Inch launched itself into a paid subscription model. When I did that mid-year, I jotted down some extremely modest goals for growth. I am pleased to report that by year’s end I have exceeded those goals, thanks to many of you. Now I aim to build on that success in 2023, and that means converting more than a few of you from the “free” to the “paid” side. Achieving a “critical mass” of readers who chip in a little would be a huge boost and would help keep the lights on. In return for providing you something interesting to read (on average) twelve times a month, all I’m asking is for you to buy me a Starbucks latte. That’s it. Five bucks. Has anything I’ve written this year been helpful to you? Hit this button.
If you want to bless us over and above, you can also send a (non-tax deductible) tip or donation through Paypal. Just click this button:
Okay, that’s enough year-end marketing.
JANUARY kicked off with some travel for me, speaking alongside my friend and colleague Andrew Sandlin at City Church, Corpus Christi, Texas for a conference on the Kingdom of God. I later published my remarks in The Magnificent Pig (Available now). But by far my favorite essay for that month was called “You Are Your Own (Cultural) Responder.” It is all about the vital importance of civil society. Far too many people watch our cultural breakdowns with horror, wondering when somebody somewhere (usually Washington, DC) is going to “do something” about it. Nobody is coming to the rescue. We are the cultural first responders and it is high time we take up the challenges.
In FEBRUARY Vladimir Putin decided that he wanted Ukraine back under the Russian boot, so he sent several hundred thousand boots to accomplish the feat. It did not go well, nor is it going well ten months later. Rather shockingly, many on the American Right sided with … Putin. I had a few things to say about that, among other things, in “History Doesn’t Just Rhyme.”
In MARCH I wrote a long essay on the state of our public discourse, with reference to the “secular cage” the Enlightenment has foisted upon the modern world. I argue that postmoderns are perfectly right to cry foul at this notion of abstract objectivity, but that the answer is not skepticism, either. We desperately need a theological turn for our intellectual salvation. Our choices are not between Nietzsche’s “will to power” or secularism’s tepid neutrality. How about an open public square where we all get to say what we really believe? And even argue for it with our own premises? You can read more in “A Tale Told By An Idiot.”
In APRIL of 2022 the “outrage of the month” was the teaching of gender theory in public school classrooms around the country. I think that is a battle worth fighting, but I also decided to throw caution to the wind and, well, say what I really think: this problem will never be solved until we completely dismantle the entire public education system. Think I’m crazy? Well, you can read my manifesto in “On The Education Monopoly.” Not coincidentally, it was right around this time we decided to be done with the system altogether. Our middle daughter was finishing up her freshman year of high school, and it would be a vast understatement to say that she was not being well-served. She’s on to far more educational and exciting things these days. The list of things we miss is very short because it is non-existent.
When MAY rolled around I made a command decision to roll out a paid subscriber model and to begin writing multiple newsletters a week. Such things can be quite terrifying, wondering … is anyone out there? But I got a good initial response, and it has been steady growth ever since. I took the opportunity that month to do a reassessment of my political and cultural views. It bears re-reading, and is called “Taking My Own (Political) Temperature.”
JUNE was an exciting month. I, my wife, and our youngest packed up and drove to Golden, British Columbia for a week to speak at the Ezra Institute’s Runner Academy. The event was wonderful; the views spectacular, and we got to spend some precious time with Andrew and Sharon Sandlin. We also walked over two terrifying suspension bridges. The things a guy will do for his little girl!
Of course, June was a banner month for babies. The regime of legal abortion from conception to live birth finally ended after a reign just shy of 50 years. The Supreme Court finally righted the grave wrong it inflicted on the country in 1973’s landmark decision, Roe v. Wade. Coincidentally, that month I was thinking about children even before the Dobbs ruling, and wrote about them in “The Jayhawk & The Human.” Kids are not burdens; they are force multipliers.
As if trying to prove myself right in that essay, JULY found me attempting a practical suicide mission with my own little “force multiplier.” My 7-year-old and I went on a backpacking trip to a mountain lake at 9,000 feet. I hadn’t backpacked in over two decades, and I thought I was going to die in the first hundred yards. Four miles and 2,500 feet of elevation later, we managed to get the tent set up before a late afternoon hailstorm crashed down on us. She was an incredible champ; she had a very big pack for her age, and there was little complaining. She even uttered a sentence I’d never heard any of my children say: “Dad, do you want me to wash the dishes?” Also that month I wrote two of my most-read essays of the year: “The Magnificent Pig” (buy the book version!) and “When the Future Dries Up” (also in the book!).
I must have kept on thinking about that backpacking trip because in AUGUST I wrote “Paving Paradise,” some thoughts on humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Particularly with respect to environmental issues, I believe there is a great deal of confusion about that topic. We are not interlopers in some kind of “pristine” nature; nature is incomplete without us because that’s how God made it in the beginning.
SEPTEMBER brought the sad news that Queen Elizabeth II had died. I wrote a tribute immediately upon hearing the news, called “Under Whose Ruling Hand.” It is significant how much the world changed under her feet, and she was a credit to her people and a credit to her Lord.
In OCTOBER I had the opportunity to return to questions of humans and the environment because I traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to debate climate change policy with Jake Meador of MereOrthodoxy (filmed debate still forthcoming). I was also deep into auto mechanic work that month, and a drive up to a shop in rural Montana one day planted a seed that became my essay, “Humans, man.”
NOVEMBER was one for the ages at The Square Inch Newsletter. I decided to read a new book on Christian Nationalism to see what all the hype was about. The result of my investigation was “A Children’s Crusade: Stephen Wolfe & The Great Restoration.” Many thanks to all to shared it widely. Almost (but not really) took me back to that time a review I wrote helped to tank a Darren Aronofsky movie at the box office. Nothing will ever surpass what that experience of “going viral” was like.
Oh, and there was also a midterm election. Meh.
I finished the year in DECEMBER thinking about the same thing as near the beginning of the year. March had me musing on the necessity of God’s special revelation in Scripture—that God really, truly speaks! And lo and behold, I returned to the subject in “The Word Became Flesh.”
Looking back, that’s a lot of writing, and it doesn’t even scratch the surface. In addition to the dozens and dozens of other newsletters, I had a chapter published in an edited volume on the church, as well as a magazine article on Critical Theory.
I hope you enjoyed your subscription to The Square Inch in 2022. If you are a paid subscriber, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you’re a free subscriber, I thank you, too, for reading. If you want to know about all the good stuff behind that paywall, you know what to do! A lot of hands pitching in a little can keep this little platform going in perpetuity—which is my goal and desire.
Please have a Happy New Year celebration, and I’ll be in your inbox Anno Domini 2023!