A Thinking Reed

  • Can we know if our wars are just?

    This post by Kelley Vlahos at The American Conservative looks at attempts to assess the number of civilians killed by U.S. “drones” in Pakistan and Yemen. She notes that the Obama administration has not exactly been forthcoming with estimates of the number of civilians killed–either because they aren’t tracking it or aren’t willing to make…

  • Pantera, “Rise”

  • Iron Maiden, “The Duellists”

  • Praying with Marjorie Suchocki

    I’ve found that of all the process theologians I’ve read, Marjorie Suchocki is the best at applying process categories and concepts in a meaningful way that avoids much of the forbidding technical jargon. He short book In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer is a good example of this. Suchocki applies a “process-relational” understanding of…

  • Beastie Boys, “An Open Letter to NYC”

    I didn’t properly observe the passing of Adam “MCA” Yauch on this blog, so in lieu of the usual Friday metal, here’s a clip from the Beasties’ “To the 5 Boroughs” album:

  • Prong, “Revenge…Best Served Cold”

    From their new album “Carved into Stone,” which is great.

  • Do the evolution

    As everyone not living under a rock now knows, in an interview with ABC yesterday, President Obama–who recently had said that his views were “evolving”–announced that he now supports the right of same-sex couples to get married. Some liberal critics complained that Obama’s announcement does nothing to change the status quo, with marriage still being…

  • A dime’s worth of difference, 2012 edition

    If you follow writers associated with what I’ll broadly call the “disaffected Left,” you’d be forgiven for thinking that there are few if any substantive differences between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Both, we’re told, are content with the corporate plutocracy, support a hawkish foreign policy and an ever-expanding surveillance state, are open to making…

  • Torche, “Kicking”

    Insanely catchy and fun. As is the whole album.

  • Evolution and “making God the author of evil”

    I’ve argued before that the question of a “historical” Adam and Eve and the related question of a “historical” Fall is not a “gospel issue.” That is to say, universal human sinfulness is such a self-evident fact that the question of its origin is secondary. The gospel speaks to this phenomenon of universal sinfulness with…