Thanks to the Minuteman Library Network, I was able to get my hands on a copy of Bill Kauffman’s new book Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals. A sequel of sorts to his earlier work America First!, Look Homeward America is not so much a sustained political argument but a series of profiles…

I just finished Stephen Finlan’s book Problems with Atonement, a radical critique of traditional accounts of how the cross of Jesus saves us. I mean “radical” in the strict sense; Finlan, rather than trying to provide an atonement theory acceptable to moderns (or postmoderns), seeks to pull it up by the roots. In Finlan’s account,…

The election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church continues to reverberate. Taken not only as a ratification of women priests and bishops, but as a ratification of the election of V. Gene Robinson, an openly non-celibate gay man, to the episcopacy, the election of Bishop Schori seems to have pushed…

Superman Returns. An enjoyable couple hours of escapism. I agree with some critics that it crosses the line in places between paying homage to the Christopher Reeve/Richard Donner films and slavishly imitating them (right down to lifting dialogue and certain iconic scenes). Brandon Routh is eerily reminiscient of Christopher Reeve. Kate Bosworth is pretty forgettable…

We went back to the Church of the Advent yesterday. Here is the sermon the rector preached. I thought it was a good one.

I’ve been reading Thomas P. Rausch’s introduction to Christology called Who Is Jesus? and enjoying it quite a bit. One of the points he emphasizes is the importance of keeping the historical Jesus in view when doing Christology. Any Christology worth its salt has to be connected to and rooted in the person of Jesus…

So says this guy. I do have to say that the Supremes’ ruling from the other day is one of the more heartening political events of recent memory. P.S. Duke University law prof Walter Dellinger calls it “the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”

American V: A Hundred Highways, the posthumous Johnny Cash album coming out on Tuesday is being streamed here (via Unqualified Offerings). Also, attentive readers may have noticed that occasional contributor (and I do mean occasional) Abby has been removed from the sidebar. As a newly minted federal employee she is supposed to refrain from appearing…

Slate Magazine has been running some interesting articles on religion and politics this week. On Monday Martin Edlund wrote about tensions on the religious left, contrasting the eccentric spiritual progressivism of Rabbi Michael Lerner witht the more moderate evangelicalism of Jim Wallis. On Tuesday Russell Cobb reviewed Michelle Goldberg’s tract on impending theocracy in America…

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions. Read…