A Thinking Reed

  • Schleiermacher on the dispensability of the cross and resurrectoin

    In The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher argues that, contrary to appearances, the cross and resurrection of Jesus aren’t actually essential to Christianity. His reasoning for this surprising conclusion is consistent with his overall method, but for that reason highlights some of the concerns that Christians of a more orthodox bent might have with it. For Schleiermacher,…

  • Francis Spufford’s speech to religion’s cultured despisers

    This essay from Francis Spufford has been getting flagged quite a bit in my little corner of the Internet. Spufford is an English author who writes mostly non-fiction (his recent book Red Plenty was the subject of a book event at Crooked Timber this summer). Spufford’s essay seems to be a summary of his new…

  • Schleiermacher vs. theistic evolutionism

    So-called theistic evolutionists sometimes distinguish themselves from creationists by saying that God used evolution to creation life on earth, rather than creating it directly through a special divine act. I’m generally sympathetic to this view, at least in the sense that I’m a theist who believes that evolution is the best account going of how…

  • Semi-hiatus

    As readers of my Twitter feed may be aware, my wife gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby boy last Thursday morning. We’re extremely happy (and tired, etc.). However, a foreseeable, if unintended, side-effect of the new addition is less time (and energy) for blogging. So expect few if any posts for the next…

  • Liberals aren’t sexual relativists

    In an article that otherwise makes some good points about conservatives’ “populist” defense of junk food, Rod Dreher just can’t resist taking a swipe at a time-honored liberal strawman: For conservatives, it may be revealing to compare the defensiveness with which many of us discuss what we do in the dining room to the defensiveness…

  • How “liberal” is Schleiermacher?

    Before I started reading him, I had some preconceptions about Schleiermacher, owing in large part to his reputation as the father of “liberal” theology. But the more I read him, the more convinced I am that those preconceptions were wrong. First, I had assumed that Schleiermacher built his theology on the foundation of a “generic,”…

  • The Civil Wars, “From this Valley”

  • Barth on universalism and the fear of antinomianism

    One question should for a moment be asked, in view of the “danger” with which one may see this concept [i.e., universalism] gradually surrounded. What of the “danger” of the eternally skeptical-critical theologian who is ever and again suspiciously questioning, because fundamentally always legalistic and therefore in the main morosely gloomy? Is not his presence…

  • The Walkmen, “Heaven”

    From the album of the same name.

  • Speaking of equality…

    From this really interesting interview with philosopher Elizabeth Anderson: The idea that human beings are fundamentally equals from a moral point of view is ancient. I suspect it can be traced all the way back to the origins of monotheism, in the idea that we are all equally creatures of God, all made in God’s…