I’m very happy to find out that friend of this blog Marvin Lindsay, formerly of Ivy Bush fame, has returned to the world of blogging!
Marvin also recently published a really good op-ed in his local paper on Christians in politics.
Category: Links
-
Links of note
Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli is discussing Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons, here, here, and here.
Camassia on Christians and political protest, here and here.
In the American Conservative symposium on “right and left” that I mentioned recently, onservative writer Heather Mac Donald took issue with the allegedly widespread assumption that one has to be religious to be a political conservative. Her original piece generated a lot of discussion on National Review’s blog and elsewhere, as well as follow-up pieces from Michael Novak and Mac Donald herself.
At Siris, Brandon dissects one of Mac Donald’s anti-theistic arguments.
Of course, I’d want to dispute the assumption seemingly shared by Mac Donald and most of her interlocutors that Christians (not to mention adherents of other religions) ought logically to be political conservatives in the current American sense.
-
Follow-up on creation, natural evil, etc.
Just wanted to call your attention to some of the excellent comments on these two posts. I haven’t had time to respond to all of them, but I’m really glad to get comments of such caliber here. (Of course, the post on booze has generated more comments than either of them.)
Also, see this discussion in two parts at Three Hierarchies.
Plus, here’s an interesting article by Robert John Russell I discovered at the Center for Theological Inquiry website that deals with some of these issues, but with an emphasis on eschatology.
-
Warblogging at FT
The First Things blog has come alive over the last day or so with posts from several contributors beyond the usual entries from Richard John Neuhas and Jody Bottum. Currently there’s a lively debate about the current war(s) going on with Ross Douthat taking what I would call a sober just war perspective, Frederica Mathewes-Green offering the pacifist position, and Bottum and Robert T. Miller taking a more hawkish line.
I like this, from Ms. Mathewes-Green:
Since my side of the street is virtually deserted, and there’s very little danger that President Bush is going to slap his forehead and say “She’s right!”, I keep trying to hold up these clues and reminders from the scriptural and early Christian witness on these issues. I think it’s not just a matter of shrewdly calculating whether you have the strength to win the fight (as the Jews and martyrs did not), but that war is inherently hellish, bad for the heart and spirit, even when the cause is considered noble.
One way that war is hell, and something that may be a clue to some mysterious spiritual truth, is that soldiers who kill are much more traumatized by that than by any injuries they sustain. God has put something in us that revolts at killing, even in a cause we believe is just.
-
Medieval Irish psalter found in a bog!
Uncovered by a construction worker, apparently dating from between 800-1000 A.D.
Story here.
A Thinking Reed 