by On the New Republic’s blog, Jonathan Chait has a short post that is overdone but makes a valid point. He notes that Sharron Angle, the tea-party-backed GOP Arizona senatorial candidate, in an interview with the National Review, credits God (and Mark Levin) for her primary win, saying that “[m]ost everything has a providential side in American [...]
Read the full postMonthly Archive for June, 2010
Page 2 of 2
by Our own David Opderbeck has posted his new paper, A Critical Realist Theology of Law, Neurobiology, and the Soul. I have read the paper, and it is a wonderful example of a scholar speaking from within a religious tradition — not speaking at a feigned arms length as though a believer could approach his own faith as if it were some sort of zoological specimen. The double trick for David is doing so in a way that is accessible to those outside his tradition, due in significant part to the fact that he takes the object of inquiry (in this case neurobiology) seriously on its own terms. I’m sure he’d welcome comments.
Read the full post
by I’ve seen a bit of discussion about a provocative little essay in the New York Times by Peter Singer called “Should This Be the Last Generation?” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/?hp The central question, as you might guess, is that given the damage humans do the earth, and given the (obviously contestable) observation that many or most people experience [...]
Read the full post
by Readers of my “other” blog, “Mirror of Justice,” know that I am very interested in cities, and in questions — particularly moral, spiritual, and anthropological questions — about urban design and planning. And they know that I am a big fan of the work of my friend and colleague, Philip Bess. Here, thanks to Public [...]
Read the full postLike Bob, I’ve been neglecting the LRE conversation due to recent travels. One particularly fascinating event was a conference in Loppiano, Italy on “The Charismatic Principle in Economic and Civil Life.” After two days of discussion, it’s still a fairly elusive and malleable concept in my mind, though one helpful way to think about the theme is to distinguish it from our tendency to approach social progress and reform from an institutional perspective.
Read the full postThe brilliant Christian sociologist, Don Browning, who was a dear friend and mentor to so many Christian scholars (and others!), passed away during the night of June 3. R.I.P.
Read the full post
by Sorry for my failure to communicate over the last few weeks. I have been on a trip to Rwanda and Uganda on behalf of Pepperdine and Saddleback Church’s Justice Task Force (Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback). I believe our trip illustrates some significant, relatively new, forces in evangelical Christianity. At the end of this [...]
Read the full postThe various questions of bioethics– concerning genetic engineering, stem cell research, and the like– are among the large class of very important and difficult questions that I have self-consciously left for others who are more competent to think about. The issues I do try to address– concerning religious freedom and so forth– are already too [...]
Read the full post
by I enjoy Memorial Day. As an American, it feels right to remember and celebrate the sacrifices of our soldiers. As a Christian, however, I feel ambivalent about this kind of celebration. Pageantry, uniforms, parades, and the rhetoric of civil virtue — all of these things are seductive. It is so easy to fall into idolatry, [...]
Read the full post
