A Thinking Reed

  • Lewis’s “trilemma” revisited

    Alan Jacobs takes issue with Anthony Kenny’s discussion of C. S. Lewis’s famous “trilemma” argument in Mere Christianity for the divinity of Jesus. Here’s Kenny: One line of argument he made popular went like this. Jesus said that he was God. Jesus was neither a deceiver nor deceived. Therefore Jesus was indeed God. Mocking the…

  • Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic”

  • Gay marriage for some, tiny American flags for others

    Well this is pretty much unqualifiedly good news: Married gay and lesbian couples are entitled to federal benefits, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a major victory for the gay rights movement. In a second decision, the court declined to say whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Instead, the justices said…

  • Camera Obscura, “Do It Again”

    I’ve really been enjoying this album–it’s called Desire Lines and came out earlier this month.

  • Slavery, divine judgment, and atonement

    During my vacation I read James Oakes’ The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. Oakes tells the story of how the radical abolitionist Douglass and the temperamental conservative Lincoln converged on a brand of antislavery politics that eventually resulted in the emancipation of America’s millions of slaves…

  • The Clash, “Washington Bullets”

    I’ve been listening to The Clash’s sprawling 2-disc (3-LP when it was released) album “Sandinista!” A lot of people regard it as a bit of a mess, but I think it’s kind of amazing.

  • Wesley’s “conversion”

    Methodist and other churches remember today as the anniversary of John Wesley’s “Aldersgate Experience.” Richard Hall at Connexions provides some of the background here. Essentially, Wesley reported having a vivid experience of assurance in his own salvation when hearing a reading from Luther’s Preface to Romans. While this has sometimes been described as Wesley’s “conversion…

  • Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River” (Live, 1974)

  • Obama’s counter-terrorism speech: return to (a semblance of) normalcy?

    The counter-terrorism policy outlined in the president’s speech today hardly describes my ideal approach, but most, if not all, of the changes he’s made or is proposing are steps in the right direction. These include –continuing the reduction in the number of combat troops in Afghanistan, –declassifying information on Americans killed in drone strikes, –reviewing…

  • What does the Catholic Church teach about the salvation of non-Christians?

    I noticed that some people are spinning the pope’s remarks from yesterday as saying that anyone who “does good” is redeemed. But is this accurate? And is it consistent with other Catholic teaching on this? In the remarks, as excerpted here, Francis makes two major points, best as I can tell. First, everyone–no matter their…