A La Carte: Drugs, Calvin and Hobbes, Gene-Edited Dogs

Welcome to Weekend A La Carte where you can find interesting long-form content from both Christian and mainstream publishers, followed by recommendations from readers like you.

Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include several noteworthy Christian books that are worth a quick look. You’ll find some interesting general market titles as well.

Recommended Reading

I sometimes wish today’s young people could know the joy of reading the daily comics, one day and one strip at a time, in a newspaper that slowly turns your fingers black. There was something so neat about it. I was probably not the only person who would read them in a particular order to ensure I saved the best for last. The best, and therefore the last, was Calvin and Hobbes. I still remember the shock I felt when I read Bill Watterson’s note explaining why he was stopping it, and I remember reading that final strip.

Anyway, all that is part of why I enjoyed this long article on Bill Watterson’s insistence on maintaining the integrity of his work (and therefore his own integrity), even when it would mean leaving millions of dollars on the table.

Read: Calvin and Hobbes and the Price of Integrity.

Soul-Stirring Stories from the East and the Global South. A would-be suicide bomber who now pastors in Turkey; war-weary Ukrainians bringing hope to their neighbors; a Rwandan pastor who forgave the man who killed his family. Ellen Vaughn writes, “[My] focus in telling these strange stories to myself and to you is to remind us of something more elemental: the absolute mystery and power of the gospel. Many of us have forgotten the main thing. There is power in the name of Jesus.” Use code CHALLIES and get 30% off at thegoodbook.com. (Sponsored)

O. Palmer Robertson may not quite be a household name, even among people who hold to Reformed theology, but he has had a substantial impact on it, and especially on the development of covenantal theology. Christianity Today has a long and appreciative profile of him. Here’s how it begins:

In December 1973, members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) revolted against their church leadership over liberal drift. Affiliated seminaries had denied the infallibility of the Bible. Education committees had questioned Mosaic authorship of the Bible’s first five books. Fearing even the beloved Westminster Confession was at risk of being watered down, 296 delegates gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, to launch a new denomination.

Decrying a milquetoast Christianity, 36-year-old Owen Palmer Robertson, a seminary professor in a suit with a paisley tie, addressed the assembly. Behind dark-rimmed glasses, he lambasted the modern spirit of promoting faith over “the faith” and caring that someone believed rather than what someone believed.

“Agonize for the faith!” he declared. “Don’t just sit there when men speak untruth, or leave the truth unspoken. Agonize!”

Read: The Man Who Said To Agonize for the Faith. (Gift Link)

I often find myself thinking of the final words of Proverbs 12:10: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” If you want to find examples of cruel mercy, you can find many in the causes of progressivism. That’s very much true of the decriminalization of drugs and the provision of safe spaces for people to use them. Parts of Canada have gone a step further and actually provided drugs to addicts, reasoning that drugs that are known to be safe are better than drugs that could be laced with something even worse.

This article from The Atlantic visits several cities in the United States and Canada that said yes to drugs and describes what has happened.

From 2014 to 2024, roughly 862,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, more than twice the toll of the previous decade. Several studies have shown that addicts who shoot up at official injection sites are far less likely to die of overdoses than those who use drugs in, say, alleyways and parks. Over the past decade, however, overdose-death rates climbed sharply in nearly every city where the strongest harm-reduction policies were in place, and even with declines in the past two years, the rates remain well above those of previous decades. From 2016 to 2025, 7,089 people died of overdoses in King County, which includes Seattle—seven times the number of homicides in that period.

Read: The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs.(Gift Link)

Cole Douglas Claybourn believes something about relationships has changed recently, and thinks he may have gotten to the bottom of it with the concept of “transactional relationships.” He writes about a new trend in college athletics and says, “when circumstances change or a better opportunity appears elsewhere, moving on has never been easier, more acceptable, or more common.”

He continues in this way:

That shift mirrors a larger cultural instinct, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z: evaluate the current relationship according to what it offers, compare it with available alternatives, and move if the return appears better elsewhere.

In other words, relationships have started to look less like commitments and more like transactions.

This logic makes sense in the marketplace or business world, where people frequently leave one job for another that provides more money or a clearer path toward advancement. But what happens when we begin applying that same approach to relationships?

Read: The Rise of Transactional Relationships.

I have not thought a whole lot about gene-edited animals, though I suppose I probably ought to. After all, some of what we determine to be right or wrong when it comes to gene-edited animals may well inform what we determine to be right or wrong when it comes to gene-edited human beings. This article from the New York Times writes about the frontier of the pet world which is using techniques like CRISPR to create dogs that are truly hypoallergenic. Yet doing so opens up a huge ethical can of works that pertains and dogs and men alike.

Now our canine engineering efforts are entering a new era. Earlier this month, Kindred Companion Sciences, a biotech start-up based in New York, revealed that it had used the technique known as CRISPR to create the first gene-edited, hypoallergenic dogs. Thanks to a single genetic tweak, the dogs — two undeniably adorable beagles — appear unable to produce a protein that can leave some people red-eyed and wheezing.

Still, it’s a long way from the lab to the laps of pet owners across America. (It’s been two and a half years since scientists announced a gene-edited, hypoallergenic cat, but such felines are not yet available to the public.) More time and data are needed to determine whether Kindred has truly delivered on its promise of hypoallergenic dogs, experts said. Can a single gene edit reliably stave off the sniffles in humans?

Read: How Much Is That Gene-Edited Dog in the Window?(Gift Link)

We live in an area that has a pretty strong recycling program, to the extent that recycling gets picked up every week while garbage only gets picked up every two weeks (which can be pretty hard to take in summer when it means trash has been cooking outside for two weeks before it gets hauled off). I have often heard that a lot of what we take to be true about both recycling and garbage disposal is wrong, and this article from Works in Progress makes that case.

Every child is taught that landfill is the worst place our trash can end up. It is the sad consequence of a failure to recycle: a mountain of waste leaking chemicals and smells, blighting the land forever.

What if that picture is wrong? What if landfill, properly done, is actually one of the cleanest, cheapest, and most environmentally sensible things we can do with our waste? It turns out that for much of what we throw away, the humble landfill beats the recycling bin.

Read: Just Bury Your Trash.

What Readers Clicked Most This Week:

Reader Recommendations

Every week, I ask readers of this site what they are enjoying and therefore what they recommend. Here’s what you came up with this week.

Josh recommends Shelby Ray’s article She Is Not My Prize; Jesus Is. He says he was blessed to read of her faith through difficult circumstances.

Jenny says “Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is beautiful, funny, and bittersweet. By the end of the book I felt I knew the narrator, and, although my theology is quite different, I was encouraged in my faith.”

Annette recommends the streaming channel, Tubi. “It is free. It has a great collection of old movies from the old Hollywood era. It has newer movies, but I am enjoying the older movies.”

Jim is enjoying the internet browser on his Smart TV. “I would sometimes watch Christian teaching videos on my computer and a few days ago it occurred to me that I can watch them on TV. Stunning video and audio, it’s so much better than most programming. Comfortable seating too!”

Keegan recommends John Paton’s autobiography which he describes as “a faithful missionary telling his own story with a powerfully theological lens.”

Louene is reading Sinclair Ferguson’s In Christ Alone for the second time. “So helpful, short chapters, challenging applications.”

Elizabeth says that “for those who enjoy Lord of the Rings, there’s a new online fan club that came out this summer. Lots of great community, games, discounts, and other perks!”

Hannah says that she and her son enjoy playing the daily Versle, then “texting each other our results. In Versle, you are given a verse and you come up with the reference in 5 tries.”

Eurico recommends “the recently published Jonathan Edwards Study Bible with texts and study notes selected by Dr. Matthew Everhard. The Bible contains also Edwards’ resolutions which are very useful for devotional purposes discipline.”

John is thankful for Parents Days. “Here in Ireland the government give dads up to 9 weeks off (at lower pay) to take within the first 2 years of each child’s life. Most men don’t use them. I do, and am so enjoying this precious time with my daughters.”

Michael recommends this site which “has a great directory of NT manuscripts for each book of the NT.”