A Thinking Reed

  • Animals, killing, and veg(etari)anism

    There was a surprisingly pro-vegetarian (even pro-vegan) review (which I’m only getting around to blogging about now) in last Sunday’s Washington Post of two books: Mark Caro’s The Foie Gras Wars (previously mentioned here) and Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason’s The Face on Your Plate. The reviewer, Jennifer Howard, is a confessed vegetarian, but is willing to…

  • I’d just as soon sleep in on Sundays, thanks

    Sometimes I like to browse the religion section at major book retailers (Borders, B&N), not because I usually buy anything, but because I like to see what perspectives on Christian faith people are interested in (or at least what publishers think they’re interested in). One thing I’ve noticed recently is that there seems to be…

  • They will know we are Christians by our love, the continuing series

    I’m in pretty much total agreement with this post by Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings (via Jim Henley). The idea that I, as part of my public Christian witness, ought to be concerned with denouncing my co-workers’ (real or imagined) sins, at work, strikes me as bizarre. Seems to me that my boss would be well…

  • Green Christology

    I really liked this essay in the magazine America by Elizabeth Johnson, the well-known feminist theologian. She argues that Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, and the incarnation as a whole have implications for the entire creation, not just human salvation: Jesus Christ is a gift given because “God so loved the world,” kosmos in Greek…

  • A break from Friday metal – a little Ray Davies

    I recently picked up legendary Kinks front man Ray Davies’ solo album Other People’s Lives at a used book/record store and have been enjoying it quite a bit. Here’s Davies performing one of the songs, “After the Fall,” on The Tonight Show: Now I see he has a more recent disc, Working Man’s Cafe; here’s…

  • Marriage equality in the heartland

    A summary of the Iowa state supreme court’s decision here. I imagine we can look forward to a protracted political battle a la California now?

  • Fides et ratio redux

    Marvin has another post on the “faith and/versus reason” theme. One thing I’d want to add to the mix–in partial agreement with a comment Eric made at Marvin’s–is that there is a variety of understandings of “reason,” only some of which are inimical to faith. For instance, a lot of debates about faith and reason…

  • “Truly this man was God’s son!”: A meditation on the centurion’s confession

    Here’s the text of a meditation I gave at a mid-week Lenten service at our church. We were instructed to select a piece of art depicting a scene from the last week of Jesus’ life according to Mark’s gospel. I selected the confession of the centurion at the foot of the cross and used a…

  • A reluctant universalist

    That’s how Richard Hall from Connexions describes himself in this thought-provoking post.

  • Collier on Singer

    Paul Collier, who wrote the book The Bottom Billion about global poverty, reviews Singer’s The Life You Can Save and has some interesting criticisms. Though, I think our obligations to the world’s poorest people aren’t simply a matter of altruism; it can be well argued, I think, that we owe them, given some of our…