Your Substack Reading Guide: Christmas Gift Exchange Edition

Something for Not-Quite-Everyone in Your Reading List

It’s Christmas time, and it’s always a question of what to get for all of you. I got you a month free, but I thought that I’d also introduce you to some other writing friends who I think you’ll benefit from as well. Many of these have much more behind their respective paywalls, but I’ve linked to one essay from each that I’ve found instructive.

There’s more good stuff out there, but these have this in common: if you’re going to write something, let it be worth the reader’s time and let it be something worth tarrying with. If you’re going to write, unapologetically make it worth reading.

Cultural Commentary

Like cultural commentary with a side of winsome? Does the Westminster Catechism make your heart stir? Alan Noble’s You Are Not Your Own newsletter may be for you. Check out his piece “When Evangelicals No Longer Care to Persuade”.

Perhaps your public commentary tastes lean more toward the erudite and eclectic, with some trans-Atlantic commentary on Scripture, virtue, and public life? Check out Alistair Roberts and Susannah Black Roberts’ The Anchored Argosy, starting with this meditation on magnanimity and public virtue.

If your cultural commentary is more around place and how to belong to particular places, Gracy Olmstead’s is more your speed. Start with her meditation on temperance at the grocery store.

Books and Culture

If you’re more into books and literary culture, Jessica Hooten Wilson’s monthly roundup The Scandal of Reading is more your speed. Check out her interview with Andrew Peterson to get a sense of her newsletter.

Ashley Hales’ Beauty Leads the Way offers meditations on how the aesthetic and the ministerial intersect, in both helpful and unhelpful ways. She’s been writing a series on how the therapeutic has swamped our churches, which has been helpful for me.

Politics and Ethics

Michael Wear’s Reclaiming Hope focuses on political commentary and its intersections with faith. Michael worked in the Obama White House and has a lot of wisdom and non-alarmist work to share, such as this piece on why pandemic amnesty has to go deep and wide.

Matthew Lee Anderson’s The Path Before Us moves between Scriptural commentary on the moral life, and focused pieces on issues of natality, contraception and birth, and political theology. I frequently disagree with Matt, but love arguing with him. Check out his piece here on suffering and desire for a flavor of his writing.

Michael Sacasas’ The Convivial Society may be one of the few newsletters that we’ll read after Substack eventually dies. Michael writes on technology, culture, and ethics, and frequently references one of my favorites, Ivan Illich. Check out his piece on taking stock of digital liturgies for a good example.

The Christian Life

Seth Haines, at The Examined Life, offers reflection on being a dad, a Christian and sobriety. Start here with his meditation on leaving the church and becoming Catholic. I got to chat with Seth earlier this year on their podcast on community and church.

Tsh Oxenreider is Seth’s compatriot at their Drinks with a Friend podcast, and writes a separate delightful newsletter, The Commonplace. Most installments are “Five Quick Things”, but occasionally longer form, such as this piece on the requirement to find beauty.

Chris Green’s Speakeasy Theology is a series of meditations on Scripture, sermon notes, and conversations around a theological reading of Scripture. I had the chance to publish my series on the 23rd Psalm there this year. See his meditation on Jacob wrestling the angel for a taste.

Kirsten Sanders has, up to now, been walking through The Lord of the Rings slowly and theologically. By this, no, she’s not teasing out the metaphysics of Helms Deep, but drawing out the moral wisdom of the trilogy. She’s got a new project in the works, but start with this piece on Mordor and the negative world.

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There’s plenty of others not named here, but fairly niche and specific to my own tastes, such as Joe Posnaski’s baseball newsletter and Kristina Javalina’s Your Local Epidemiologist , both of which helped keep me sane from 2020-2022. George Saunders’ newsletter is one I might pay for next year. And there’s plenty of other great ones I read on AI, bioethics, and other moral questions. But this issue is just friends doing good work.

But go forth and explore! And feel free to tell me about one that I’ve missed out on in the comments.