A Thinking Reed

  • War, intervention, and risk

    Okay, here’s something that I’ve been mulling over for a while now. I’m not sure if this is right, but I thought I’d throw it out there. The question is: when are we justified in imposing the risk of death on others without their consent? One occassionally runs into arguments about whether “the Iraqis” are…

  • War and peace: some notes and links

    I haven’t blogged directly on politics much over here, but this article by Andrew Bacevich in The American Conservative caught my eye. Bacevich takes on both the neoconservative proponents of the “surge” as well as the establishmentarian “wise men” of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group: Almost without fail, media references to the Baker-Hamilton commission emphasize…

  • Eat food

    That’s the takeaway point from this NY Times Magazine article by Michael Pollan (author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma). Pollan details how an unholy trifecta of scientific experts, sloppy journalism and the food industry have distorted the American diet by pushing the idea of “nutritionism” – the notion that nutrients, rather than actual foods, are the…

  • Augustine’s Enchiridion: 10 & 11

    We’ve seen that for Augustine the human condition is pretty dire. Humans, due to the sin of our first parents, find ourselves spiritually crippled and condemned to death, our wills utterly impotent on their own to change our situation. A rather grim situation. But of course, the Christian story is the story of God’s mighty…

  • Pluralism and the work of Christ: 2

    In this post I suggested that there is a connection between one’s view of the work of Christ and one’s view of religious pluralism. My hypothesis was that holding a strongly “objectivist” view of Christ’s work tends to go with either an exclusivist or inclusivist position on other religions, while a more “subjectivist” account fit…

  • The perils of the “virtuous minority”

    Marvin continues his series on vegetarianism wth a post on the eschatological expectation that predation and violence are aspects of creation which will ultimately be done away with. Vegetarianism, then, can be seen as a “living into the kingdom,” a kind of anticipation of what is to come: In the present age one cannot dismiss…

  • Question

    I like this page layout, but the font seems awfully small, and apparently it’s a pain in the keister to change font size on WP. Do readers have an opinion? UPDATE: This seems like somewhat less of an eye strain, but no images, hmmm…

  • Veggie tales

    Marvin has started a series on vegetarianism – first two installments are here and here. Kim at Crossroads discusses a New Yorker review of Tristram Stuart’s The Bloodless Revolution. (I blogged on the Nation review here.)

  • Pluralism and the work of Christ

    Any discussion of religious diversity and salvation (see last post) ultimately has to come to terms with what salvation means. It’s pointless to debate how people “get saved” if we don’t know what people are supposed to be saved from (or for). Following custom, I’ll distinguish between exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist views on religious diversity:…

  • Bishop Hanson on the salvation of non-Christians

    This is interesting: an ELCA blogger wrote to Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson about his take on Episcopal Presiding Bishop Schori’s controversial (at least in the hothouse of the blogosphere) remarks on the salvation of non-Christians (via I Am a Christian Too). And Bp. Hanson actually wrote back. Bishop Hanson’s reply is very sensible – you…