An Obadiah Slope column
Coming in at number 27: Recently, The Other Cheek ran a story on reports that Crocodiles and reptiles have virgin births, all true, apparently. This was a clever response to the Reuters version.
Obadiah loves a good Bible translation joke.
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Left march: It’s official. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is a lefty at least according to the venerable left mag The New Statesman. Welby comes in at 27 on their list of power progressives. Here’s why: “Welby, 67, an Old Etonian, condemned austerity as a policy of ‘crushing the weak’ and called for the end of Universal Credit. In a speech to the Trades Union Congress, he described the gig economy, which has thrived under Tory rule, as ‘the reincarnation of an ancient evil’. He has repeatedly defended refugee rights and in a recent House of Lords debate, described the Sunak government’s Illegal Migration Bill as ‘morally unacceptable’”.
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Krauss on side: Obadiah remembers atheist and scientist Lawrence Krauss as John Dickson’s sparring partner on a memorable Q and A episode. Dickson got the last word, “I get all the science and Jesus too:” making the point that science and Christianity are not incompatible.
But in a controversial piece, “A Scientist’s Sexuality Shouldn’t Matter,” published in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-scientists-sexuality-doesnt-matter-nsf-dei-agenda-census-gender-awards-3e1e7ac2 Krause breaks with progressive opinion. He questions a proposal by the US National Science Foundation, a government agency whose Survey of Earned Doctorates is an annual census of new postgraduate research degrees. Krause acknowledges the worth of surveying questions about the gender and race of postgrads but balks at extending it to sexual minorities.
“In addition to being asked about their sex—now qualified as the sex “assigned at birth”—they will be asked if they “currently describe” themselves as male, female, “transgender” or “a different term”; whether they consider themselves a “gender minority,” a “sexual minority” and “LGBT+”; and whether they accept one of a dizzying list of labels: “Non-binary, Gender nonconforming, Genderfluid, Genderqueer . . . Gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or another orientation.”
“The list of reasons why this is a bad idea is almost as long. For one, asking about sexual preferences is a violation of privacy. Will the NSF next be asking how many sexual partners each degree recipient had during graduate school, in case promiscuous students are underrepresented?
“Such personal matters are irrelevant to science and essentially invisible. In my 40 years in academia, I have worked with all sorts of colleagues and students. Many were highly eccentric, but that didn’t matter if they were good scientists. As one colleague put it: ‘You are teaching a chemistry or physics course. Your lectures describe concepts and present equations. ‘Suppose a magnet is moving relative to a loop of wire.’ You barely know any of your students. You give tests and grade them. You have no idea, nor care about, the “sexual orientation” of any of your students. . . . What career barriers are there?’”
Krause suggests that this sort of survey leads to quotas.
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And Christians? Krause also notes that Australia’s National Medical and Health Research Council will give half o its awards to women and non-binary people – which is uncontroversial, in Obadiah’s v view.“Atheists and Jews are surely overrepresented among scientists; conservatives and evangelical Christians are underrepresented. I wonder what the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion]officers would make of that.”
Obadiah does wonder at whether the DEI folk will get around to us.
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In the Ballpark: which reminds Obadiah of the final act in a saga about the LA Dodgers major league baseball team honouring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Dodgers, ahem, dodged backwards and forwards on whether to honour the group that satirises Catholic nuns but, in the US, does charitable fundraising. The sisters will be honoured this Friday on the team’s Pride Night.
Clayton Kershaw, starting pitcher for the Dodgers, a long-time star on the team, disagreed with honouring the Sisters and, with the club’s approval, announced that the Dodgers would reinstate “Christian Faith and Family Day” at Dodger Stadium on July 30.
Obadiah wonders if Rugby Australia, the AFL, or NRL might like to try something similar. But probably, it is one of those “only in America” ideas.
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Warts and all: A reader raised the issue of why The Other Cheek reports the warts on the face of Christianity and the beaming smile. It is out of a conviction that, as John Stott put it, all truth is God’s truth. Truth-telling requires balance. He can’t do it all as a one-person show, but Obadiah contributes what he can.