Courtesy of Rev. Eric Andrae, Lutheran pastor Bo Giertz offers us a great exposition of the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and sums up the importance of the pastoral ministry. “‘It is a great thing to receive a heritage…. It is wonderful to stand in the same pulpit, to learn of [those who have gone before us,] and to carry forward the work they began. Sir…, can anything be greater than to be a pastor in God’s church?'” (Bo...

You may have heard of “fair trade,” one of the more recent economically-myopic efforts to act as “guarantees that farmers and farmworkers receive a fair price for their labor.” I’ve written before about the fair trade coffee movement (especially in the Church), which has perhaps gained the most public attention. But fair traders haven’t overlooked any consumables, and the broader movement is likely to receive more attention in the future, as fair trade is a plank in platform of the...

Is there a columnist anywhere in the world more in line with Pope John Paul II’s social teachings than Mark Steyn? All the more amazing as he regularly writes for the extremely secularist British press! First, Mark has re-posted this gem he wrote for The Spectator in 1998 about the relationship between abortion and euthanasia, a.k.a. the culture of death. See also John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae. Then, in today’s Daily Telegraph, he writes about the importance, indeed the centrality,...

Pro running back Warrick Dunn, a native of Louisiana, is challenging every NFL player (other than New Orleans Saints) to donate at least $5,000 to hurricane relief efforts. “If we get players to do that, that would amount to $260,000 per team. I have heard from so many players both on my team and around the league who just want to do something. Well, this is the best thing that we can do and it’s something we should do,” he...

Rev. Robert Sirico responds to Pat Robertson’s highly-publicized call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. “What is needed here, I believe, is a time of reflection. Christianity is not a national religion. It is does not regard every enemy of the nation-state as worthy of execution. It prefers peace to war. It chooses diplomacy over threat. It respects the right to life of everyone, even those who have objectionable political views,” he writes. Read the full text here....

The Americans brought this on themselves. That’s one ing from around the world as it surveys the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. In what can only be described as callously political maneuvering, Germany’s environmental minister Jürgen Trittin said today, “The increasing frequency of these natural events can only be explained through global warming which is caused by people.” Instead of offering condolences, well-wishes, or prayers, minister Tritten delivered the judgment of secular environmentalists. The Americans’ crime? “A U.S. citizen causes about...

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the formation of Poland’s Solidarity movement. Samuel Gregg says that Solidary gives us a view of a labor union whose “stand for the truth about the human person and against the lie of Marxism contributed immeasurably to the collapse of one of the two great totalitarian evils that disfigured the twentieth-century.” Read the full text here. ...

Following the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, bands of looters are running rampant throughout the city. Things have gotten so bad that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin “ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and stop thieves who were ing increasingly hostile.” According to reports, “Looters used garbage cans and inflatable mattresses to float away with food, clothes, TV sets — even guns. Outside one pharmacy, mandeered a forklift and used it to push up...

The Census Bureau today released a report citing that 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003. “I was surprised,” said Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. “I thought things would have turned around by now.” What’s missing are the poverty threshold numbers that reveal that a family of four is considered “poor” if family e is below $19,000. What’s actually on the rise is not...

Outsiders looking from the outside into Europe will probably answer that question in the affirmative, and with good reason. The churches are emptying, the economies are tanking, and the politicians continue to fiddle along. Very few have a clue of how to fix things. Very few, but not all. The President of the Czech Republic, Vผlav Klaus, spoke at a Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Iceland last week. Citing Friedrich von Hayek and Raymond Aron, Klaus has a clear eye...