A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Animals

  • Christianity and the roots of anti-animal sentiment

    Over at the blog Year of Plenty, Craig Goodwin reviews Laura Hobgood-Oster’s recent book The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals. It’s a generally positive review, but at the end Goodwin takes issue with some of Hobgood-Oster’s explanations for our troubled relationship with the animal world: The references and historical background offered on Read more

  • Friday links

    –On Christianity, the Holocaust, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. –Recent posts on what’s apparently now being referred to as the “new universalism” from James K.A. Smith, Halden Doerge, and David Congdon. –Does having a monarchy lead to greater equality? –Redeeming the “L word.” –Appreciating both N.T. Wright’s and Marcus Borg’s views of the Resurrection. –Why liberals should Read more

  • Friday Links

    —What Makes Life Good? An excerpt from Martha Nussbaum’s new book. –Johann Hari makes the case against the British monarchy. –How progressive are taxes in the U.S.? –Ten teachings on Judaism and the environment. –Marilyn of Left At the Altar reviews Laura Hobgood-Oster’s The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals. –A very interesting Read more

  • Making the world safe for CAFOs

    The NewYork Times gives some coverage today of the ongoing efforts in Iowa, Florida, and now Minnesota to make it impossible for activists to reveal animal abuse in factory farms to the public. I continue to be kind of shocked by how brazen the industry’s attempts to shield itself from public scrutiny are. And that Read more

  • Friday Links

    I spent the day hanging out with my family, so these are coming a little late… –Why Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal is neither brave nor serious. –Free-range meat isn’t necessarily “natural.” –A case for universalism from the Scottish evangelical preacher and biblical scholar William Barclay. –A review of a recent book called What’s the Read more

  • Time article on the debate over “humane” meat-eating

    This article from Time provides one of the best overviews I’ve seen in a mainstream publication about the issues surrounding factory farms and the use of animals for food. It notes that there’s debate among “humane” meat proponents, vegetarians, and vegans about whether it’s okay to use animals for food at all, but also highlights Read more

  • Friday Links

    –Today is the Feast of the Annunciation; here are some thoughts on that. BLS also has one of her outstanding musical offerings for the day. –John Piper, theological nihilist? –Catholics are “more supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships than members of any other Christian tradition and Americans overall.” –How to live without a mobile Read more

  • Iowa factory farms try to put the clampdown on free speech

    I had blogged previously about efforts by factory farms and their political allies in Iowa to make it illegal to create videos or other evidence of the mistreatment of animals in intensive-farming facilities. But the bill under consideration apparently goes further than that. According to this editorial in the Des Moines Register (via Farm Sanctuary), Read more

  • God’s right to the respectful treatment of God’s creatures

    I’ve been re-reading Andrew Linzey’s Christianity and the Rights of Animals and just wanted to jot down some salient passages. On intensive farming: To put it at its most basic: animals have a God-given right to be animals. The natural life of a Spirit-filled creatures is a gift from God. When we take over the Read more

  • Friday Links

    –Iowa’s House approved a bill to make it illegal to film the goings on in factory farms; it still has to pass the Senate. –The great Midwestern backlash. –What is the difference between liberals and libertarians? –Rejecting death-centered Christianity. –The fondness some secular liberals have for fundamentalism. –More than half of Americans now favor legal Read more