A Thinking Reed

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

Theology & Faith

  • Brian McLaren: Conversations on Being a Heretic

    I’ve never read anything by Brian McLaren, and I get the feeling I’d disagree with him about a fair number of things, but this interview made me like him. I get the impression that the guy has to put up with a lot of b.s. from self-styled heresy-hunters. Brian McLaren: Conversations on Being a Heretic, Read more

  • Summary thoughts on process theology

    Last night I finished Cobb and Griffin’s introduction to process theology, so I wanted to get some thoughts down on the general Whiteheadian perspective. I think the expanded name sometimes used – process-relational theology – is actually more helpful because both elements, process and relation, are key to understanding what this school of thought is Read more

  • Whitehead on theological revisionism

    I don’t know why I’ve suddenly been interested in reading Whitehead, but after Adventures of Ideas I turned to an earlier work–Religion in the Making. Here you can see the germs of a “Whiteheadian” doctrine of God, particularly in his critique of traditional notions of omnipotence and transcendence: This worship of glory arising from power Read more

  • Whitehead on the task of theology

    In his book Adventures of Ideas, Alfred North Whitehead criticizes “liberal clergy and laymen” of the 18th and 19th centuries for rejecting systematic theology. The problem with the old theology wasn’t its intellectual or systematic character, Whitehead says, but its insistence on “dogmatic finality.” Metaphysics–or systematic, rational thought about the universe rooted in our deepest Read more

  • Progress in religion

    The progress of religion is defined by the denunciation of gods. The keynote of idolatry is contentment with the prevalent gods. – Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas Read more

  • How can theology learn from feminism?

    This article is old, but it provides a good model for how theology can engage with feminism. Sponheim, a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, isn’t willing to say either that theology should reject feminist insights or that it should accept them uncritically. What he’s after is genuine dialogue or conversation in which both Read more

  • The man show

    This is a bit of an easy target, but “Man Church” is at least interesting for what it supposes men want church to be like: Man Church is church the way a man expects it to be done. No singing, short sermon, time to talk with other guys, no women present, and coffee and donuts. Read more

  • Gender and God-talk

    Derek posted a couple of pieces on the language we use to talk about God, which sparked a good bit of commentary. (See here and here.) Partly, this ended up being about the propriety (or not) of using feminine symbols and pronouns to talk about God. The best discussion of this I’ve come across is Read more

  • Mid-week links

    – 2010’s was the hottest June on record in Washington, D.C. (I believe it!) – Glenn Beck pulicizes liberation theology. – On the authority of the Bible. (And more.) – Is Amazon killing the publishing business? – Keith Ward argues that there are things science can’t explain. – The ideology of marriage. – I heartily Read more

  • On the righteousness of Jesus

    From Michael Ramsey’s God, Christ, and the World (p. 85): So the righteousness of Jesus is the righteousness of a Godward relationship of trust, dependence, receptivity. It is a terribly hard kind of righteousness. It is sometimes hard because it involves the calls of sacrifice and self-renunciation which Jesus gives. But it is more often Read more