David Sirota argues that Democrats can, and are, winning in “red-state” areas with an progressive economic message. A strong case against the conventional wisdom that Dems need to either become more hawkish or embrace conservative cultural issues. I have no particular stake in seeing the Dems win more elections per se, except insofar as I…

In a comment to this post Marcus wondered if John Paul meant to be promulgating a new understanding of the Atonement to replace the “traditional” satisfaction theory. Though I don’t believe the Roman Catholic Church has ever definitively pronounced one Atonement theory to be the correct one (certainly nothing comparable to the dogmatic definitions of…

Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ’s Cross at the center of that history? Obviously, one response could be that God does not need to justify Himself to man. It is enough that He is omnipotent. From this perspective everything He does or allows must be accepted.…

That’s Marcus’ response to Peter Beinart’s attempt to revivify “muscular” liberalism for the 21st century.

Camassia has a meaty post on John Howard Yoder and biblical inerrancy. Basically Yoder’s message is: the Jerry Falwells of the world aren’t taking the Bible seriously enough! Not sure if “inerrancy” is the right word though. Maybe “reliability” (as Camassia’s post title indicates) or “trustworthiness.” This piece by Richard Hays deals with some of…

Control the thoughts by controlling the tongue, says Steven Riddle.

The Darkest Night of the Year by Over the Rhine UPDATE: Wow – great minds think alike! The Morning Retort has a post on OTR’s Christmas album and on seeing them recently. (Side note: I saw them at a teeny tiny bar in Philadelphia in the fall I think it was. Linford was cajoled by…

Hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Here’s Keith Burgess-Jackson on Singer’s Animal Liberation: Obviously, each of us has many interests, the main one being the interest in not suffering. Let us call beings who have the capacity to suffer “sentient beings.” You and I are sentient beings. Cows, pigs, turkeys, and…

Despite being underwhelmed by their post-Zooropa output, all the hype got to me and I picked up U2’s How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I have to say, it is a darn fine record. In particular, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own,” “Crumbs From Your Table,” “City of Blinding Lights” and “All Becuase…

Nat Hentoff on Alberto Gonzales, President Bush’s nominee to replace John Ashcroft as AG: In the July–August 2003 Atlantic Monthly, Alan Berlow wrote a long, carefully documented article, “The Texas Clemency Memos,” which told of the role of Gonzales, then legal counsel to Texas governor George W. Bush, in deciding the fate of prisoners on…