A Thinking Reed

  • The marginalization of the mystical

    Luke Timothy Johnson writes on keeping the “exoteric” (legal, moral, ritual) and “esoteric” (mystical, devotional) aspects of religion together. Both, he says, are necessary for the religious life to flourish, but western monotheisms–Islam and Christianity particularly–have become too focused on the exoteric.

  • “Reason” vs. reasons

    I want to zero in further on one small part of the John Polkinghorne interview excerpted below: I think that the fundamental question about something, whether science or religion, is not, “Is it reasonable?” as if we know beforehand what is reasonable, or what shape rationality has. The better question is, “What makes you think…

  • Friday Metal: Gojira, “Remembrance”

  • Proof vs. “motivated belief”

    I liked this interview with physicist/Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. In particular, his distinction between proving a belief and having a belief that is well motivated is worth highlighting: Is it important to be able to prove the existence of God? Well, I don’t think it’s possible to prove the existence of God. There are many…

  • American exceptionalism rightly understood?

    Damon Linker, who I think it’s fair to say, represents a liberalism informed by E.J. Dionne’s three conservative insights, defends a qualified version of American “exceptionalism.” It’s foolish, Linker says, to pretend that the U.S. is a uniquely virtuous nation; our history of barbarism toward indigenous Americans and black slaves and our mischief-making abroad should…

  • A cure for Roman fever?

    At the risk of seeming un-ecumenical, don’t the ongoing revelations of child abuse in the Catholic Church and the alleged complicity of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict seem like kind of a big deal? First and foremost, of course, it’s a big deal for the victims of abuse and their families. But doesn’t it also highlight the…

  • Defining conservatism down

    E.J. Dionne contrasts angry, pseudo-populist Tea Party-style conservatism with a more humane conservatism that “seeks to preserve the best of what we have.” He recognizes that he may be defining conservatism as little more than a corrective to progressivism rather than a free-standing ideology in its own right, but he maintains that Burkean-Kirkian conservatism is…

  • The gift of self-forgetfulness

    Blog-friend Jeremy, formerly of The Kibitzer, Eating Words, and other sundry ventures, is blogging again at Don’t Be Hasty. Today he has a great post on the Lutheran understanding of sin as being “curved in” on oneself. This understanding of the human condition–and the corresponding understanding of justification by faith–is a big part of what…

  • Stewart Udall, R.I.P.

    Stewart Udall, who was Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died this weekend. I didn’t really know anything about him before reading this obituary in today’s WaPo, but his accomplishments as head of Interior were impressive. I was more struck, though, by some of the language he used. It’s hard to…

  • House passes health-care reform

    NYT story here. Even the high-level summary of the GOP’s objections can’t make them sound coherent: Republicans said the plan would saddle the nation with unaffordable levels of debt, leave states with expensive new obligations, weaken Medicare and give the government a huge new role in the health care system. Keep the gummint out of…