A Thinking Reed

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

Keith Ward

  • Re-thinking Wright

    James K.A. Smith puts his finger on something that’s worried me about N.T. Wright in his review of Wright’s latest book. Wright sometimes gives the impression that post-New Testament development of Christian theology was a decline and that it’s possible–or desirable–for us to re-inhabit the thought-world of the 1st century (with the help of some Read more

  • Keith Ward on concepts of God

    Following on the previous post, this video of theologian Keith Ward talking with Robert Wright has a good discussion–mostly at the beginning–of how we might talk about different religions promoting worship of the same God. Ward goes beyond the Western monotheistic faiths and offers reasons for thinking that the ultimate reality of some Eastern religions Read more

  • Participatory soteriology and the shape of Christian life together

    Christopher offers a semi-defense of Pelagius (a semi-Pelagian defense?) and calls for a movement of “Advent asceticism” that sees a particular form of communal obedience not as an attempt to earn heaven, but as a response to Heaven as it has come to live among us in the Incarnation. He notes that much Protestant theology, Read more

  • What does Oxford have to do with Jerusalem?

    I’m reading Keith Ward’s More than Matter? and found it interesting to learn that two of Ward’s teachers were the Oxford philosophers Gilbert Ryle and A.J. Ayer. Ryle was famous for characterizing Cartesian dualism as “the ghost in the machine,” and Ayer was the famed proponent of logical positivism. Ward says that he came to Read more

  • Ward and Lewis on post-mortem repentance and the possibility of universal redemption

    …it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel to suppose that, though violence is prohibited in this age, it will be perfectly acceptable in the age to come. The German writer Friedrich Nietzsche called this resentissement, the desire for delayed revenge, the belief that we might have to suffer persecution now, but God will take 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

  • Keith Ward on the sacrifice of Jesus

    In his book What the Bible Really Teaches, Keith Ward spends a chapter on “the sacrifice of Jesus.” He wants to contest the popular view that Jesus had to die as a kind of blood sacrifice to appease or deflect God’s wrath–a view, Ward argues, that’s at odds with the biblical view of what sacrifice Read more

  • Friday links

    – Many people have pointed to this omnibus post at Mother Jones that provides background, context, links, and ongoing updates on the situation in Egypt. – Marvin writes on understanding apostolic poverty. – At the blog Memoria Dei, a post discussing feminist theologian Mary Daly’s use of women’s experience as an analogue for the divine. Read more

  • From inclusivism to (soft) pluralism?

    In his contribution to the collection Abraham’s Children: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conversation, Keith Ward offers a sketch of three different kinds of Christian religious pluralism: Inclusive pluralism: The Wisdom of God that is embodied in Jesus is also available or present elsewhere. All humans participate in and can access this Wisdom, at least Read more