“America has never been a Christian nation. America was founded on an attempt to integrate Judeo-Christian values with Enlightenment ideas of self-government. What I’m envisioning is a divine tipping point or critical mass.” So says Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was discussing his new book, Imagine! A God-Blessed America: How It Could Happen and What It Would Look Like, and was responding negatively when asked whether his book’s thesis...

An interview at Money & Faith with Dr. Robert Cooley, former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, explores the biblical concept of stewardship. A key quote: “Church leaders need to remember they have an awesome responsibility to manage well the funds the people of God give each Sunday and to maintain the trust of the congregation in the life and work of the church. As stewards, we also need to be reminded that God holds us accountable not only for the...

Just in case you were thinking that the rabid anti-human elements of environmental movements had dissipated, take a look at the newest exhibit at the London Zoo. Titled “The Human Zoo,” the exhibit features 8 people living in “natural” conditions over the course of three days, and is “intended to show the basic nature of human beings,” that is, our inherent animalism. The world’s first ever human zoo exhibit is unveiled. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty In the words of a London...

It’s been determined that the view of the human person at work behind “The Human Zoo” exhibit is best exemplified by Agent Smith’s monologue from the original installment of “The Matrix.” While Morpheus is held captive, Agent Smith tells him the following: I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops...

The European Union is running into some problems with its quota policies on Chinese goods: The European Union will tomorrow put proposals to member states for the release of millions of Chinese garments stacked up at customs warehouses since the EU imposed import limits in June, said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. If the proposals are accepted, then about 70 million sweaters, trousers and bras could be released by mid-September, Mandelson said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview. Designed to...

This day in 1949, the Soviets tested their first nuclear device, codenamed “First Lightning.” The 20 kiloton bomb was dropped in a remote region of Kazakhstan and detonated over a model town filled with empty buildings and animals, placed to measure the effects of the bomb on a city populated by mammals. The development of nuclear weapons by the Soviets (research speeded along by the espionage of Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist involved in the US nuclear weapons project) removed...

Hurricane Katrina passed over New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf coast earlier today, and reports of “price gouging” are ing in. In Alabama, when the governor declares a state of emergency, it triggers a legal barrier to “unconscionable pricing.” That is (arbitrarily?) determined by the government to be a raise of 25% or more above the “normal” price. Raising prices for modities during an emergency situation smacks of opportunism at best. So it seems on the face of...

Is there a columnist anywhere in the world more in line with Pope John Paul II’s social teachings than Mark Steyn? All the more amazing as he regularly writes for the extremely secularist British press! First, Mark has re-posted this gem he wrote for The Spectator in 1998 about the relationship between abortion and euthanasia, a.k.a. the culture of death. See also John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae. Then, in today’s Daily Telegraph, he writes about the importance, indeed the centrality,...

You may have heard of “fair trade,” one of the more recent economically-myopic efforts to act as “guarantees that farmers and farmworkers receive a fair price for their labor.” I’ve written before about the fair trade coffee movement (especially in the Church), which has perhaps gained the most public attention. But fair traders haven’t overlooked any consumables, and the broader movement is likely to receive more attention in the future, as fair trade is a plank in platform of the...

Outsiders looking from the outside into Europe will probably answer that question in the affirmative, and with good reason. The churches are emptying, the economies are tanking, and the politicians continue to fiddle along. Very few have a clue of how to fix things. Very few, but not all. The President of the Czech Republic, Vผlav Klaus, spoke at a Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Iceland last week. Citing Friedrich von Hayek and Raymond Aron, Klaus has a clear eye...

The Americans brought this on themselves. That’s one ing from around the world as it surveys the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. In what can only be described as callously political maneuvering, Germany’s environmental minister Jürgen Trittin said today, “The increasing frequency of these natural events can only be explained through global warming which is caused by people.” Instead of offering condolences, well-wishes, or prayers, minister Tritten delivered the judgment of secular environmentalists. The Americans’ crime? “A U.S. citizen causes about...

Courtesy of Rev. Eric Andrae, Lutheran pastor Bo Giertz offers us a great exposition of the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and sums up the importance of the pastoral ministry. “‘It is a great thing to receive a heritage…. It is wonderful to stand in the same pulpit, to learn of [those who have gone before us,] and to carry forward the work they began. Sir…, can anything be greater than to be a pastor in God’s church?'” (Bo...