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“Self-awareness is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon”
From Wired, a report of laboratory monkeys (rhesus macaques, to be specific) that have shown signs of self-recognition (and thus potentially self-awareness): In the lab of University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Luis Populin, five rhesus macaques seem to recognize their own reflections in a mirror. Monkeys weren’t supposed to do this. “We thought these subjects didn’t…
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Judgment and weakness
Judgment is the time when God finally brings in the verdict. The question, then, is not how one balances off mercy and judgment, but for whom is judgment mercy and for whom is it threatening doom. For God’s people God’s judgment is salvation. But who are God’s people? Is it not consistently true in the…
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Stendahl’s rules
Krister Stendahl was a Swedish Lutheran theologian, New Testament scholar, and ultimately a bishop of the Church of Sweden. He’s probably best known for arguing that St. Paul’s letters were responding to a specific context–namely the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and his mission to the latter. According to Stendahl, much Western theology (Lutheran in…
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A world without carnivores?
I meant to link earlier to this piece from the NYT Opinionator blog by philosopher Jeff McMahan. He poses the following question: Suppose that we could arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones. Or suppose that we could intervene genetically, so that currently carnivorous species would gradually evolve into…
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Jews, Christians, and a “two-poled” eschatology
I’ve read more than one work of theology that attempted to explain the rejection of Jesus’ messiah-hood by the majority of Jews like this: Jews expectated the messiah to be a nationalist–even military–leader who would liberate them from Roman oppression, but Jesus was a different kind of messiah, a “spiritual” one who came to liberate…
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Small government for thee, not for me
Smart take from Matt Yglesias on the GOP’s “Pledge to America”: Perhaps the most telling thing about where the modern conservative movement is now, however, is their pledge on spending which says that “with common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.” Of course once…
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A God of life
The God of the Bible creates, re-creates, and ultimately redeems life. This God, whatever the other so-called “gods” might be like, loves life, rejoices in it, is concerned about it, not only creates it for the purpose of blessing it, but saves it, and in between discloses to God’s covenanted people the way of life…
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A story of blessing
Clark Williamson’s systematic theology Way of Blessing, Way of Life is less focused on Jewish-Christian relations than his earlier work A Guest in the House of Israel (which I blogged about previously), but the project of re-connecting Christianity to its Jewish roots is still a major concern. One point Williamson makes is that the way…
