Weekend A La Carte: Dinner Parties, Video Preaching, Botkins

Welcome to Weekend A La Carte. I’ve got a whole collection of interesting content for you today, so I expect you’ll find something here you enjoy. Scroll down to find reader recommendations for things they are reading, watching, listening to, and otherwise enjoying.

Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include some excellent books like Jerry Bridges’ The Fruitful Life, Peter Jones’ The Other Worldview, and Al Mohler’s Grace and Truth Study Bible.

Recommended Reading

An interesting article in The Atlantic describes the decline of the dinner party, which appears to be a casualty of modern times.

Then something changed. Americans stopped throwing parties. Even more fundamental, they stopped visiting one another. From 1975 to 1998, the share of Americans who gave or attended a monthly dinner party declined by half. The share of Americans saying they never entertained people at home tripled. Although cultural critics often bemoan the decline of organized religion, the dip in church attendance was downright modest compared with the collapse in hosting, according to data gathered by the DDB Needham Life Style Surveys.

What I find especially interesting is the four possible explanations the author lays out. Personally, I would lean toward the first two explanations, and perhaps especially parents working so hard on managing their kids that they don’t have time for novelties like dinner parties. Here’s a thought-provoking line: “Americans used to have many kids whom they cared for sparsely; now they have fewer children to whom they devote every minute of their life.”

Read: Why Americans Stopped Throwing Dinner Parties.

Here’s a sensible article that makes the case against another phenomenon that has come with the modern world: video preaching and preachers.

As researchers point out, each year megachurches take up a larger and larger slice of the pie of American Christianity. Big churches are getting bigger, while small churches are getting smaller. As this trend continues, it means that an increasing proportion of American Christians are likely receiving the teaching of God’s word via a video, as many megachurches rely on the multi-site streaming model. At most campuses of such churches the band is live, and there is likely even a local “campus pastor”—though he might rarely preach—but the teaching of God’s word, for many congregants in these churches, is done mostly via a screen.

I believe this is a tragedy. It is a tragedy because it is not what God intends. And while video preaching is often done out of good motives, I want to argue it is ultimately a short-sighted strategy that in the long term will prove an ineffective way to see the church grow to maturity (Eph 4:13). God desires his people to receive the preaching of his word, not via screens, but through embodied, face-to-face messengers of the gospel, for that is the way he himself designed the gospel to go forth.

I can think of quite a few potential drawbacks and inconsistencies when it comes to video preachers, so I hope people will consider this article and others like it.

Read: The Case Against Video Preaching.

We keep reading about the rise of data centers and the popular backlash against them. A photo essay from the Washington Post shows the massive scale of some of these data centers, which may help explain why so many people are leery of them.

Read: See How Data Centers Are Changing the American Landscape.

Do you remember the Botkin sisters, Anna and Elizabeth? They were part of a short-lived and bizarre movement which taught that girls were essentially supposed to remain under their father’s authority and function as his helpers until such time as they got married. You might remember the documentary Return of the Daughters.

Anyway, I was interested and thankful to see that they just posted a long apology for their previous work, and especially their book So Much More. They haven’t deconstructed their faith or left Christianity, but have just come to regret their influence. It’s a long read, but a worthwhile one.

Twenty years ago, we published a book called So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God. Whether by some impressive ad campaign, or just by the cresting wave of interest in the topic at that time, this 352-page hardback by two unknown teenagers with no theological training or life experience became the manifesto of the burgeoning “Stay at Home Daughter” movement. And it shaped a lot of lives. You may never have heard of it, but it carried a disproportionate amount of weight, and directed major life decisions for thousands of young women. And it’s still doing so.

And though some say So Much More was helpful to them, there are many, many others who have been harmed by how its teaching shaped their decisions or options regarding family, education, work, ministry, spiritual growth, where to live, and how to spend their single years. And to be perfectly honest, that also would include ourselves – the authors.

Read: The Problems With So Much More: A Critique and Apology, by the Authors.

Clayton Wood’s daughter is at the age where she needs to think about college, and it turns out that colleges are already thinking about her. Yet her father did some research and explains in this article why he wouldn’t be eager for her to attend most of the nation’s most prestigious schools.

She is already dual enrolled in the honors program at my own alma mater, and she is making As in college classes before many of her classmates have finished their junior year of high school. She did better on the ACT than I did. She is a gifted writer, an accomplished student and the kind of thoughtful young woman who will make almost any campus better by being there.

She is not my only reason for thinking hard about this. My son Wyatt starts college courses this fall at fifteen. I have five children, and every one of them is going to face some version of this same question in the next several years. I am not writing this essay for one child. I am writing it because I want all five of them to have a real opportunity to flourish, not merely to gain admission.

She has options.

I am happy for her. I am proud of her.

But as her father, I am also watching her approach a strange new world.

Read: If My Kids Get Into America’s Most Prestigious Colleges, I Hope They Do Not Go.

The Article that Failed My AI Test

I had another article here, but it failed my AI-detection test. I was disappointed, as I thought it made some good and helpful points. This is happening frequently these days. Here’s my current process:

While I prepare these posts without AI, I do use Claude to do a final check for typos and to verify that all the links are valid. At the same time, I have it do a check on each article to see if it appears to be written by AI.
If an article is flagged as AI, as this one was, I pass a substantial excerpt through both Pangram and GPTZero. In this case, they also flagged it as written substantially or entirely by AI.
When all three agree that an article is written by AI, I remove the article from A La Carte. If I see further evidence of AI use, I unsubscribe from that person’s site or newsletter.
Yes, it’s somewhat ironic that I use AI to detect AI, but for the time being, that’s the best method I know.

Reader Recommendations

Every week I solicit recommendations for things readers are reading, listening to, watching, eating, or otherwise experiencing. Here’s what you sent along:

Emily has, for the past few years, “loved Poor Bishop Hooper and specifically their Psalms albums. It is a beautiful way to meditate on truth throughout the day!”

Steve says, “My wife and I enjoy working the free mini puzzle on the Kiplinger app every morning with our coffee.”

Jordan has “been enjoying a simple practice with my children as I pray with them while tucking them into bed. I thank God for a couple of things about the day, then say, ‘and we are also thankful for…’ and pause for my children to fill in something. It’s a small way to give them an opportunity to try praying aloud. If you do this, be sure to explain what’s going on the first couple of times.”

Ginny is “learning so much through an in person BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) group on Romans. It is a 30 week study that can also be done online with a group of either men or women. The study is very Bible centered with no fluff. We are learning about God and the beautiful gospel!” For those who can’t commit to 30 weeks, she suggests BSF’s three-week mini studies.

Philip recommends the movie Amazing Grace, “about William Wilberforce and his work to end the Slave trade in the British empire. Watched this with my preteen kids and we were challenged and inspired.”

Rowan recommends the band Joyful Noise, especially two of their songs: “Gentle and Lowly” and “Your Cross, O Lord.”

Ryan recommends John Piper’s biographical sermons. “I appreciate the overviews of the lives and ministries of saints from the past as well as the lessons we can learn from them. His message on Hudson Taylor and what we can learn about union with Christ from his life is especially good.”

Christine says A Day’s Journey by Tim Keesee “has been a great comfort during a difficult time. It is beautifully written and God glorifying. Very thankful that Mr. Keesee put in such time and effort to write it during the extraordinarily challenging time in his life.”

Kevin has “been really enjoying Galahad and the Grail, Malcolm Guite’s first of four poetic books set in the world of the knights of the round table. The book is gorgeous, the poetry is beautiful, the stories are epic, and the Christian themes throughout are inspiring. Can’t wait to read this to my kids when they are a little older.”

Cheryl has “been enjoying the podcast ministries of Krista Bontrager, ‘Theology Mom.’ She has great biblical insight yet is very down to earth. You may also know her as half of the duo that makes up The Center for Biblical Unity, with Monique Duson, another great podcast to follow.”

Chloe from Australia recommends the Cold Case Christianity podcast, in which J. Warner Wallace, “a former cold case detective and Christian looks at the Bible through the lens of a detective.”

Donna recommends Samuel James’s article To Be Fully Human in an AI Age, Let Suffering Do Its Virtuous Work, excerpted from a lecture he recently gave. “He specifically addresses using AI as it relates to our work and relationships and our efforts to avoid suffering & the lessons God may be trying to teach us.”

Matthew highly recommends The Path to Being a Pastor: A Guide for the Aspiring by Bobby Jamieson “to any man, whether young or old, who is feeling led to pursue Pastoral Ministry! This book offers a clear overview of the journey to becoming a pastor. It is concise yet insightful, and Bobby Jamieson’s love for the Lord and His Word is evident throughout it!”

Flashback

My Own Little Paradise in an Ocean of Ugliness. We genuinely do make progress, yet always know that many decades of struggle in this life will be but baby steps compared to the mighty leap we will experience when we are finally perfected in the moment of death.