The fall 2011 issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has now been finalized and will be heading to print. It is a bit overdue, but this issue is one of our largest ever, and it includes a number of noteworthy features on the special theme issue topic “Modern Christian Social Thought.” As I outline in the editorial for this issue (PDF), 2011 marked a number of significant anniversaries, including the 120th anniversaries of Rerum Novarum and the First...

David Deavel’s review of Mitch Pearlstein’s From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation has been picked up by First Things and Mere Comments. Deavel’s review was published in the Fall 2011 issue of Religion & Liberty. In his review, Deavel declared: His [Pearlstein] new book, From Family Fragmentation to America’s Decline, laments this inability of many to climb their way up from the bottom rungs of society. But rather than fixating on...

We are pleased to give a 30% discount off of Christian’s Library Press books at the Acton Book Shop for a limited time for those who follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. If you already follow us, please send us a direct message on Twitter and we will send you the discount code (those who “like” us on Facebook can see the code automatically!). This discount will allow you to purchase such books as Wisdom & Wonder:...

At the Daily Beast yesterday, Michelle Goldman Goldberg muses on the movement of “the ultra-right evangelicals who once supported Bachmann” over to Ron Paul. This is in part because these “ultra-right evangelicals” are really “the country’s mitted theocrats,” whose support for Paul “is deep and longstanding, something that’s poorly understood among those who simply see him as a libertarian.” (Goldberg’s piece appeared before yesterday’s results from Iowa, in which it seems evangelical support went more toward Santorum [32%] than Paul...

In the Spring 2011 issue of Religion & Liberty, I wrote about the Christian response to disaster relief, focusing on Hurricane Katrina and the April 2011 tornadoes that munities in the deep South and Joplin, Mo. in May. Included in the story is a contrast of church relief with the federal government response. From the R&L piece: In Shoal Creek, Ala., a frustrated Carl Brownfield called the federal response “all red tape.” The Birmingham News ran a story on May...

2011 kicked off the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. At the beginning of 2011, I began seeing articles and news clippings memorate the anniversary. While not a professional historian, I took classes on the conflict at Ole Miss and visited memorials and battlefields on my own time. I must give recognition to Dr. James Cooke, emeritus professor of history at the University of Mississippi, for his brilliant and passionate lectures that awakened a greater interest in the subject...

In part 1 of “Secular Theocracy:The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny,”David Theroux of the Independent Institute outlines a history of secularism, tracing plex relationship between religion and the spheres of society, particularly church and government. “Modern America has e a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God,” he argues. One of the key features necessary to unraveling the knotty problems surrounding the idea of secularism is...

I opened my recent Patheos piece on Christians and the “Occupy” protests by noting the proclivity for some leaders to seek cultural relevance by uncritically embracing political movements and trends. This shows that it is mon temptation to allow worldly perspectives and ideologies to determine the shape of our faith rather than the other way around. A good example of this uncritical stance toward the Occupy movement appears in a Marketplace report from last week, “Preaching the Occupy gospel —...

Reflecting on the GOP presidential campaigns and the Iowa caucus, Joseph Knippenberg has voiced serious concern on the First Things blog regarding patibility of Ron Paul’s libertarianism with traditional Christian social and political thought. As this race continues, this may be a question of fundamental importance, and I expect to see more Christians engaging this issue in the days and months e. Indeed, as Journal of Markets & Morality (JMM) executive editor Jordan Ballor has noted in his editorial for...

Source: Wikimedia Commons, Photography by shakko Over at the Sojourners blog, Harry C. Kiely boldly considers whether the Occupy movement can be considered “the New Pentecost.” However, there are a myriad of problems with parison. First and most importantly, from a Christian point of view, there already has been a “New Pentecost.” It is found in Acts 2. The Christian Pentecost was the fulfillment of the Jewish Pentecost. The giving of the Law (which the Jewish memorates) found its fulfillment...