A Thinking Reed

  • 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…

  • Link of the week

    7 Most Useless Transformers. I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to watch the embedded video of the Japanese Transformers cartoon featuring karaoke(!). Via.

  • Highlight of the week (so far)

    Yesterday, on my way to get a cup of coffee, I happened across a film crew shooting a scene right outside of Eastern Market – supposedly for an upcoming Russell Crowe/Leo DiCaprio movie – and got to watch them blow up a car! Pretty sweet.

  • Schumacher on the poverty of economics

    It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, with increasing affluence, economics has moved into the very center of public concern, and economic performance, economic growth, economic expansion, and so forth have become the abiding interest, if not the obsession, of all modern socieites. In the current vocabulary of condemnation there are few words as…

  • Jesus and Hillary Clinton

    This story about Hillary Clinton’s religious convictions at Mother Jones starts out interesting but veers distinctly into paranoia. I carry no water for HRC’s candidacy, but it seems to me that what you see is pretty much what you get: a centrist-to-conservative Democrat, as amply demonstrated by her voting record. She is not the socialist…

  • Subverting sacrifice

    In comments here Rick Ritchie and I were discussing the ways in which the Christian story may or may not subvert or transform conventional notions of “sacrifice.” Part of what I find so appealing about Christianity is the way it turns upside-down our “natural” expectations about the meanings of things like power, glory, love, etc.…