A Thinking Reed

  • The radical Lewis

    I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that many C. S. Lewis fans–maybe especially his many evangelical admirers–don’t know that Lewis wrote a pamphlet for the British Anti-Vivisection Society. This essay, reprinted later in God in the Dock, anticipates some key arguments since made by philosophical proponents of animal rights. Lewis posits…

  • Tillich on Barth

    I’ve been reading Langdon Gilkey’s Blue Twilight, a collection of essays on religion in America (broadly speaking) that covers topics like religious pluralism, the environmental crisis, creationism and evolution, and the rise of the Religious Right. Gilkey was a student of both Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich and was in many ways trying to carry…

  • Some best metal of 2010 lists

    The year-end “best of” lists have already started to appear. Here are some lists of the best metal albums of 2010 from a few trusted sources: – The AV Club’s Leonard Pierce offers his picks here. – Phil Freeman has a top 40(!) (parts 1, 2, 3, and 4) list as well as an entertaining…

  • More theo-podcasts: Evolutionary Christianity

    Speaking of theology podcasts, readers might also be interested in this series: The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity. The series is a production of Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution, and the topic is integrating Christian faith with an evolutionary understanding of the world. Interviewees include Ian Barbour, John Cobb, Brian McLaren, and others.…

  • Friday Metal: The Sword, “Warp Riders”

    I had actually forgotten about these guys. Their first album was a really good slice of retro Sabbath-inspired classic metal, but the follow up garnered some disappointing reviews and I never bothered to check it out. This year’s release, Warp Riders, however, has received a lot of praise. I haven’t heard the album yet, but…

  • Elizabeth Johnson on ecological Christology

    If you haven’t checked it out, the Homebrewed Christianity podcast series has some really good interviews with top-flight theologians. Today I listened to to this podcast with Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson. It seems she’s working on a book on “ecological Christology”–a very interesting discussion ensued. I also loved how when at the end the…

  • Is Jesus God?

    Last night I finished reading James D. G. Dunn’s Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? Dunn, a professor at the University of Durham in England and noted scholar, looks specifically at the New Testament evidence to determine whether Jesus was worshipped by the early church. The question may seem like a no-brainer, but Dunn finds…

  • “Justice is giving humans their due as people in the image of God”

    Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, has a book out called Generous Justice, making the case that concern for the poor is a non-negotiable implication of the gospel and a matter of justice, not just charity. Christianity Today interviews him here. “It’s biblical,” Pastor Keller says, “that we owe the…

  • On unfinished books

    Camassia writes here about books she started but didn’t finish. I’m somewhat compulsive about finishing books–I actually feel guilty if I don’t. But I’ve come to the conclusion that this works to my detriment since you have to assume that there are way more good books in the world than I’ll ever get around to…

  • Misconceptions about foreign aid

    At the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Jason Kuznicki points out some persistent public misconceptions about the amount the U.S. spends on foreign aid: Years ago, I read that Americans on average thought we spent something like a quarter of our budget on foreign aid. It was a ridiculous overestimate, both then and now, and I…