A Thinking Reed

  • Bernard and the Reformers

    Interesting post (via Brandon) on Bernard of Clairvaux’s influence on Luther. See also this post on Bernard and Calvin at the same site.

  • A critical but substantive faith

    William Placher reviews Hitchens’ God Is Not Great at the Christian Century. He’s surprisingly appreciative, though he doesn’t shy from criticism (“The second frustration of reading this book [in addition to the factual errors], at least for a theologian, is that its author seems not to have read any modern theology, or even to know…

  • The strangeness of the Bible

    I really liked this review article in Books & Culture of a new book about the Bible and sex. So often we treat the Bible as little more than window-dressing for our preconceived moral or political agendas that we often lose sight at the sheer weirdness of the text. The Bible rarely provides ready-made moral…

  • September reading notes

    Well, okay, the month isn’t over yet, but it sure is flying. Earlier I mentioned I was still working on Monbiot’s Heat. Well, I still am. Just haven’t been in the mood to read it. ‘Nuff said. Finished Jame’s Alison’s Raising Abel. I stand by my earlier claim that, while Alison has some absolutely brilliant…

  • Simple music, simple faith?

    I came across this in yesterday’s NY Times: Does Simple Music Form Simple Faith? I’m not really sure what to make of it, but I thought I’d pass it along. Essentially, the author asks if beautiful complex music (and other art) can actually be a hindrance to faith: The church has reason to fear great…

  • By faith, not by sight

    Atheists sometimes describe faith as “believing something without evidence.” But is this the way religious believers understand faith? I don’t think so, but I do think that there’s a kernel of truth here and that it’s important to distinguish between faith and knowledge. First it should be noted that there often lurks a polemical and…

  • The Fall and natural evil revisited, pt. 2

    In the last post I expressed my unease with the notion of a cosmic fall, largely on the grounds that, for it to be radical enough to exculpate God from creating an order shot through with suffering, death, parasitism and predation it would risk creating a gulf between God and his creation. If fallen angels…

  • Friday metal – Nightwish, “Amaranth”

    If you like lush, operatic European power metal with foxy female singers and videos that look like outtakes from Lord of the Rings, then this one’s for you:

  • How much of a planet-wrecking consumerist are you?

    Find out with this fun quiz a friend of mine sent me. My score was 2.5, which means it would take 2.5 earths to support everyone in the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed. I scored the worst on food (6 earths!), which I think may have something to do with the superhuman amounts of…

  • Richard Dawkins does not exist

    That’s the only conclusion I can come to after reading things like this. “Richard Dawkins” is obviously a pseudonym of someone seeking to discredit atheism by associating it with the most ridiculous and childish “arguments” available. (HT: Richard at Connexions, who insists on perpetuating this charade by responding to “Dawkins” in a reasonable and intelligent…