RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The Inauguration of Income Inequality Politics
One of the key words at Bill de Blasio’s inauguration as New York City’s mayor was “inequality.” The politics of e inequality were pervasive in the remarks of former President Bill Clinton, who swore de Blasio into office, as well as the prayer of the Rev. Fred Lucas, a Sanitation Department chaplain, who prayed during the invocation for New Yorkers to be emancipated from ‘the plantation called New York City.’ e inequality as evidence of an unjust society may the...
The Godly Stewardship of Money
I certainly like where Dr. Calder ends up, but I’m not quite so sure about the argumentation he uses to get there. This short video is worth checking out: “Breaking the Power of Money” (HT: ESN blog). Breaking the Power of Money – Dr. Lendol Calder from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo. Is it because students have unconsciously divinized money that they can’t bring themselves to tear a dollar bill in half? Or is there an implicit bias against the seemingly...
Federal Courts Block Contraception Mandate
As 2013 ing to a close, federal courts issued rulings on three injunctions sought by religious non-profits challenging the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate rules: • Preliminary injunctions had been awarded in 18 of the 20 similar cases, but the 10th Circuit denied relief to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns from Colorado. However, late in the evening on December 31, Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement, and ordered a...
Strong Marriages Make Strong Economies
The decline of marriage and fertility is one factor in the global economic crisis, says sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox: The long-term fortunes of the modern economy depend in part on the strength and sustainability of the family, both in relation to fertility trends and to marriage trends. This basic, but often overlooked, principle is now at work in the current global economic crisis. That is, one reason that some of the world’s leading economies — from Japan to Italy to...
Notre Dame To Comply With HHS Mandate
Notre Dame University announced yesterday that it ply with the HHS mandate requiring employers to include contraception, abortifacients and abortion coverage in health care packages for employees. The university made the announcement after a federal judge last week denied the university’s request for exemption of the Obama administration’s law. An emergency stay was also denied by the Seventh District Court of Appeals. Failure ply with the law means the university would now have to pay fines of $100 per day...
RELIGION & LIBERTY
A curmudgeon's counsel for the workplace and life
Review of The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead by Charles Murray (Crown, 2014), 140 pages; $17.95. If you've ever wondered what a libertarian curmudgeon's guide to life, love, and making a living might look like, well look no further. Charles Murray, the social scientist and best-selling author of such books as Losing Ground (1984) and Coming Apart (2012), has given us such a book in The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead. Aimed at those in their 20s or those...
Nov 21, 2024
Double-edged sword: The power of the Word - Colossians 3:1-4
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. One of the greatest truths about the incarnation is...
Nov 21, 2024
Ambition meets complexity in sub-saharan Africa
Review of The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs And the Quest to End Poverty by Nina Munk (Doubleday 2013) 272 pages; $26.95. Jeffrey Sachs, the world-renowned professor of economics and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Millennium Development Goals, makes a bold claim: Extreme poverty can be eradicated and the means for doing so may not be as difficult as we imagine. In The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, contributing editor at...
Nov 21, 2024
Richard Baxter
It is God's great mercy to mankind, that he will use us all in doing good to one another; and it is a great part of his wise government of the world, that in societies men should be tied to it by the sense of every particular man's necessity; and it is a great honour to those that he maketh his almoners, or servants, to convey his gifts to others; God bids you give nothing but what is his,...
Nov 21, 2024
John Milton on liberty, license, and virtuous self-government
The notion that genuine liberty is predicated upon virtuous self-government was an accepted ideal among many of the United States' founders. During the Founding era, this ideal was perhaps best expressed in a 1791 letter by the Irish-born British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, who wrote: Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites . . . It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of...
Nov 21, 2024
Christian environmentalism and the temptation of faux asceticism
It is important to clarify the Church’s teaching on asceticism, because many voices in the environmental movement encourage a kind of ascetical lifestyle in the name of “ethical consumption.” Orthodox writers on the environment are not immune to the temptation of putting the ascetical tradition of the Church in the service of another agenda. For example, the conclusion of the Inter-Orthodox Conference on Environmental Protection, held in Crete in 1991, states: “Humanity needs a simpler way of life, a...
Nov 21, 2024
Vietnam, Luther, and the doctrine of vocation
An Interview with Uwe Siemon-Netto Uwe Siemon-Netto is the founder and executive director emeritus of the Center for Lutheran Theology and Public Life in Capistrano Beach, California. He is also a regular contributor to English- and German-language publications. Siemon-Netto, a native of Leipzig, Germany, has been an international journalist for over 50 years. His assignments have included the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War (over a period of five years), the...
Nov 21, 2024
Reasons to celebrate
President Barack Obama has just met with Pope Francis at the Vatican. It is always an important event when the president of our nation meets with one of the most important religious leaders in the world, regardless of who occupies either office at the time of such a meeting. There are topics I would have liked to see these two men discuss, but I, like most of the world, am not privy to most of their conversation. What I...
Nov 21, 2024
Why is the Acton Institute fighting the city of Grand Rapids for non-profit property tax exempt status?
As many city governments seek additional revenue to deal with their growing budgets, one of the new emerging and favorite targets is non-profits. A new survey from the University of Michigan highlights how local government officials are looking to put the tax squeeze on non-profits, educational institutions, and charitable organizations. At Acton, we are currently experiencing this first hand. The city of Grand Rapids denied our property tax exemption request for our new $7 million downtown headquarters. Acton lost...
Nov 21, 2024
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