A Thinking Reed

  • Kinship and cultivation, Francis and Benedict

    Catholic theologian Denis Edwards’ Ecology at the Heart of Faith provides a good model of engaging environmental issues using the classic Christian theological tradition. In chapter 2 he discusses the controverted issue of the image of God and dominion over nature. He argues that the imago is best understood as the human capacity for interpersonal…

  • Cognitive ethology, the Left, faith, and dominion

    A long but worthwhile essay that to some extent recapitulates the argument made by John Gray in Straw Dogs. Gray’s contention was that the secular Left has largely jettisoned the metaphysics of Christianity but held on to its anthropocentric outlook and belief in a progressive history. Echoing Nietzsche, Gray argues that the scientific, secular outlook…

  • Climate action and public corruption

    A pork-ridden Waxman-Markey passed the House yesterday, and heaven only knows what version of the bill will come out of the Senate and the subsequent process of reconciling the two. George Monbiot calls the U.S. a “failed state” when it comes to climate action and says that addressing political corruption (“corporate money and an unregulated…

  • Barr on faith and evolution

    Since I was pretty critical of First Things a couple posts down, it seems only fair to note that Stephen Barr has been writing some excellent posts on Christianity and evolution (see here, here, and here).

  • Friday metal – Lamb of God, “Now You’ve Got Something to Die For”

    Lamb of God isn’t the most innovative band in the world, but they’re great at cranking out catchy, workmanlike, Southern-fried metal that fills the Pantera-shaped hole in your heart. (Some bad language)

  • The virtues and vices of St. Anselm

    Christopher has a terrific post on St. Anselm and atonement theory. As longtime readers might know, I’m definitely in the St. Anselm-as-unfairly-maligned camp. Among other things, his view of atonement is not the same as what is commonly referred to as “penal substitution”: Anselm explicitly denies in Cur Deus Homo that God punishes Jesus in…

  • Michael Jackson, RIP

    Maybe people who are a bit younger only remember Michael Jackson as the weirdo, quasi-hermit he later became. But at the peak of his popularity (I was, I think, in third grade when Thriller came out) he was about the most exciting thing on the planet. Anyway, MJ skeptics, go watch. p.s. Andrew Sullivan has…

  • Metal 101

    A very nice primer from the AV Club.

  • Aid: it works (sometimes)

    Good post by Matthew Yglesias: Ultimately, obviously, the ideal solution would be for Africans to get richer. But the per capita GDP of Africa isn’t going to magically reach American (or even Mexican or even Chinese) levels overnight even if Africa does start seeing strong growth. Meanwhile, people with HIV will die really soon unless…

  • First Things and climate denialism

    John Schwenkler with an excellent post taking down First Thing‘s resident climate change denialist, Thomas Sieger Derr. I’m not sure if I’ve changed or it has, but I used to really enjoy reading FT and was a faithful subscriber for about ten years. It introduced me to a lot of contemporary theology offered at a…