A smattering of links for a Friday afternoon.

Elliot at Claw of the Conciliator writes on a recent meeting with everyone’s favorite sectarian tribalist theologian, giving rise to the perennial question: Kooky cults – good or bad?

Faith and Theology: Ten Propositions on Karl Barth.

Russell Arben Fox offers some theses on the midterm elections.

At Noli Irritare Leones Lynn has been blogging J.H. Yoder’s Politics of Jesus (I, II).

Right Reason: Is it wrong to watch Borat?

Three Hierarchies on Iraq.

The problem with “realism” at MaxSpeak.

Evangelicalism, post-Haggard and post-Rumsfeld by Ben Witherington.

Slate asks: who’s better, REM or U2? Well, both bands have certainly passed their sell-by date, but REM moreso I’d say. On the other hand, the claims made for U2 are clearly more disproportionate to their actual merits (best rock band in the world, etc.).

NT Wright on the GWOT (via Jonathan, who comments).

Conservative dissent on the Iraq war: an exchange between Joseph Bottum and Ross Douthat at First Things (here, here, and here). I think Douthat gets the better of it.