A Thinking Reed

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

Theology

  • Animal cloning and "granting things their space"

    I don’t suppose it’ll come as a surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I think that cloning animals for meat and milk is a bad idea. Leaving aside the health considerations, what bothers me is that it’s one more step in reducing animals (and, by implication, the rest of nature) to the status Read more

  • Stephen R.L. Clark’s "anarcho-conservatism"

    I’m on vacation, visiting the wife’s ancestral homeland of Indiana. Blessedly free of online distractions for the most part. Hence the relative dearth of posting. But I have been reading a really interesting book by philosopher Stephen R.L. Clark called The Political Animal: Biology, Ethics, and Politics. Clark has written on a variety of topics, Read more

  • Liberation theology for animals

    Andrew Linzey has a nice piece in the London Times. Nothing really new if you’ve read any of his books, but a good concise case for an “animal inclusive” Christianity. (via Thinking Anglicans) I’m intrigued by the idea that the scope of Christ’s redemptive life and death extends to all creation and not just human Read more

  • NT Wright and the nature of apologetics

    The Christian Century reviews two recent books by that one-man publishing house N.T. Wright. Our parish curate warmly recommended Simply Christian, the Mere Christianity of the 21st century if reports are to be believed. Of course, Wright and Lewis are very different thinkers speaking to very different audiences. The reviewer, Samuel Wells, writes: I’m generally Read more

  • Mouw on evangelicalism

    Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, is interviewed in the LA Times on what it means to be an evangelical. Nothing really new there, but he does highlight a kind of “broad tent” evangelicalism that seems to be gaining more notice. I read Mouw’s Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport and He Shines in Read more

  • The Zwingli-Clinton axis

    I was reading an article from a back issue of the Lutheran journal dialog and came across this amusing line: “This something could on that basis be regarded, alongside with the scriptures, as also normative as a sign of unity, even if not recognized by all the Lutheran Confessions, provided that ‘is’ does not really Read more

  • Animals, nature, and Christian ethics

    Stephen Webb, theologian and author of On God and Dogs and Good Eating, has an intriguing article at The Other Journal called “Theology from the Pet Side Up: A Christian Agenda for NOT Saving the World” which combines two of my pet interests (pardon the pun), Christian concern for animals and the theology of nature. Read more

  • Evangelism in the mainline and the loss of transcendence

    Chris at Even the Devils Believe has a good post on birth rates and evangelism in mainline Protestantism, jumping off from the recent comments from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori about how Episcopalians aren’t incresing their numbers due to the low birth rates among “better-educated” people who care about preserving the earth. Leaving Read more

  • Moral diversity in the church

    I recently picked up a collection of essays from the library called Gays and the Future of Anglicanism, edited by Andrew Linzey and Richard Kirker. The essays cover a broad range of topics responding to the Church of England’s Windsor Report, which censured the American Episcopal Church and a diocese within the Canadian Anglican church Read more

  • Death, where is thy sting?

    Thomas at Without Authority writes on death and whether we should consider it natural and/or evil in itself. I think he’s on the right track there (and I’m not just saying that because he had nice things to say about a few of my posts). I’m intrigued by his last paragraph where he says: So, Read more