A Thinking Reed

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

Judaism

  • Reading the Bible after supersessionism

    I’ve started reading R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology, which is an attempt to rethink the foundational narrative of Christianity within a “post-supersessionist” context. Christian theology has traditionally held that the church replaces Israel in God’s covenant. However, the realization, post-Holocaust, of how Christian theology has contributed to anti-Semitism and the Read more

  • Is “Christocentrism” the proper alternative to “biblicism”?

    I’m against “biblicism” if by that we mean treating each and every passage of the Bible as equally inspired and authoritative. However, I’m not sure a “Christocentric” reading is a viable alternative if it means this: The Bible is about Jesus Christ, and the only way to read the Bible is read it from beginning Read more

  • Friday Links

    –Marvin on the Presbyterian Church’s decision to allow congregations to call non-celibate gay and lesbian pastors. –Libraries are part of the social safety net. –“I hated vegans too, but now I am one.” –On anti-Semites and philo-Semites. –Mark Bittman asks, “Why bother with meat?” –Jesus and eco-theology. –Jeremy discusses Herbert McCabe and Gerhard Forde on Read more

  • Friday links

    –Ta-Nehisi Coates on Moby-Dick. –Amy-Jill Levine: “A Critique of Recent Christian Statements on Israel” –From Jeremy at Don’t Be Hasty: Why the church can’t take the place of the welfare state. –A discussion of “summer spirituality” with Fr. James Martin, S.J., author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. –A review of Keith Ward’s recent 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

  • Unredeemed history and Christian anti-Judaism

    In her book Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Origins of Anti-Semitism, Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that a key difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity has been unwilling for much of its history to live with the tension of the unrealized messianic age. As a result, Christians have accused Jews of being blind to Read more

  • Saved from God or saved by God?

    Michael Westmoreland-White points to the website and blog of Ted Grimsrud, a professor of theology and religion at Eastern Mennonite University. Both sites focus on Christian pacifism in the Anabaptist tradition, particularly as represented by John Howard Yoder. Prof. Grimsrud also has a series of essays on his site looking at core Christian doctrines. I Read more

  • Friday links

    – Chris Hayes: Postcard from Palestine – Endangered red wolves being hunted to extinction – Tea partiers fantasize about a “constitutionally pure” government – Jean Kazez on Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape – On not really believing in heaven – Corporations gain privacy rights as people lose them – Soldiers against torture – A Read more

  • The historical Jesus as a norm of Christology

    Over the weekend I read A. Roy Eckardt’s Reclaiming the Jesus of History: Christology Today. The book is more interesting than the title suggests; Eckardt writes in conversation not only with “historical Jesus” studies, but also with feminist theology, theology of religions, liberation theology, and particularly “post-Shoah” theology. His stated goal is to develop a Read more