Theology in the Raw - 704: #704 - One of the Best Books I read in 2018

Episode Date: October 31, 2018

On episode #704 Preston gives you a teaser of what is inside his Patreon membership. This teaser includes a clip of Preston talking about a topic from one of the best books he read in 2018. To support Theology in the Raw for as little as $5/month and access this (and other) Patreon-only podcast(s), go to https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, Theology and Narof fans, what you're about to listen to is a short teaser episode of another edition of my October Patreon-only podcast. In this episode, I talk about various things going on in my life, my spiritual life, my ministry, my church life, and I also talk about some things that I'm reading and thinking through. The following clip, you're going to hear me discuss an aspect of one of the best books I've read in 2018. It's called The Coddling of the American Mind. And I discuss some of the most salient ideas in that

book. I hope you enjoy the short teaser. They start with three bad ideas. They talk about three bad ideas that have been adopted by, well, a good portion of culture today. The first bad idea is this. They call it the untruth of fragility. And the subtitle is, what doesn't kill you makes you weaker. In other words, you know, that's playing on the more popular saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, which is more true. And the whole point here is that, challenge, difficulty in life,

it typically makes you stronger, not weaker. And this builds on the work of Nassim Taleb. He wrote a book called Anti-Fragility, which is, Taleb is one of the most brilliant public intellectuals in the world today. He, he, he's the one that he predicted the 2008 market crash. Like a few years before he said, this is going to happen. And it was spot on. He wrote a bestselling book called the black swan. And then he also wrote a book called anti-fragility. And in that book, he argues, I've read parts of it. He argues that the human body, the human nature, all the way from body, mind, soul, heart, whatever,

we get stronger when we face pressure, when we face challenges. And he used, I mean, the obvious illustration of even just our bodies. Like when we put stress through like weightlifting, we get stronger. If we just sit on the couch and protect our muscles and protect our bodies and don't run, don't exercise, don't push yourself, like you, we get weaker. And he says the same is true for psychological challenges and emotional challenges. Like we get stronger. If you would like to access the full length version of this episode, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in Raw.

That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in Raw and support the show for as little as five bucks a month. We'll see you next time on Theology in Raw.