Hope for Carl Trueman: “When chess beats lingerie models”

Carl Trueman has recently lamented the rise of pornography in our culture, but perhaps we’ve reached a moment of common grace in which the vacuous nature of it is admitted not to be able to satisfy the deeper intellectual needs of male audiences around the world.

It appears as if the current World Chess Championship (between champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Magnus Carlsen of Norway) is garnering higher viewership on the GQ site than is a photo spread featuring Victoria’s Secret models.

Fully 700,000 viewers tuned in when NRK started up its live broadcasts during the weekend, reported media website Kampanje. Even though the games going on in Chennai, India begin mid-morning in Norway (10:30am local time), NRK is claiming strong viewership in a country of just 5 million people….

India has seen massive coverage itself in all media outlets as expected, but going beyond the plain game summaries….

Still, the story that stood out far beyond any other, was reported by GQ Magazine. GQ is a specialized magazine for men’s fashion and style, and recently published a massive photoshoot of 100 models in Victoria Secrets lingerie….

That it was massively popular is no surprise, but what was a surprise, as tweeted by GQ itself, was that this story was losing out to another story posted the same day. You guessed it: the world chess championship….

I am glad to see that a real confessional Presbyterian has finally joined the discussion at First Things. Perhaps that is an admission that their Friday regular is not a real Protestant? That, too, would be a common grace.