A Thinking Reed

  • The Victorian PETA

    The Post weekend book section has a nice write-up of a new book called For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement, written by Kathryn Shevelow. The book focuses on the animal protection movement that arose in England in the 18th and 19th centuries, a movement that came in the face…

  • The limits of Berryism

    A couple of liberal bloggers point out, apropos of the AmCon interview with Michael Pollan (see here for my ramblings), that Wendell Berry is, in fact, not a liberal. Rather, his criticisms of big agriculture, big business, and big government are rooted in a basically traditionalist worldview. I take it that’s why unconventional conservatives and…

  • A follow up on rights for apes

    Christopher wonders what I think about the Spanish Parliament’s recent move toward granting “the right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture” to great apes. I touched on this briefly here, but that was mainly in the course of responding to William Saletan’s contention that animal equality of the…

  • Dogma and prayer

    I think I mentioned a week or so ago that I’d been reading Anglican theologian Austin Farrer’s Saving Belief. Well, I just finished another work of his called Lord I Belive: Suggestions for Turning the Creed Into Prayer, and it’s another great read. Farrer argues that “prayer and dogma are inseparable” (p. 9). To be…

  • Thought for the day

    The issue before us is to discover or determine what we are, and what we are for. Traditional believers–among whom I count myself–suppose that there are answers to those questions, and that they can be found by prayerful examination of the Word of God in Scripture–and the world. Less traditional believers, reacting against the follies…

  • Friday metal – more Swedish goodness

    Okay, I know I posted a video from these guys a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve been digging into the Soilwork back catalog, so you’re going to get some more: “As We Speak” “Stabbing the Drama” “Nerve”

  • Affirming liberalism (and conservatism)

    There’s a newish Church of England group calling itself “Affirming Liberalism” that, I gather, is kind of like Affirming Catholicism, but not tied to a particular form of churchmanship. In any event, the webiste has some interesting articles, including this one from Keith Ward called (perhaps optimistically) “Why the Future Belongs to Liberal Faith.” Ward’s…

  • The (carbon) taxman cameth

    Spurred in part by this post from John, I was thinking a bit about carbon taxes vs. cap-and-trade as methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Googling around a bit I found this article from the New York Times on the different experiences of countries that have actually implemented a carbon tax: But a carbon tax…

  • The worst kind of cocktail party – one with no booze

    Marvin, Jonathan, and Jennifer have been going around a bit about some of the same issues I talked about here regarding Christians, patriotism, politics, and Stanley Hauerwas. Now, unlike these three, I’ve never formally studied theology, much less under the man himself, so I always feel a little underqualified jumping into these discussions. But, fools…

  • More on the churches and patriotism

    After reading this comment thread over at Chris’ blog, it ocurred to me that there might be a communication breakdown of sorts between mainline Protestant and evangelical responses to the quote from Stanley Hauerwas under discussion. When Hauerwas first started churning out his jeremiads, they were aimed primarily at the liberal mainline establishment that, in…