Josh on Hil's Persistence, And Notes on Skepticism Pending

Here's Josh Marshall with the smartest take I've seen on why Hillary is going to stay in the race, and what it means. (Short version: there's no way she can stay in without attacking Obama ever more harshly.) My hope is she'll run out of money before she scorches too much earth.

By the way, I'm working on a response to the lively debate going on in the comments of my recent posts about the Resurrection. But I've been busy, between moving all my stuff and writing book stuff, and I even have some meetings tomorrow. But the first commenter (the Kansas City commenter) raised a really interesting question, which was echoed by Daniel: What do you gain from skepticism? Why pursue doubt in the first place?

I'm about halfway finished with my own pokings at the question, but in the meantime, I just thought I'd mention a neat thing I read by Brian McLaren (in his A Generous Orthodoxy, which I decided to reread today), where he distinguishes between the hermeneutic of skepticism and the hermeneutic of love. (I.e, a reading of the Bible that seeks to doubt everything, versus a reading of the Bible that's rather more hopeful and forgiving.) I think it's a sort of false dichotomy--since most scholars I know are actually Bible fans; they just find it easier to see what the book really says if they try not to impose their own faith on it--but it's also a helpful difference to notice from the sidelines if you want to have a conversation. It's a really good book, and if I had a highlighter, I'd have used it five times in the first four chapters. Check it out.