A Thinking Reed

  • God and the evolving universe

    I’m glad to see that First Things made Avery Dulles’ article on God and evolution available as this month’s free article. Dulles distinguishes three (non-creationist) approaches to evolution: theistic evolutionism which sees the process of evolution as the outworking of inherent properties of the universe established by God, Intelligent design, which claims that certain particular…

  • Vote randomizer

    According to this quiz my candidate is Dennis Kucinich, with whom I apparently agree on 60% of the issues. Of course I was also informed that my answers resulted in a tie between Kucinich and Ron Paul and that the final result was randomly selected. So, in the event that Kucinich and Paul end up…

  • The anti-utopian

    Nice profile (from a couple of months ago) of the eclectic and eccentric British political thinker John Gray. I’ve always found Gray’s stuff fascinating, and this piece puts his various ideological twists and turns (from Thatcherite neo-liberal, to skeptic of neo-liberalism, to all-around pessimist) in context. (Found here.)

  • Scapegoats, sacrifice, and the “violence” of God

    In addition to the other books I’ve been juggling, this weekend I started reading James Alison’s Raising Abel, which carries the subtitle “Recovering the Eschatological Imagination.” Alison is a great writer and offers some startling insights that bring new life to seemingly obscure theological concepts, but here I want to think a little bit about…

  • All dogs go to heaven

    Well, Luther thought so.

  • August reading notes

    Some highlights from the past month: I blogged a bit about Keith Ward’s latest, Re-Thinking Christianity here, here and here. Ward continues his streak of intelligent, accessible theology that straddles the popular and the academic. The takeaway lesson from RC is that there isn’t exactly an unchanging core of doctrine, but that Christianity has changed…

  • Ends and means, again

    E.F. Schumacher on “Buddhist economics”: While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is “The Middle Way” and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well-being. It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of…

  • The “preventive paradigm”

    “In isolation, neither the goal of preventing future attacks nor the tactic of using coercive measures is novel or troubling. All law enforcement seeks to prevent crime, and coercion is a necessary element of state power. However, when the end of prevention and the means of coercion are combined in the Administration’s preventive paradigm, they…

  • Friday metal – Metallica, “Battery” (Live 1989)

    Ah, the classics never go out of style. The band is in their prime in this clip from 1989.

  • Bishops behaving badly

    Jack Spong publicly insults Rowan Williams and Nigerian bishop Isaac Orama says that gay and lesbian people are “not fit to live.” Of course, the former is merely bad taste while the latter is a moral monstrosity. UPDATE: I should note that doubt has been cast on whether Bp. Orama in fact said the things…