A Thinking Reed

  • Sovereignty, intervention, and self-interest

    Russell Arben Fox points us to a debate between scholar Michael Berube and what he calls “the Z Magazine/Counterpunch Left.” In a nutshell, the Z/CP crowd, notably iconclastic leftist crank Alexander Cockburn (and I say that affectionately as someone who enjoys Cockburn’s writing), accuses Berube and other left-liberals of being insufficiently pure in their devotion…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 4

    In chapter XI Anselm turns to the question of sin, since one needs to get clear on that before determining what it means to make satisfaction for sin. Simply put, sin is to fail to render to God what is due him. But what is it that we owe? “Every wish of a rational creature…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 3

    One of the most vexing questions about the death of Christ theologically speaking is whether and in what sense we can say it was willed by God the Father. Was it specifically the death of Jesus that was required to reconcile God and sinners? Looming here is the modern critique of traditional Atonement theory as…

  • A Marian witness

    As today is the (transferred) Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord, I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the talk given by Bishop Steven Charleston on Marian devotion at our parish adult education forum yesterday. First of all, Bp. Charleston seemed like a really interesting person. He’s a Choctaw Indian who was…

  • Random weekend culture notes

    On Friday we went with some friends to see The Decemberists at the Avalon, a club near Fenway park. Fantastic! The theatricality of their music comes out even more on stage. I’m not generally a fan of “indie rock” as a genre (not sure the Decemberists even fit into that category), but these guys are…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 2

    It’s interesting that in Book One, chapters VI and VII it’s Boso who gets to critique one of the more widespread theories of the Atonement at the time of Anselm’s writing, the so-called Ransom theory favored by several of the Fathers. In a nutshell, the Ransom theory teaches that, by sinning, humankind had put iself…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 1

    As a sort of Lenten-ey thing I’m re-reading St. Anselm‘s Cur Deus Homo, his famous (infamous in some circles) treatise on the reason for the Incarnation and how it effects our salvation. So, I thought I would post a series of notes on things that strike me. This won’t be a systematic exposition, which would…

  • The church that prays together…

    Since last fall I’ve been helping to facilitate a small community group that meets about once a week primarily to study the Bible (we typically read and discuss the Gospel lesson for the upcoming Sunday), pray and socialize. I guess it’s a “small group” in the parlance of evangelicalism. Anyway, one of the things I…

  • Radicalism vs. gradualism on responding to climate change

    This is where I, as a layman, get lost. Bill McKibben and others argue that we’re in the middle of a catastrophe in the making and that only radical changes in our way of life can mitigate the disaster. Meanwhile, Jonathan Rauch admits that climate change is a real and harmful phenomenon, but argues that…

  • More on growth, happiness, and climate change

    Following up on yesterday’s post, here’s an interview with Bill McKibbon that fleshes out some of his economic ideas a bit more. McKibbon uses the term “deep economy” (the title of his new book) to describe an economy that tends to draw in its supply lines instead of extend them. It produces using more people…