The Galli Report: 11.27.20
Why Utah shines, religious partisans, ghosts, Christmas melancholy, and the deepest holes ever dug.
A Shining State on a Hill: Utah
I’d hazard a guess that most readers of The Galli Report are as disturbed as I am about the scarcity of cooperation and compromise in American life. Fewer and fewer of us promote the common good but instead only our interest or identity group. God forbid that we would let ourselves be treated unjustly, whatever that means in our minds.
This critique also applies to Christians, I’m sorry to say. That’s because we (not a royal “we” but a real one, which includes me personally) have imbibed this spirit of the age and tend to think of ourselves first, not as those who serve a crucified Lord no matter the cost, but as people who must limit the cost of being a Christian at any cost. And rather than asking in any controversy, “What might I give up for the greater good?” we usually demand our rights and legal prerogatives. We have erased from our Bibles those scenes where at his trial our Lord refused to speak up in his own defense, remaining silent before his accusers.
But didn’t Paul exercise his rights as a Roman citizen when he demanded to be tried before the Emperor? Yes, but the context is clear: he was not trying to save his hide but working the system to spread the gospel of Jesus in the most influential city in the empire. It was not about him or his rights as such.
OK, enough preaching. This is a long lead-in to an article that looks at one great exception in American life, where people of all sorts of diverse views have been able to come together and compromise and cooperate for the greater good.
As of this writing, Covid-19 remains “in the wild.” Much of the economic history is yet to be written, but an initial assessment makes clear that Utah’s economic response outperforms most, if not all, states. And it’s not just the Covid-19 economic response. Utah frequently finds itself in a favorable position across a variety of economic indicators—most notably for this article, income equality and social mobility.
This article explores potential reasons for Utah’s apparent outperformance, or what some have called Utah’s economic exceptionalism. The evidence makes a strong case for the value of social capital not only in fighting a pandemic, but in creating and supporting an economy that creates greater opportunity for all.
And one big reason Utah “works,” is the Mormon church.
Religious Rights Left and Right
Yes, yes. Of course, Christians have a right, even an obligation, to occasionally demand that religious rights be respected, and not only for their religion. But often rights are championed in a purely partisan way, which suggests that we tend to demand religious rights as a conservative Christian or as a liberal Christian. David French suggests the problem in this piece.
To be fair, the article is not primarily on this theme, but about how we should balance a political or judicial leader’s religious views with their understanding of American law. But it nonetheless touches on how Christians might transcend the temptation to religious partisanship.
The Problem with Ghosts
The title of this article should be enough to entice a read: “Why Do We See Dead People? Humans have always sensed the ghosts of loved ones. It’s only in the last century that we convinced ourselves this was a problem.”
The Problem with Christmas
Above I said, “Enough preaching.” I meant, enough preaching from me. I can’t resist offering this splendid short homily by Bishop Robert Barron on “The Enemy of Melancholy”—a temptation for people like me in a season like this. Perhaps you identify with me, as well as Barron’s practical and theologically sound advice.
We’ve Hardly Begun to Dig Deep
Another way to tackle melancholy is to look beyond one’s navel to what lies beneath our feet--that is, the wonder of the world’s depth, both man-made and created. As in “What's the Deepest Hole We Can Possibly Dig?”
Grace and peace,
Mark Galli
Markgalli.com