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Matt Jamison's avatar

I've been a fan of Howard Marks' newsletters for a long time. I think Marks strives to be a pure rationalist. He works to identify and eliminate his biases and to be explicit about the models he uses to make investment decisions. That kind of empiricism can be extended to all areas of life. I found Marks especially useful during the chaotic early days of Covid even though I strenuously disagree with some of his conclusions. I think the Church would benefit if Christian leaders were more analytical and less emotional and impulsive in the way they think about current issues.

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Rich's avatar

I thought about this a bit more and want to narrow down my critique. It's related to my first comment, but a bit more focused on why I'm frusttrated by French's comments.

In hite opinion piece, French focuses on the social imperative of how Christians ought to act toward others and misses that the concern over the He Gets Us campaign isn't what Christian love may look like but the Christ behind the Christian.

It's extremely rare for me to meet a Christian who thinks we ought not to love our neighbors and our enemies. If I'm asked why I'm kind to others whom I believe are living in sin, my answer is not "Jesus preached a Gospel of Unconditional Love."

It's not that I want to see an Ad that depicts someone "hammering" a sinner caught in sin, but French paints Ad opposition in this light. He says we should be demonstrating the fruit of a converted life with our lives. This much is generally true, but who "spoke" in this commercial? It was the He Gets Us campaign, and they "explained" the actions with a false Christ behind the actions. This is the point of Samuel Sey's article and French zeroes in on a single sentence talking about the idea that the message would not be simply "Jesus loves you no matter what you do."

Again, the Ad "spoke" about Jesus telling *us*: "This is what Jesus would do, and why aren't you doing it?" Christians, who are otherwise living quiet lives (unlike French, who tells us the kind of Christian he is) have a right to criticize a message that is trying to publically "correct" the Jesus they believe in.

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