Welcome to Peculiar People
Embracing Christian strangeness
So, like every other person with internet access, I’m starting a Substack newsletter. At least I’m not starting a podcast. Not yet, at least.
Back in the day, I made two flailing attempts at blogging and enjoyed it but for some reason or other drifted away from them. So, why start yet another thing? Perhaps because Present Kyle likes setting Future Kyle up for failure and disappointment. Or maybe it’s just that I need an outlet—a way to process my thoughts—and I’ve always found that writing does that for me.
Who am I?
I grew up in Taichung, Taiwan and Portland, Oregon. I attended the University of Oregon and got a BA in English. After getting a Master of Arts in Religion and serving for several years as a pastor, I now work as an acquisitions editor at a Christian publishing house.1 While no longer working full-time at a church, I still teach Bible classes at my church and occasionally preach.
I live in Eugene, Oregon with my wife, Rebecca, and our three daughters.
Necessary caveat because it’s the internet and everyone is crazy: All opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer, church, wife, or daughters.
What’s with the name, Peculiar People?
It’s plucked from the KJV’s translation of 1 Peter 2:92, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” In this context of old-timey English words and spellings, “peculiar” refers to something that exclusively belongs to someone. The church is God’s special possession, a people that belong to Him.
But I also like this title because of the other definition of “peculiar”3: strange. We are meant to be a strange people. We have different values, viewpoints, goals, and ethics, and live by a different Story. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon in their book, Resident Aliens, talk about how the church is a colony of the heavenly kingdom, which means our citizenship is not primarily found in earthly kingdoms.4 While we live in this world, we are “strangers and exiles” awaiting our “heavenly city.”5
Growing up in the church in the 90s, I remember youth pastors constantly telling us to not be weird and to instead show that Christians can be cool too. To be fair, they were talking to a room full of kids who thought wearing t-shirts that said “Jesus” in the style of the Reese’s logo was the pinnacle of fashion. But now when I look at our cultural landscape that’s polarized, enraged, isolated, phone-addicted, disembodied, and anxious, maybe we need to embrace a bit of Christian strangeness. Be peculiar.
Being peculiar doesn’t mean being an arrogant jerk or just constantly antagonistic. The attitude and posture with which we do things matter just as much as what we do and say. The goal is to not just focus on what we’re against (although there’s a time and place for that) but to instead focus on, to paraphrase Tolkien, the good in this world that’s worth fighting for. Instead of asking, “What needs to be defeated?” I believe the narrative of the people of God in Scripture shows us that we should instead ask, “How can we live faithfully and thrive in this world?” (And what I mean by “thrive,” I don’t mean in a materialistic sense of being wealthy, healthy, and successful, but in the deeper sense—living a life of virtue, integrity, and purpose. A life that is truly flourishing and honors our Lord.)
To explore these ideas, I plan to write about a wide range of topics—theology, culture, sports, philosophy, books, and more. I’m going to try to avoid hot takes and won’t immediately respond to the most recent headlines. I hope you like your takes served up ice cold. I’m also not going to write about every important subject in the #Discourse. That’s just not appealing to me. And you don’t really want to hear about my thoughts on bank runs and geopolitics. I don’t even want to hear them.
What’s this newsletter going to be like?
I’m might play around with the structure of the newsletter, but I at least initially will aim to give you:
One main thought around a specific subject.
A short thought around a different subject, perhaps something sparked by something I am currently reading.
A Thing of Beauty: a recommendation of something I love, since we all could use a little more beauty in our lives. It could be a snack, a song, a video clip, or something else.
What I’m currently reading (or watching or listening to): if you’re looking for ideas or just want to snoop.
Links: Other stuff around the interwebs that has caught my eye or got me thinking.
Don’t worry. I’m not here to spam you. And I can’t write that fast anyway. The plan is to try to write every two weeks, but I won’t be rigid about that schedule if it turns out not to be working for me.
There won’t be any posts behind a paywall for a while. All you need to do is click on the Free plan and you’ll get everything. If you like what I’m doing and want to express your appreciation, then you do have the option to subscribe with a payment. Who am I to stop a person who wants to give me money? I may also use affiliate links when recommending something, but you can always use Google yourself to avoid them.
A Thing of Beauty
My traveler’s notebook and rOtring 600 pen
Is it completely irrational to love something so simple? It’s just a pen and a flap of leather, but I would die for them. I bring them both with me wherever I go and use them to write down ideas, shopping lists, or anything else. They not only help me rely on my phone less (I’ll write about that soon), but there’s something refreshing about physically writing with paper and pen. I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating when I say that these two things are the greatest pairing since Frodo and Samwise. And like Samwise, these two things will carry me up the mountain as I stubbornly refuse to do what I know I ought to do and throw my precious smartphone into the fires of Mount Doom.
The traveler’s notebook is simply a piece of leather with elastic bands that protects my Field Notes notebooks. You can fit at least three of them with the included elastic bands. The leather ages over time, getting that ancient weathered look, and it makes me feel like Indiana Jones.
The pen has a great weight to it and balance, and the texture of the brass is so nice I find myself holding it just to feel it. (Not in a weird way though, I promise.) The pen takes Parker G2 style refills, which offer a whole bunch of options. I use this gel one. I like dark ink that flows easily but dries quickly because I’m left-handed.
Currently Reading
Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy
This is my first time reading this all-time great. As an English major, it’s always surprising to me how I managed to avoid certain classics, but maybe it’s because I was busy taking classes like Detective Fiction and Witchcraft in Literature.
A lot is going on in this book that flies over my head, but the stuff that does seep through has been extremely thought-provoking. It’s less about what the afterlife will be like and more about teaching us how to live here and now. I’ve been pairing it with the podcast 100 Days of Dante, which has helped me keep up with all the themes and allusions I’ve been missing.
Links
Why Pastors Shouldn’t Be Book Authors - The Beaty Beat
A really intriguing read, especially since Katelyn works in the Christian publishing industry also. She makes great points about how there are a lot of pitfalls for pastors desiring to write books. “Book publishing, as an industry and business, has a way of distancing shepherds from the sheep, of confusing primary and secondary callings, and of rejiggering the pastorate to be a job where leaders dole out spiritual ‘content’ from afar, rather than sit — I mean physically sit —with people in their longings, questions, and suffering.”
I don’t disagree about the dangers for pastors here, but I do wonder, if most pastors shouldn’t be authors, then who should be authors instead? Independent writers are only accountable to their publishers and the online mobs. Pastors (ideally) are at least accountable to denominational hierarchies and/or elder boards and their congregations.
Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT - The New York Times
Famed professor of linguistics, Dr. Noam Chomsky, along with Dr. Ian Roberts (professor of linguistics) and Dr. Jeffrey Watumull (director of artificial intelligence at a science and technology company) take on the AI chatbots. They point out how different these programs are from actual human intelligence and where they truly (perhaps always will) fall short. Ultimately, “True intelligence is also capable of moral thinking,” and this is what separates us from the machines.
“ChatGPT exhibits something like the banality of evil: plagiarism and apathy and obviation. It summarizes the standard arguments in the literature by a kind of super-autocomplete, refuses to take a stand on anything, pleads not merely ignorance but lack of intelligence, and ultimately offers a “just following orders” defense, shifting responsibility to its creators.”
Two Americas Index: 20% favor a "national divorce" - Axios
A sad but not surprising finding: one out of every five Americans favor separating red and blue states into different countries. Yeah, that’s not the majority of people, but it’s still 66 million of them. But all hope is not lost, if we’re willing to put in the work. “The survey also found that people who had not shared a meal in the past year with someone from a different political party were more likely to support a national divorce than those who had.“
Why the news is so negative — and what we can do about it - Vox
You may have noticed that things seem pretty bleak out there. But does that mean everything is worse than it ever has been? Part of it has been the diet of news we have been fed. “A recent study found that the ‘proportion of headlines denoting anger, fear, disgust and sadness’ grew markedly in the US between 2000 and 2019.” Maybe things feel worse than ever because we’re being told so often how bad things are.
News companies bear a lot of the blame, but they also are just giving us what we want. Supply follows demand and the article talks about how “negative news provoked stronger physiological reactions and garnered more attention than positive or neutral news on average.” Maybe we need to first do the hard work of cultivating better desires and then tell the media companies what we want by voting with our eyeballs.
Whose name has been redacted in an effort to spare my employer the misfortune of being pinned with anything I write here. If you must truly know, I’m sure Google can help you out. Sorry, I can’t take unsolicited submissions.
Tip of the hat to Rebecca for coming up with the name. I just wanted to call it Hot Pot Thoughts because I love Hot Pot (the Chinese communal meal), but she pointed out that most people will just think I’m talking about very warm weed.
After picking this title it really stood out what an odd word “peculiar” is to say outloud. There’s something about the phonics of it that reminds me of “Rural Juror.” The sounds don’t really go together. I guess it’s kind of fitting for the word.
Philippians 3:20, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (ESV)
Hebrews 11:13-16, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (ESV)