A Thinking Reed

  • The rise of the more-Catholic-than-thou Protestant

    This was a character who was (blessedly) unknown to me prior to the advent of the theo-blogosphere: the guy (and it’s almost invariably a guy) who is constantly berating his fellow Protestants for not being “catholic” enough. That is, not being in touch with the larger Church and the Great Tradition, being antinomian, relativistic, individualistic,…

  • Links for Friday

    – Derek on the church and (in)fallibility and communing the unbaptized – Animal advocacy and pragmatism – This is your brain on gadgets – BLS has been writing a fascinating series of posts on the church and A.A. – The thought of Paul Ramsey – The AV Club’s June round up of all things metal…

  • “Spiritual Progressives” converge on DC

    I won’t be attending, but I thought I’d flag the conference of the “Network of Spiritual Progressives” taking place this weekend in D.C. since it’s being hosted by my church. Presenters include Congressmen Keith Ellison and Dennis Kucinich, Brian McLaren, Joan Chittister, Bill McKibben, and Michael Lerner, among many others. The agenda is crafting “an…

  • The crooked path from metaphysics to morals

    Guest-blogger “Aeolus” at In Living Color flags a book by Rod Preece that attempts to set the historical record straight on Christianity’s attitude toward animals. The assumption among many animal advocates has been that Christianity reinforced a hierarchical attitude that was inherently detrimental to animal well-being, and that only a more science-based approach, heavily indebted…

  • The ballot or the bullet

    The Washington City Paper has a good–albeit depressing!–autopsy of the failure to pass the DC voting rights act this year. Bottom line: blame the NRA and its lackeys in Congress.

  • Meat-eating and Benedict’s rule

    Here’s another tid-bit from that Christian Century article on food that I blogged about last week: Benedict saw lack of dietary discipline as a sign not of strength but of weakness. In particular, he restricted meat to children, the sick and the elderly. By eating meat unnecessarily, healthy adult members of his community would enjoy…

  • Friday Metal: As I Lay Dying, “Condemned”

    From their new album, “The Powerless Rise”:

  • Food rules for Christians

    I think it was Stanley Hauerwas who said, with typical pungency, that no religion can be interesting if it doesn’t tell you what to do with your pots and pans or your genitals. By at least part of that criteria, Exeter University theologian David Grumett seems to be trying to make Christianity interesting again. In…

  • The truth about scientists and religion?

    I thought this book review, from today’s WaPo, was worth highlighting: Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund offers a fresh perspective on this debate in “Science vs. Religion.” Rather than offering another polemic, she builds on a detailed survey of almost 1,700 scientists at elite American research universities — the most comprehensive such study to date.…

  • Sermon questions left hanging

    Today was our first attempt at church-going since the baby was born. We made it about half-way through before she started to fuss, and we’re still skittish enough about our baby-comforting skills that we decided to abscond. What I did manage to catch from the part of the sermon I heard–it was Trinity Sunday–was a…