A Thinking Reed

  • The least of these

    From Stephen Cottrell’s ‘I Thirst’: A further interpretation of this story [Jesus’ parable of the final judgment in Matthew 25] touches powerfully upon the way we treat the whole created order, particularly our fellow-creatures. ‘The least of these’ can refer to animals abused and exploited in so many atrocious ways. The food scares that have…

  • The thirsty God

    This book I’m reading by Stephen Cottrell is really terrific. It’s part theology, part mediation, part devotional, and incorporates a section on Christian practice into each chapter, connecting the meditation on Christ’s cross with Lenten practices like fasting, almsgiving, Bible reading, prayer, etc. (which really are just Christian practices). He takes the passion according to…

  • PBA ban

    While I’m in sympathy with the spirit of such a law, I’m a bit skeptical of the logic. After all, the point is to ban a certain procedure, rather than to, say, ban all abortions after a particular point of development. It’s hard to see why it’s not ok to kill an unborn child by…

  • Blast from the past

    I decided this clean break stuff is overrated so I’ve imported all the posts from the old blog over to here should anyone be interested in perusing them. If nothing else it’s more convenient to have it all in one place.

  • On the road again (random notes)

    I’m in Washington, DC on a top secret mission and thus haven’t had time to post the past couple of days. I did get a chance to visit the National Cathedral which, in addition to being very lovely, has a really nice gift and theological book shop. While there I picked this up. It was…

  • JPII and Gerhard Forde on the Scandal of the Cross

    I have this feeling that I’ve posted on this before at the old blog, but I was flipping through Pope John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope this weekend, and found him to have some illuminating things to say about the mystery of the Cross. The book is written in a kind of Q&A…

  • Kyrie eleison

    This is just horrible.

  • Current ATR candidate rankings (subject to change at my whim)

    Here are my current (extremely lukewarm) preferences for presidential candidates in both parties, confining myself to the declared major candidates*, from most to least preferred: Dems: 1. Richardson 2. Edwards 3. Obama 4. Clinton GOP: 1. Romney 2. McCain 3. Guliani At this point none of the GOP candidates rise close enough to the level…

  • Some metal for the weekend

    Here’s the first single, “Redemption,” from the just-released Shadows Fall album Threads of Life. Good stuff. It’s always fun to read reviews from die-hard fans who are horrified that the singer is – ugh- singing! Sell outs! I’m pretty sure this line of criticism is unique to the genre.

  • Augustine, just war, prevention, preemption, etc.

    Chris at Even the Devils Believe has a follow-up on the question of preemptive/preventive war & Just War Theory. He riffs on an article from the Journal of Religious Ethics that discusses Augustine’s view of these matters (not available online, alas).