A Thinking Reed

  • Our fellow travelers

    Calvinist Richard Mouw reflects on our communion with the saints.

  • Hysterical liberal watch

    Chris Hedges has an astonishingly evidence-free article at Alternet purporting to demonstrate that “The battle against abortion is a battle to build a society where pleasure and freedom, where the capacity of the individual and especially women to make choices, and indeed even love itself[!!], are banished.” The “argument” rests almost entirely on armchair psychologizing…

  • Lewis on morality and the State

    Here’s an interesting one, to Mrs. Edward A. Allen, February 1, 1958: I quite agree with the Archbishop that no sin, simply as such, should be made a crime. Who the deuce are our rulers to enforce their opinions about sin on us? — a lot of professional politicians, often venal time-servers, whose opinion on…

  • C. S. Lewis on the Bible

    A couple more nuggets from Lewis’s letters: To “Mrs Ashton”, November 8, 1952: It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual…

  • Friday metal – Killswitch Engage, “Rose of Sharyn”

  • Jesus got out of the way

    In lieu of our weekly community group/Bible study, we attended the Solemn Mass for the Feast of the Ascension last night. Lovely as usual. The guest preacher was the Rev. Charles Hefling, a professor of theology at BC and editor of the Anglican Theological Review. Fr. Hefling asked: why did Jesus leave? I have to…

  • Is religion dangerous?

    Saw an ad for this in the new First Things: Keith Ward (see here) has written a response of sorts to the “new atheist” crowd. I imagine it’s the usual kind of irenic, thoughtful stuff Ward is known for. I’ve often thought that the whole issue of whether “religion” is on the whole good or…

  • Richardson – the green candidate?

    Bill Richardson’s energy plan gets a green thumbs up from the environmental site Grist: As of today, Bill Richardson has become the boldest, most visionary Democratic presidential candidate on climate and energy policy. Is Richardson the dark horse candidate here? Will Obama and Hillary fatigue have Democratic primary voters looking for an alternative early next…

  • Christians and war revisited

    Doug Bandow has an article worth reading on Christians and the Iraq war. I think we see here one of the problems with Just War theory, a problem that many pacifists have pointed out, namely that it can be so flexible as to (rhetorically at least) justify virtually any war. However, Just War adherents obviously…

  • Is Ron Paul right?

    The debate kerfuffle between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani over the question of the causes behind the 9/11 attacks has generated a fair amount of comment. I think Paul got the better of the exchange and Giuliani came across as a bit of a demagogue, but it’s still worth asking whether Paul is right here.…