The AP interviews Huston Smith (via Godspy) on his new book The Soul of Christianity. I’ve always enjoyed Smith’s writing, even though I have fairly substantial disagreements with him. He’s very good on debunking “scientism” and pointing out that science does not give us an exhaustive account of reality, as the article mentions. Where I…

Robert Novak reports (from an elite gathering in Aspen) that the ultra-rich are turning on George Bush: For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were…

Some sharp thinking from Matthew Yglesias.

Apropos of nothing in particular, here are some thoughts of mine on St. Athanasius’ classic work On the Incarnation, which I sat down with the other night. Athanasius has a rather noetic understanding of sin (and, consequently of salvation). This really isn’t that surprising considering that many of the Fathers were deeply influenced by Platonic…

Maybe it’s bad blog etiquette to elevate one of my own comments to the status of it’s own blog post, but, well, it’s my blog after all. Anyway, in a comment to this post I said (comments slightly edited): It seems there can be at least three “levels” of morality: 1) Specifically Christian morality 2)…

But then, Bishop Will Willimon is probably a little biased: In his fine new book, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, historian David Hempton shows that part of the genius of early Methodism was its ability to hold together seemingly contradictory ideas in its mind at one time. Against Calvinistic reductionism, we held together the universal…

I thought the light blue background was easier on the eyes than a stark white. What do you all think?

(For previous posts see here and here.) Having argued that, pace Milbank, liberalism is not necessarily a manifestation of ontological violence or ethical nihilism, Insole turns to the more specific criticisms made by Milbank and fellow Radical Orthodoxist Graham Ward about social life in a liberal society. According to Milbank and Graham, says Insole, liberalism…

(See here for previous post.) In chapter 4, “Against Radical Orthodoxy,” Insole argues, um, against Radical Orthodoxy, specifically the claims made by John Milbank, et al. that “political liberalism … is symptomatic of an ontological nihilism” and “that liberalism leads to a social atomism and individualism that can be overcome with the help of a…

Christopher J. Insole, a lecturer in the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge, has written a very interesting book called The Politics of Human Frailty: A Theological Defense of Political Liberalism. He sets out to provide a Christian defense of political liberalism against its neo-traditionalist and “Radically Orthodox” detractors. The now-standard critique of…