A Thinking Reed

  • The official, way-too-early ATR 2020 Democratic primary straw poll

    The first votes in the 2020 Democratic primary won’t be cast until (God help us) almost a year from now, but as far as media coverage is concerned the campaign is already in full swing. As of today, there are 12 announced candidates (Sen. Cory Booker, former HUD secretary Julián Castro, former Maryland representative John…

  • Some good theology & religion books I read in 2018

    Someday–maybe next year, who knows?–I’ll get better about tracking the books I read. Heaven knows I read a bunch of stuff this year that has already slipped into the misty recesses of memory. But until I get my act together, I thought I’d note some books in theology and religion that stuck with me for…

  • Church for earthlings

    Ecclesiology–or the doctrine of the church–is, for my money, one of the duller areas of Christian theology. And when it doesn’t engage in excessive navel-gazing and hair-splitting, it can be a source of ugly Christian triumphalism. In recent theology, the “ecclesial turn” has often upheld “the church” as the cure-all for everything that supposedly ails…

  • The socialism question

    In case you haven’t noticed, there’s been a lively argument going on about the rise of “democratic socialism” within (or adjacent to) the Democratic Party. Obviously, the candidacy of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries is ground zero for this discussion, but we’ve seen a general shift, even among otherwise mainstream Dem pols, toward “socialist”…

  • The victory of suffering love

    I recently came across this very good talk from Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (author of several well-regarded books on Eastern Orthodox Christianity) on “Salvation in Christ.” Metropolitan Ware offers four questions we should ask when evaluating any proposed model of the Atonement: Does it envisage a change in God or us? Does it separate Christ from…

  • Affirming Christianity is authentic Christianity

    Since this is pride month and since many Christian churches continue to wrestle with the full inclusion of LGBTQ people (including the denomination I’m currently affiliated with), maybe it’s worth sharing how I came to arrive at an “open and affirming” stance. Though I’m probably an atypical case in a lot of ways. I don’t…

  • The Luther Option

    If instead, we renew our focus on those Christian possessions shared by all, perhaps we can understand both our faith and each other better. If we turn away from an ideal Christianity to be preserved from the past or built in the future, perhaps we can see better what Christians already do and already are.…

  • “Original Sin Liberalism”

    I appreciated this piece from E. J. Dionne on what he calls “Original Sin Liberalism,” which is a pretty accurate label for my own political outlook. Dionne is responding to conservatives who accuse liberals of believing that people are essentially good, and are only made bad by social structures or conditions. Dionne notes that liberals…

  • Welch’s at the communion table

    I used to make fun of churches who substituted grape juice for wine in communion. Then I joined a Methodist church where that’s standard practice. Its roots lie in the temperance movement, when zealous Methodists and other Christians decided that people struggling with alcohol shouldn’t be presented with temptation at the Lord’s table. Welch’s grape juice…

  • God as Ultimate Mind: Keith Ward’s “Christian Idea of God”

    Keith Ward’s recent book The Christian Idea of God is a slim but ambitious volume. It aims to turn on its head the common belief we know the material world is real while ethereal objects like God and the soul are at best speculative inferences. Ward points out that we’re actually more certain of the…