Richard Baxter, profiled in the latest issue of Religion & Liberty, penned The Saints Everlasting Rest in 1647. In the book’s dedication, Baxter wrote that he had no intention of serving God other than preaching. But he recalled, “sentenced to death by the physicians, I began to contemplate more seriously on the everlasting rest which I apprehended myself to be just on the border of.” Baxter noted that because he was so near death that it quickened his “sluggish heart...

In “Scholastica II,” a convocation address delivered to Amsterdam’s Free University in 1900 (now translated under the title,Scholarship), Abraham Kuyper explores the ultimate goal of “genuine study,” asking, “Is it to seek or find?” Alluding to academics who search for the sake of searching, Kuyperconcludes that “seeking should be in the service of finding” and that “the ultimate purpose of seeking is finding.” “The shepherd who had lost his sheep did not rejoice in searching for it but in finding...

What is this latest news about an EPA rule change? On Monday, June, 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed rule change on “emission guidelines for states to follow in developing plans to address greenhouse gas emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired electric generating units.” Specifically, the EPA is proposing state-specific rate-based goals for carbon-dioxide emissions from energy producers (mostly from 600 coal-fired power plants) and setting guidelines for states to follow in developing plans to achieve new state-specific...

In an article in the Journal of Markets & Morality, Ryan Langrill and Virgil Henry Storr examine “The Moral Meanings of Markets.” They argue that “traditional defenses of the morality of the market tend to inadequately articulate the moral meanings of markets.” Such defenses tend to argue from practical, even pragmatic or utilitarian, grounds. But for Langrill and Storr, “markets depend on and promote virtue.” Evidence of this virtue in the marketplace, they argue, is that “consumers are often willing...

Barack Obama calls them Promise Zones while Rand Paul calls them Freedom Zones. But when they were first proposed they were called Enterprise Zones. In the 1980s, then-congressman and self-described “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp became the first lawmaker to popularize enterprise zones, which he supported to foster entrepreneurship and job creation. Enterprise Zone policies attempt to incentivize businesses to locate within their borders—usually in blighted urban areas—by offering targeted benefits to particular industries panies. These e in many forms, including...

Public policy wonks and economists frequently warn us to consider the unintended consequences of any given initiative. That would be good exercise when considering campaigns to raise the minimum wage and also calls to roll back “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation. The former presumably helps those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, while the latter is castigated as an attack on unions’ right to collective bargaining and, therefore, harmful to middle-class workers. It follows then, that if one prioritizes economic...

Rabbi Benjamin Blech, Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, reminds us that the 10 Commandments are not only relevant in our world, but needed more than ever. Writing at , Rabbi Blech says the Commandments are both universal and timeless. The first Commandment is “I am the Lord your God.” (Yes, I know that there is a bit of a difference in the numbering of the Commandments between Jews, Catholics and Protestants. Since this is a Jewish author, we’ll go...

The American Bar Association and Arizona State University’s McCain Institute and School of Politics and Global Studies have issued the first study of its kind: examining Fortune panies for policies regarding human trafficking and forced labor. The study also looked at whether or not Fortune panies had policies regarding conflict minerals (what are often referred to as “blood diamonds:” gems and minerals mined by children and/or forced labor.) The study is entitled, “How Do Fortune 100 Corporations Address Potential Links...

The Supreme Court recently decided (in Greece v. Galloway) that the New York town of Greece had the right to open its town board meetings with prayer, and that this did not violate the rights of anyone, nor did it violate the Constitutional mandate that our government cannot establish a religion. The town, the Court found, did not discriminate against any faith, and there was no coercion to pray. We know that the Founding Fathers were not all Christians. However,...

The latest edition of Econ Journal Watch has a symposium, co-sponsored by the Acton Institute, on the question, “Does Economics Need an Infusion of Religious or Quasi-Religious Formulations?” In his essay “Joyful Economics“, Victor V. Claar reflects upon his life as a Christian and how it has connected to his work as an academic economist. Claar offers a few suggestions about the distinct contributions Christian economists can make in this field of study: First, Christian economists simply municate to the...