We interrupt this hiatus

OK, folks–I’m not sure how sustainable this hiatus is. Even when I’m not “officially” blogging I still find myself jotting down notes on various things I’m reading or thinking about. Maybe I need to take more drastic measures, like chucking my laptop out the window.

I’ve also started playing around with Twitter. Not sure what I think about that yet either, but if you have a hankering for some ATR-style content, you can follow my “tweets” here: http://twitter.com/thinking_reed

UPDATE: Added the Twitter widget to the right-hand column.

Into that good night (for now)

Hard as it is for me to believe, I’ve been blogging for over five years straight, since I started my first blogspot blog back in July 2004. (All the archives from that have since been imported over here.) That’s three cities, two jobs, a handful of churches, various political mutations, and heaven knows how many heavy metal videos ago.

Lately, though, it’s tough to shake the feeling that I’m phoning it in and/or writing things I’ve written before. I had only the vaguest idea of what I hoped to get out of blogging in the first place (organizing my thoughts? connecting with other people?), but I’m starting to think that the the experience has been sucked dry. Or maybe it’s just a temporary drought. Who knows?

Either way, I think I’ve earned a little time off, especially since no one’s paying me to do this. It’s surprising it took this long for it to happen, but lately the blog feels more like an obligation than a hobby. Not sure how much time off, but at least until I feel like I have something to say beyond chiming in on the latest political dust-up or re-hashing the same arguments about theology or animal rights or whatever for the umpteenth time.

Regardless, I hope you, dear reader, have gotten some enjoyment out of this blog. Thanks, as ever, for stopping by, and thanks to all the folks who have linked, commented, or otherwise supported this blog over the years.

–The Management

Of boycotts

I’m sort of puzzled that the Whole Foods boycott (both the boycott itself and the controversy about the boycott) has gotten as much mileage as it has. I’m not the boycotting type myself, but the response still seems a bit disproportionate to me.

Suppose WF as a company was dedicating resources to opposing health care reform. That would be a good reason for reform supporters to boycott, it seems to me. But simply because of something the CEO wrote in an op-ed? Like I said, I don’t shop at WF, but it really has nothing to do with John Mackey’s politics.

Incidentally, I can only assume that those righteously boycotting WF have already contacted their representative and senators to urge them to vote for health care reform. ‘Cause that’s something that could actually make a difference.

Placher on atonement, one last time

The Christian Century recently published a posthumous article by the late Presbyterian theologian William Placher: “How Does Jesus Save?” In it, Placher wrestles, as he had in the past (including in his wonderful book Jesus the Savior), with various theories of the atonement and their shortcomings. He sees “liberals” and “conservatives” increasingly at loggerheads over “moral influence” and “substitutionary” theories of the atonement. He also criticizes the recent vogue for atonement theories based on the work of Rene Girard as insufficient for acheiving the kind of salvation we need.

Toward the end of the piece, Placher proposes a return to–or at least a re-examination of–the theories of church fathers like Irenaeus and Athanasius, which he refers to as “mystical” or “physical” theories of salvation (Irenaeus’ version is also sometimes referred to as the “recapitulation” theory). The basic idea is that Jesus saves us by identifying himself with human life in all its glory and misery, even unto death on a cross. The Son of God identifies himself with outcasts, the sick, and the sinful and, in the “whole course of his obedience” (borrowing a phrase from Calvin), restores human nature and offers it back to God the Father:

Only when God incarnate has welcomed sinners into his table fellowship, cured those who suffered, died the death assigned the blaspheming and seditious, even gone into the realm of those who have rejected God and exist in a hell of utter isolation (I pick up at the end a theme most eloquently presented in our time by Hans Urs von Balthasar)–only when this God incarnate has been raised can we glimpse the expansiveness of God’s work of salvation. It is only the crucified One who can save us all.

I think one possible (and salutary) implication of this view, not mentioned here by Placher, is that it places the atonement in the context of creation. Rather than simply a forensic balancing of accounts, the incarnation is the means by which God restores humanity to the path God intended for us, within God’s good creation.

Farmers vs. “agri-intellectuals”

A while back, the American–the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute–published an article by farmer Blake Hurst called “The Omnivore’s Delusion,” taking to task “agri-intellectuals” like Michael Pollan who have criticized industrial farming.

Here Tom Philpott points out some of the holes and omissions in Hurst’s argument. Philpott acknowledges that the sustainable food movement hasn’t grappled with some of the big, hard questions about transitioning to a different system of food production, but also points out that Hurst doesn’t address the many serious environmental impacts of industrial farming that call into question its long-term future.

I lean somewhat toward the more middle-of-the-road views espoused by folks like Paul Roberts and James McWilliams: some kind of “industrial” (i.e., large-scale, mechanized) food production is probably inevitable simply to feed people, but distinctions need to be made between sustainable and un-sustainable varieties. (For instance, a modified form of industrial grain production vs. industrial animal farming.) In other words, neither Roberts nor McWilliams sees the solution as a return to an idyllic agrarian past.

The missing element in the US climate change debate

Ethics, says Donald Brown, a professor of environmental ethics at Penn State, guest posting at Climate Progress. He offers the recent debate in Scotland as an instructive contrast.

Good introductions to the ethics of climate change are James Garvey’s (aptly titled) The Ethics of Climate Change, Michael Northcott’s A Moral Climate (written from a theological perspective), and the section on climate change in Peter Singer’s One World.

Does exercise make you thinner?

Maybe not.

One interesting suggestion in the article is that we evolved in such a way that constant, low-impact activitiy throughout the day may be more suitable for us than the intense, relatively brief bursts of activity in a typical bout of “working out.”

I’ve been boycotting Whole Foods for years

But mostly because of the prices and intolerable smugness.

Link via JL Wall at Upturned Earth.

Friday Metal: Napalm Death, “Time Waits for No Slave”

The grand-daddies of grindcore:

Ah, the ivory tower…

One of the many puzzling things about this post from Brian Leiter on veganism is that it seems to take place in a world unrecognizable as our own. To wit:

Let’s suppose, plausibly enough, that sentience (the ability to experience pleasure and pain) is a morally relevant characteristic. Since animals are sentient, it seems there ought to be a moral obligation not to inflict gratuitous pain and suffering on them. [...] That by itself simply wouldn’t demand veganism as a response, since there are lots of ways to utilize animals and animal products that do not involve infliction of pain and suffering on them. [...] To be sure, many kinds of uses of animals and animal products require them to be dead, but as long as they are killed painlessly, we have discharged our duties in virtue of their sentience.

Just out of curiosity, does Leiter actually think that the way we typically raise and slaughter animals for food is carried out painlessly? ‘Cause that’s actually a pretty high bar to meet, and if you think that our minimal duty to animals is not to inflict unnecessary suffering on them, you’ve all but given up the game, practically speaking.

I realize that many, perhaps most, vegans would make the stronger claim that it’s wrong to kill animals for our use even if done painlessly. But, even on utilitarian grounds, Leiter doesn’t seem to recognize how strong the case is. (Though I certainly disagree with Leiter’s reasoning to show that animals are not harmed in being killed, incidentally.)

Link via Theoria.