A Thinking Reed

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

Politics

  • Election 2012: A victory for Christian values

    Some religious conservatives have been near-apocalyptic in their predictions of a second Obama term, insisting that he’s leading the country away from Christian principles and down the road to perdition. But from my perspective, last night’s election was a triumph (albeit a partial one) for Christian values. –In rejecting the Romney-Ryan plan to dismantle the Read more

  • Drones aren’t the (only) problem

    Arni Zachariassen has a good post responding to Jack Hunter’s article at The American Conservative on why pro-lifers should oppose drone strikes. Arni points out that drones are more precise and kill fewer innocent people than conventional war, so unless you’re a pacifist, simply opposing drones on “pro-life” grounds doesn’t wash. If, on the other Read more

  • For election day–music to vote to

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  • Why I voted for President Obama (again)

    I voted today–D.C. started early voting last Monday–and, not surprisingly, I pulled the lever (or rather pushed the touchscreen) for the Obama-Biden ticket. This wasn’t at all a hard decision. On every issue I care about, the Romney-Ryan G.O.P. is significantly worse than the Democrats. And this includes those areas where Obama has most disappointed–peace, Read more

  • American henotheism revisited

    C.K. MacLeod has a thoughtful post that is, in part, a response to my earlier post on the “God vote” and what I called “American henotheism.” C.K.M. argues that I didn’t adequately grapple with the response that “Americanist” Christians would make to my claim that enlisting God on the side of the American project is Read more

  • Romney, the “God vote,” and American henotheism

    The Washington Post‘s Sally Quinn must have a low opinion of religious people. That’s the only way I can explain her assertion that, because he dropped a platitudinous reference to “the Creator” during last night’s debate, Mitt Romney has captured the “God vote.” Weirdly, Quinn admits that President Obama often talks about his own Christian Read more

  • Small government

    “On all issues but one, antebellum southerners stood for state’s rights and a weak federal government. The exception was the fugitive slave law of 1850, which gave the national government more power than any other law yet passed by Congress.” — James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 78 Read more

  • Romney vs. the 47%

    The big political news of the day, of course, is the video released by Mother Jones of Mitt Romney speaking to a room of wealthy donors in which he essentially wrote off half the American public as moochers who will never be convinced to take responsibility for their lives. Romney’s remarks are a version of Read more

  • A few points on “liberal Christianity”

    The events at the recent general convention of the Episcopal Church have generated a wave of the usual outrage/concern-trolling/Schadenfreude over the supposed demise of liberal/mainline Christianity. Conservatives have been riding this hobby horse for years, arguing that while churches that espouse more liberal theological or social positions have seen declines in membership, more conservative churches Read more

  • American democracy: not dead yet

    Aside from its consequences for people’s actual lives, what I feared most about a potential overturning of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) was what it would say about our ability, as a nation, to tackle major challenges. I mean, if we couldn’t even get a moderate, market-based reform of our healthcare Read more