It’s a rare person who doesn’t like to travel. It’s exciting and fun to see new things, whether it’s a natural phenomenon or a man-made wonder. Some like to travel for the food: local specialties and exotic fare. Travel is good: it broadens our horizons, gives us new ways of seeing our world and often leads us to new friendships. But can travel be more than that? Can it do more good than simply what we gain from it? Yes,...

Your writer has been telling readers for some time now that so-called “religious” shareholder activism is more political than spiritual. I’ve also pointed out time and again that the priests, nuns, clergy, and religious affiliated with such shareholder groups as As You Sow are opposed to corporate donations to political activities only when it suits them. This last point was clarified recently by events in Arizona. First Affirmative Investments and Calvert Investments joined AYS in an attempt to force Arizona...

Aristotle has often been described as the philosopher mon sense. Similarly, Milton Friedman, who would have been 103 years old today, could be described as the economist mon sense. Friedman’s writings are often so clear and straightforward (unusual for modern economists) that when reading him you often find yourself wondering how anyone could disagree. Even the uber-liberal Paul Krugman, admits that Friedman was “One of the most important economic thinkers of all time…” In honor of his birthday, here are...

Starting a business is a risky undertaking. You need money, a product or service people want and away to deliver that product or service that keeps some of that money in your pocket. For social entrepreneurs, the stakes are even higher: their goal is to do something good while making money. Tom Szaky of TerraCycle is quite clear: “I want to make a lot money doing good.” And he just may do it. TerraCycle has been based in the U.S....

No, it’s not a regular flood. It’s a flood of immigrants – some legal, some not. Europe is getting swamped; what’s the damage going to be? The American Interest reports that the Italian Coast Guard rescued almost 2,000 people over the weekend, bringing the number of immigrants to Italy this year alone to 90,000 (170,000 last year). The financial strain for Italy and other EU nations is ing more and more apparent. Manyof the migrants keep making their own wayto...

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. What they don’t often mention is that, like a parade route, both sides of that road are crowded with well-wishers cheering you on. In a country where we give children “participation trophies” for merely showing up and “doing their best,” it’s not surprising that we applaud business leaders simply for “trying to make a difference.” As long as their intentions are good, why should we criticism their efforts? I...

There are three possible futures for American Evangelicalism. These diverse destinies depend upon the moral, social and theological convictions of munities and leaders of the different streams. They also represent patterns found in three centuries of American Evangelical history. These futures will also determine whether or not munities flourish economically and socially. American Evangelicalism has never been a uniform subculture. The term “Evangelical” denotes adherents of historic Christian faith within a Protestant ethos. Remembering the Past Synthesizing the insights of...

If you want to see what happens when a government fails its basic responsibilities of maintaining law and order, read this fine and saddening piece by Detroit Free Press columnist John Carlisle, “The last days of Detroit’s Chaldean Town.”In it you’ll encounterthe fraying of the town’s social architecture built around faith, family, work, and government. At a conference a few weeks ago I was involved in a discussion about the ‘worst’ jobs we had ever had. Mine was cleaning the...

We’ve seen lots mentary on the lopsided outrage over the inhumane death of Cecil the Lion — how the incidenthas inspired far higher levels of fervor and indignation than the brutal systemic barbarism of the #PPSellsBabyParts controversy orthe tragically unjust murder of Samuel Dubose. At first, I was inclined to shrug offthis claim, thinking, “You can feel pointed grief about one while still feeling empathyabout the other.” Or, “the facts of the Cecil case are perhaps clearer to more people.”...

Bill McKibben’s New York Review of Books essay on Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, has prompted two previous posts by your author (here and here). Working through the review has helped identify McKibben’s affinity for liberation theology and his outlandish claim that Pope Francis shares this affinity. In the The Wall Street Journal, Lord Lawson, former Great Britain Secretary of State for Energy, Chancellor of the Exchequer and current chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, reviews Ronald Bailey’s most...