A Thinking Reed

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

Christianity

  • Was St. Paul a Christian?

    Pamela Eisenbaum’s Paul Was Not a Christian (thanks to Matt Frost for the recommendation) makes a nice companion volume to Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew. Like Levine, Eisenbaum is a practicing Jew who studies Christian origins and thus brings an important and distinctive perspective to bear on the subject. In some ways, Eisenbaum has the Read more

  • Jesus’s Jewish parables

    I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it here on the blog, but I’ve recommended Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus to a number of people. In fact, I consider it almost a must-read for any Christian given how saturated our tradition is with anti-Judaism. I’d recommend Read more

  • Papal hot takes are missing the point

    Pope Francis’s visit to the Western Hemisphere has occasioned a whole new round of papal #takes. Conservatives are conservasplaining that Francis, with all this talk of economic inequality and environmental doom-and-gloom, doesn’t understand the gospel, or hates science and modernity. Liberals are warning that Francis isn’t really progressive, but a theocrat in progressive clothing. Rinse, Read more

  • More cracks in the evangelical consensus on same-sex relationships

    A couple of interesting developments in the world of evangelicalism over the last day or so. Tony Campolo, a well-known evangelical preacher and activist, has come out (so to speak) for the “full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.” Campolo has long argued for more tolerance of gay people but has always stopped Read more

  • Does it matter if Jesus never returns?

    A friend on Twitter asks: “Will there be a point at which Christians accept that Jesus won’t return? 5,000 years? 10,000 years? When the sun consumes the earth?” For what it’s worth, my view is that Christians don’t need to believe in a “literal” second coming. Eschatology, like creation, points to something that lies beyond Read more

  • Maimonides on the Messiah

    I’ve been reading a (heavily abridged) edition of Moses Maimonides’ (1138-1204) systematic digest and commentary on the Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, and found his discussion of the Messiah toward the end of particular interest. The Messiah, he says, is not some kind of supernatural figure, but simply a righteous king in the line of David Read more

  • Abusus non tollit usum

    Christians who are understandably disillusioned with the Christian Right’s approach to politics sometimes draw what is–I think–an improper lesson from it. That is, since the Christian Right wants to use political power to implement an intolerant or destructive agenda, they infer that the problem is political power as such. Christian blogger Benjamin Corey seems to Read more

  • Barack Obama and American henotheism

    The response in some quarters to President Obama’s (frankly rather anodyne) remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast has been dispiriting, if sadly predictable. The right-wing outrage machine has (once again) deemed him an apologist for Islamist terrorism and an enemy of true Christianity and Western civilization. (How they square this with his actual record is Read more

  • Should Jews view Christianity as a new revelation?

    Over the past several decades Christians have been rethinking their relationship to Jews and Judaism. This has been prompted, most obviously, by the horrors of the Holocaust and the recognition that centuries of Christian anti-Judaism and persecution of Jews helped lay the groundwork for it. Most notably, both the Catholic Church and most mainline Protestant Read more

  • What’s the appeal of Christianity without God?

    I was only previously aware of Daniel C. Maguire as a theologian on the liberal end of Roman Catholicism. But it seems he now rejects belief in God altogether and has written a book called Christianity without God. I’m not interested in criticizing anyone for what they can or can’t believe. Atheism can be a Read more