A Thinking Reed

  • NRCAT statement on the torture memos

    The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is calling for a “commission of inquiry” in light of the Office of Legal Counsel memos released this week by the Obama Justice Department: We must, as a nation, address the fact that high-ranking officials in our government authorized torture and that agents representing our country carried out acts…

  • An essay on atonement and theodicy

    Note: this is a re-worked version of a series of posts I did back in 2004 on the Atonement and the Problem of Evil. There were a lot of broken links among them, and, since I think the material holds up pretty well, I thought it might be worth slightly re-working the series and combining…

  • Links on animals and such

    A profile of Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of The Face on Your Plate (via). A short Q&A with Peter Singer on dog shows and PETA. A really interesting interview with Jane Goodall in which she talks about, among other things, her “mystical experiences” in the jungle.

  • Friday metal – Kylesa-fest

    I’ve really been digging the new album Static Tensions by Georgia natives Kylesa. The band is an odd amalgam of doom metal, hardcore, and psychedelic rock. And they have two drummers! Here are a couple of clips from their previous album, Time Will Fuse Its Worth: Listen to more here.

  • The Life You Can Save 1

    I finally got my hands on a copy of Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty, courtesy of the DC city library, and have been working my way through it. Like most of what Singer writes, it’s extremely clear and accessible, filled with facts as much as philosophical arguments.…

  • He is risen!

  • Holy Saturday

  • 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…