A Thinking Reed

  • Meat in a vat?

    This piece from NPR has generated some interest in the topic of in-vitro meat–that is, meat grown in a lab from a cell culture. Apparently there is a real possibility that sometime in the next decade or so we could see lab-grown meat on our supermarket shelves. On its face, this seems like a win-win…

  • Church, class, and bourgeois virtue

    Jim Henley cites some recent research showing that church attendance correlates with income and “familistic and bourgeois values”; he goes on to offer some speculative explanations of why church might be inhospitable to working-class folks. I think there’s a lot of truth there, but I also have to ask, if this is a recent phenomenon…

  • Friday Metal: Sinister Realm, “Winds of Vengeance”

    File under “neo-traditional.” Nice to hear some of these recent metal acts with actual singing! A refreshing change from the now-cliched “extreme” vocals.

  • God and the White Whale

    Brandon points to this interesting piece by Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul on Moby-Dick, which Sproul correctly notes is the greatest American novel. Sproul argues for a Christian reading of Melville’s work–seeing Ahab as man in rebellion against God (symbolized by the White Whale). Melville experts and scholars come to different conclusions about the meaning of…

  • A worry about open Communion

    I don’t have really strong feelings one way or the other about “open” Communion–i.e., communing the non-baptized. I can see arguments both for and against it. But I do have some questions about how I’ve seen it put into practice. At several churches I’ve been to that practice open Communion, there is little or no…

  • Friday Metal: Iron Maiden, “Number of the Beast”

    From Rock in Rio:

  • Elvis 101

    The AV Club has a great primer on the music of Elvis Presley, presumably in honor of the anniversary of his death this week. You may wonder why arguably the most famous pop/rock star in history needs an introduction, but the article hits the nail on the head, I think: While Presley’s fame continues unabated,…

  • Reading the Bible after supersessionism

    I’ve started reading R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology, which is an attempt to rethink the foundational narrative of Christianity within a “post-supersessionist” context. Christian theology has traditionally held that the church replaces Israel in God’s covenant. However, the realization, post-Holocaust, of how Christian theology has contributed to anti-Semitism and the…

  • NPR’s SF and fantasy top 100

    NPR did a listener survey on the best science fiction and fantasy books and posted a list of the top 100. The ones I’ve read are in bold. At a glance, the list seems a little bit too weighted toward more recent stuff. Anything else on here anyone would particularly recommend? 1. The Lord Of…

  • Friday Metal: King’s X, “Sometimes”

    The King’s X obsession continues. This is from their first album, Out of the Silent Planet (note the C.S. Lewis reference).