Cultural Trends

We did in-depth workshops bringing together the latest research on powerful cultural currents that resist biblical discipleship today.

Citations

Intro: Discerning Today's Cultural Trends

Bennett, Jessica. “Opinion | If Everything Is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2022, http://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/caleb-love-bombing-gaslighting-trauma.html

McGrath, Melanie J., et al. “Concept Creepers: Individual Differences in Harm-Related Concepts and Their Correlates.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 147, 2019, pp. 79–84., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.04.015

Schaeffer, Francis A. The God Who Is There: Speaking Historic Christianity into the Twentieth Century. Hodder & Stoughton, 1968.

Tiffany, Kaitlyn. “That's It. You're Dead to Me.” The Atlantic, 12 Sept. 2022, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/09/toxic-person-tiktok-internet-slangmeaning/670599/

Wax, Trevin. “What Expressive Individualism Does to Sin.” The Gospel Coalition, 13 Nov. 2018, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/expressive-individualism-sin/

01: Expressive Individualism

Haidt, Jonathan. “The Coddling of the American Mind: A First Principles Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Haidt.” YouTube, 10 Sept. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHTuI40HjVE

Keller, Timothy. Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World. Penguin Books, 2018.

Sayers, Mark. Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience. Moody Publishers, 2016.

Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Belknap Press, 2018.

Wax, Trevin. “What Expressive Individualism Does to Sin.” The Gospel Coalition, 13 Nov. 2018, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/expressive-individualism-sin/

02: Decline of Institutions

Gallup. “Confidence in Institutions.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 4 Aug. 2022, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx

Levin, Yuval. A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream. Basic Books, 2020.

Levin, Yuval. “Opinion | How Did Americans Lose Faith in Everything?” The New York Times, 18 Jan. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/opinion/sunday/institutions-trust.html

Sayers, Mark. A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World Will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders. Moody Publisher, 2022

03: Fragility and Harm

Bennett, Jessica. “Opinion | If Everything Is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2022, http://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/caleb-love-bombing-gaslighting-trauma.html

Dang, Nisa. “Opinion | Check your privilege when speaking of protests.” The Daily Californian, 7 Feb. 2017, https://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/check-privilege-speaking-protests/

DeYoung, Kevin. “Toward a Better Discussion about Abuse.” The Gospel Coalition, 24 Jan. 2022, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/toward-a-better-discussion-about-abuse/

Furedi, Frank. “The Cultural Underpinning of Concept Creep.” Psychological Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 1, 2016, pp. 34–39., https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2016.1111120

Hacking, Ian. “The Looping Effect of Human Kinds.” Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate, 1996, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198524021.001.0001

Haslam, Nick. “Concept Creep: Psychology's Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology.” Psychological Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1–17., https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2016.1082418

Haslam, Nick & McGrath, Melanie. “The Creeping Concept of Trauma.” Social Research, vol. 87, no. 3, Fall 2020. pp. 509-531

Hassan, Hind. “Oxford Students Want 'Racist' Statue Removed.” Sky News, 12 July 2015, https://news.sky.com/story/oxford-students-want-racist-statue-removed-10352887

Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C.. “Reconstruction of auto-mobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal behavior, 13, 1974, pp. 585-589

Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Books, 2019

McGrath, Melanie J., et al. “Concept Creepers: Individual Differences in Harm-Related Concepts and Their Correlates.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 147, 2019, pp. 79–84., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.04.015

Prieto, Juan. “Opinion | Violence helped ensure safety of students.” The Daily Californian, 7 Feb. 2017, https://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/violence-helped-ensure-safety-students/

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Random House, 2016

04: Victimhood as Virtue

Bennett, Jessica. “Opinion | If Everything Is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?” The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2022, http://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/caleb-love-bombing-gaslighting-trauma.html

Brooks, Arthur C. “The Real Victims of Victimhood.” The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/opinion/sunday/the-real-victims-of-victimhood.html

Campbell, Bradley, and Manning, Jason. The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Furedi, Frank. “The Cultural Underpinning of Concept Creep.” Psychological Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 1, 2016, pp. 34–39., https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2016.1111120

Graso, Maja, et al. “Allegations of Mistreatment in an Era of Harm Avoidance: Taboos, Challenges, and Implications for Management.” Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 34, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1–27., https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2018.0144

Haidt, Jonathan. “’Two incompatible sacred values in American universities’, Hayek Lecture Series.” YouTube, 15 Oct. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gatn5ameRr8

05: Fading of Forgiveness

Brooks, David. “The Cruelty of Call-out Culture.” The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/opinion/call-out-social-justice.html

Campbell, Bradley, and Manning, Jason. The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Carson, D. A. Love in Hard Places. Crossway Books, 2002.

Illing, Sean. “Why Is It So Hard To Forgive?” Vox, 12 July 2021, https://www.vox.com/vox-conversationspodcast/2021/7/12/22379647/vox-conversations-elizabeth-bruenig-forgiveness-social-media

Keller, Timothy. “The Fading of Forgiveness.” Comment Magazine, 21 Mar. 2022, https://comment.org/thefading-of-forgiveness/

Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Books, 2019

Additional Recommended Books

Bail, Christopher. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton University Press, 2021.

Brooks, David. The Road to Character. Random House, 2015.

Campbell, Bradley, and Manning, Jason. The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Comer, John Mark. Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace. WaterBrook, 2021.

Davis, Pete. Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Keller, Timothy. Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World. Penguin Books, 2018.

Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Books, 2019.

Levin, Yuval. A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream. Basic Books, 2020.

Noble, Alan. You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World. IVP, 2021.

Trueman, Carl R. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Crossway, 2020.