The U.S. State Department has released its annual “Trafficking in Persons” (Tip) report, used to not only further educate people about global human trafficking, but to identify countries where trafficking is most problematic. The report gives each nation a “tiered” rating. Tier 1 countries are those that ply with international laws and standards of the the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Tier 2 nations are on a watch list as they are making efforts ply with the Act, but are still...

This morning at Acton University I attended a fascinating lecture by Dr. Edd Noell, “Origins of Economics: The Scriptures and Early Church Fathers.” I have briefly examined one ancient Christian perspective on wealth in the past (here), but Dr. Noell’s survey today was far more expansive. For the benefit of PowerBlog readers, I would like to reflect on some of the major themes of his talk here as a sort of preview of what one could expect once the audio...

Marina Nemat gave her keynote address last night at AU entitled, “Finding Christ in an Iranian Prison.” Watch below. ...

Today at Acton University, Fr. Michael Butler gave an engaging lecture on the subject of Orthodoxy and natural law. Despite the contemporary ambivalence among many Orthodox (if not hostility) toward natural law, Fr. Michael argues that it is present in the Eastern Tradition from the ancient to the medieval and modern periods, focusing especially on the thought of the seventh century Byzantine Saint Maximus the Confessor. A few months ago, I observed, While it may be that there are important...

Chicago is in serious trouble. There has been a rash of crime over the past few weeks that has brought attention, yet again, to a city that cannot seem to make much progress. The Chicago Tribune reported the following about how out of control the city was this past Father’s Day: At least 34 people were shot — nine of them fatally — Saturday afternoon through Father’s Day Sunday, stretching from 94th Street and Loomis Avenue on the South Side...

There are over 8 million internationally sponsored children in the world. With the average monthly sponsorship level set at about $30 (not including other gifts sent to sponsored children), the flow of resources from wealthy countries to poor countries from international child sponsorships is about $3.2 billion per year. Despite the substantial amounts of money being funneled through these child-sponsorship charities, few empirical studies have been conducted to gauge their effectiveness. Earlier this yearpeer-reviewed, independent studyon the viability of international...

In a lecture at Acton University titled “Business and the Common Good,” Dr. Scott Rae of Biola University examined the role of business in serving mon good. Rae began by examining some of mon criticisms lobbed against business, namely, that it promotes greed, inequality, and consumerism. As Michael Miller often notes, these are human vices, not economic ones, and thus business, properly understood, is not immoral in and of itself. On the contrary, business has great potential for serving and...

The double-headed eagle is a historical symbol of symphonia. Today at Acton University, Fr. Michael Butler examined the history of Church-State relations in the Orthodox Tradition with special reference to the modern, Russian context in his lecture “Orthodoxy, Church, and State.” The audio of his lecture will be available via Ancient Faith Radio sometime in ing weeks. As a teaser, I would like to briefly examine two concepts of Orthodox political theory to which Fr. Butler devoted specific attention: symphonia...

The quality of children and our future society, depends directly on the quality of the marriage of their parents, says Pat Fagan of the Family Research Council speaking at the recent World Congress of Families: Fagan notes that society is made up of five facets: the family, church, school, the marketplace and government. The first three mentioned are the places that “grow the people” so to speak, and are closely interrelated. The last two areas of society are those into...

In Foreign Policy, Daniel Altman argues that over the long-term panies are often better for society than so-called socially responsible business initiatives: As Jonathan Berman and I have written in the past, panies that take a long time horizon in their decision-making are likely to make more social and environmental investments. Things like training workers, munities, and protecting ecosystems can take a long time to pay off for panies. When they do, the return — including a stronger labor pool,...