A Thinking Reed

  • The living Constitution

    Garrett Epps’ American Epic: Reading the U. S. Constitution is a fascinating, informative, lucid, provocative, and not infrequently humorous tour through the text of the Constitution, including all twenty-seven amendments. Epps, a lawyer, professor, and correspondent for the Atlantic, isn’t uncritically reverent toward the text–he recognizes that it can be confusing, opaque, and occasionally self-contradictory,…

  • Papal hot takes are missing the point

    Pope Francis’s visit to the Western Hemisphere has occasioned a whole new round of papal #takes. Conservatives are conservasplaining that Francis, with all this talk of economic inequality and environmental doom-and-gloom, doesn’t understand the gospel, or hates science and modernity. Liberals are warning that Francis isn’t really progressive, but a theocrat in progressive clothing. Rinse,…

  • Not quite feeling the #Bern

    Many of my friends, both online and in “real life,” are enthusiastically supporting Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ run for the presidency. His straight-talking critique of economic inequality and his unapologetically left-wing proposals for addressing it have undeniably tapped into frustrations with the political and economic status quo. He presents a sharp contrast with the cautious…

  • God loves Homo naledi too

    Reading this fascinating account of the recent discovery of Homo naledi–“a baffling new branch to the [human] family tree”–I couldn’t help thinking that Christianity hasn’t really come to terms with the history of human (and proto-human) existence as it’s increasingly being revealed to us. When evolution first began to be debated in Christian circles it…

  • Midsummer update

    Gee, things have been quiet around here, haven’t they? I have no real excuse except that work, family, a little bit of travel, and sundry other activities have pushed blogging down the scale of priorities considerably. Not that there hasn’t been stuff going on in the world: we had some major Supreme Court cases come…

  • How many divisions has the pope?

    I believe that climate change is one of the biggest threats to human civilization of our time, if not the biggest. So in that sense I’m glad that Pope Francis’s upcoming encyclical will apparently be a strong endorsement of our responsibility to address it. Still, I find the excitement around this encyclical to be a…

  • More cracks in the evangelical consensus on same-sex relationships

    A couple of interesting developments in the world of evangelicalism over the last day or so. Tony Campolo, a well-known evangelical preacher and activist, has come out (so to speak) for the “full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.” Campolo has long argued for more tolerance of gay people but has always stopped…

  • Does it matter if Jesus never returns?

    A friend on Twitter asks: “Will there be a point at which Christians accept that Jesus won’t return? 5,000 years? 10,000 years? When the sun consumes the earth?” For what it’s worth, my view is that Christians don’t need to believe in a “literal” second coming. Eschatology, like creation, points to something that lies beyond…

  • Maimonides on the Messiah

    I’ve been reading a (heavily abridged) edition of Moses Maimonides’ (1138-1204) systematic digest and commentary on the Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, and found his discussion of the Messiah toward the end of particular interest. The Messiah, he says, is not some kind of supernatural figure, but simply a righteous king in the line of David…

  • Kimel and Hart on universalism

    Universalism is a leitmotif of Fr. Aidan Kimel’s blog, Eclectic Orthodoxy. In this post, he lists some writings that have been particularly influential in moving him toward the universalist position. As a bonus, Orthodox theologian David B. Hart pops up in the comments to offer his thoughts. Apparently DBH is also a convinced universalist! I’m…