Pie in the Sky (Image source) The market can be a pretty amazing thing. Matt Tomter, a former Alaskan bush pilot, saw a market niche and jumped at the opportunity. His Airport Pizza delivers a pie anywhere in Alaska for just $30…that includes free delivery. As reported on the CBS Evening News, “Flying in pizza may seem like a pie in the sky idea, but it’s proving really popular. An average of 10 pizzas each day goes flying out to...

NASHVILLE – The event was billed as an “appreciation” for the volunteers at the Christian Women’s Job Corps of Middle Tennessee and the theme for the evening was set by St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: Let us not e weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Gal. 6:9). By the time the program wrapped up, everyone in attendance was reminded of the plain truth that making...

I ran across the following quote from Søren Kierkegaard recently (HT: the evangelical outpost): The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say,...

We have had a book called God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis. Now we have one called The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted, by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. Does anyone on the Left, who so freely decries the Right for their excessive claims to truth, ever stop to think that they have no more claim on God’s truth than the Right does? While the Left assaults the Right for...

[Got a request to cross-post this from my other habitat.] In the in-box from an "evangelical enviromentalist who prefers to remain anonymous," responding to the Moyers/Beisner fallout: IF Moyers said what Cal claims, and tape recorders were running, where is the tape? IF no tape, presumably no statement, and Cal is, um, lying. Is this how a Christian defends his presumably biblical position to a sceptical journalist? Looking at other transcripts on the same subject (linked here), Moyers certainly gives...

In awarding the Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, the Nobel Committee has focused the world’s attention on the power of “bottom up” economic development. Jennifer Roback Morse reminds us that “the micro-credit movement has helped many of the poor e less poor, and to lift themselves, their families, and their neighbors out of abject poverty.” Dr. Morse reflects on Yunus’ background as an economics professor, educated at Vanderbilt, teaching in Bangladesh and seeing the abject poverty...

As promised in Part 3, this post will begin a discussion of natural law in the thought of the Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), but first I want to touch on the broader issue of natural law in the context of Reformation theology. More than any other Reformer, John Calvin is appealed to for his insight on natural law. This is probably due to the stubborn persistence among scholars to single him out as the chief early codifier of Protestant...

Zenit published the following this weekend, mentary by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa on this Sunday’s liturgical readings (Isaiah 53:2a.,3a.,10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45). Well worth the read. After the Gospel on riches, this Sunday’s Gospel gives us Christ’s judgment on another of the great idols of the world: power. Power, like money, is not intrinsically evil. God describes himself as “the Omnipotent” and Scripture says “power belongs to God” (Psalm 62:11). However, given that man had abused the power granted...

Sirico: No moral conflicts with rooting for the Tigers On Friday afternoon, Rev. Robert A. Sirico addressed an audience of Acton Supporters at the Detroit Athletic Club in Detroit, Michigan. His address was titled Capitalism and the Common Good: The Ten Pillars of the Moral Economy, and we are pleased to make it available to you here (10.5 mb mp3 file). I would be remiss if I failed to note that the event took place on the eve of the...

In the latest Interfaith Stewardship Alliance newsletter, dated Oct. 21, Cal Beisner passes along his response to the letters sent by Bill Moyers’ legal counsel (background on the matter with related links here). Here’s what Beisner says as related through his own counsel: Your letter of October 18, 2006, to Interfaith Stewardship Alliance and your letter of October 19, 2006, to Dr. E. Calvin Beisner have been sent to me by my clients for reply. I have carefully examined the...