The eleventh-grade catechism class I taught was looking forward to the big day. The confirmation mass would mark the culmination of twelve years of religious education and would be a kind of graduation ceremony inducting them into the responsibilities of a mature Christian life. Confirmands had been prepared to pray for a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for special grace that would strengthen them in their baptismal vows and help gird their loins for Christian battle. In his...

If you could have one chance to speak to the world’s most powerful political body, what would you say? When Václav Havel’s invitation came, he told the United States Congress that “the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart.” He told people preoccupied with getting reelected that they should “put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics” and that “the only genuine core of all our actions–if they are to be moral–is responsibility.”...

In his breathtaking new book, A History of the American People, English historian Paul Johnson writes, “The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind.… The great American republican experiment … is still the first, best hope for the human race” and “will not disappoint an expectant humanity.” It is often noted that outside...

Social Security has had a profound effect on the way Americans view the government’s role in society and on our confidence in the free society’s ability to solve difficult social problems. Make no mistake, the care of the aged is a difficult social problem that, in my opinion, cannot be solved through purely market means. To say that it cannot be addressed by means of economic exchange alone, however, is not to imply that public solutions are always preferable...

Self-interest is at the heart of economic analysis. The primary assumption of economists is that people pursue their self-interest, or in the technical expression, that people seek to maximize utility defined by the utility function. The economist typically does not analyze the content of the preferences; rather, the preferences are taken as datum or as parameters to the economist’s problem. The business of economics is to understand how people with given preferences make choices under constraints. But the question...

Christians face many temptations. Sensual pleasure and wealth pose obvious dangers. So does power. The latter is particularly insidious because so many people, including Christians, claim to desire it for selfless reasons. The proper role of government, the central concern of political theory, has long been a controversial issue within Christendom. For two millennia, Christian political activities have varied from tyrannical to anarchical. Today some activists publish official scorecards (“Biblical” and “Just Life” on the right and left, respectively),...

The meltdown of Asian bined with a high- profile hedge fund failure at home, has revived the familiar charge that capitalist greed and pervasive market failure are the sources of economic crisis. What happened to Asian economies and one hedge fund has e a metaphor for the systemic moral failings of capitalism itself. “It is beginning to be accepted that global capitalism is in serious trouble,” writes John Gray in The Nation, echoing sentiments widely shared on the political...

We laymen expect ministers to lead us to the threshold of mystery. Our work is terribly rationalistic, and rationalism is always in opposition to the profound nature of man. Consequently, ministers should not try too hard to base their reflections on economic or financial facts, but, starting from the nature of the human person illumined by revelation, on the heart of human mystery. Truly, the Original Sin was an attitude that rejected mystery, an attempt to find a rationalism...

During his 1831 visit to the United States, French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville was surprised to see the positive role played by active religious faith in nurturing liberty. The dogma of the Enlightenment’s secularizing philosophes predicted the waning of religious enthusiasm as enlightenment and freedom spread, but Tocqueville’s American experience contradicted this dogma. In his great work, Democracy in America, he observed that religion and freedom were inseparably linked for Americans; one could not be conceived without the other....

Like other religious leaders, I was courted by the makers of Prince of Egypt to review the project and offer my perspective. I was prepared to resist these overtures for fear of being politically manipulated. I viewed parts of the film in earlier stages and made suggestions, which were taken seriously, as were those made by others from a variety of religious traditions. In the end, again like the others, I, too, am won over. This movie is a...

A Christian living in the late-twentieth century United States faces several tensions, not the least of which is how to be salt and light in an increasingly secular environment. In such a world, both institutions and culture may differ dramatically from God’s principles for organizing our lives and relating to our fellow human beings. Given this tension, it is instructive for Christians to reflect upon particular policy issues and bring scriptural insights to bear on them. It is for...

The modern environmental movement originated during the 1970s in response to serious environmental conditions–polluted rivers, blighted landscapes, and noxious air. We owe great tribute to those who worked tirelessly to remind us of our obligation to be good stewards of the earth. In a relatively short time, we responded to the environmental calls to action, and the results are noteworthy. Our land, air, and water have improved markedly during the past two decades, yet one cannot help but notice...