We are told, over and over, we are in the midst of a “culture war” here in the U.S. It’s Right vs. Left, Republican vs. Democrat, Baby Boomers vs. Gen Xers, Pro-Life Vs. Pro-Abortion. You get labeled by the church you attend, the shoes you wear, the type of beer you drink. We want our culture to be “better,” but we can’t seem to agree on what that means. David French, Senior Counsel at the American Center of Law and...

To kick off the Labor Day weekend, Peggy Noonan offerssome timely thoughts on the meaning of work: Joblessness is a personal crisis because work is a spiritual event. A job isn’t only a means to a paycheck, it’s more. “To work is to pray,” the old priests used to say. God made us as many things, including as workers. When you work you serve and take part. To work is to be integrated into the daily life of the nation....

As we approach Labor Day here in the U.S., it’s good to ponder “work”, that most ordinary feat nearly all of us perform every day. We get up, get dressed, and do our jobs. It’s quite simple…and quite amazing. There is a lovely reflection on this from Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek: Ponder this astonishing fact: Each and every thing that we consume today in market societies is something that requires the coordinated efforts of millions of people, yet each...

Over 100 years ago sociologist Max Weber coined the term “Protestant work ethic” to describe how in some Puritan-based Protestant traditions hard work and frugality are a constant display of a person’s salvation in the Christian faith, in contrast to the focus upon religious attendance, confession, and ceremonial sacrament in the Catholic tradition. Many people (including me) think Weber’s thesis is fundamentally flawed. Nevertheless, Protestants do seem to have a peculiar and unique relationship with work. As researchers at the...

The topic of mankind’s “dominion” over God’s created order is one that has been misunderstood by entire generations of Americans in the last half century. Many conscientious people of faith worry that the traditional Judeo-Christian values system in the West has dropped the ball when es to the environment and our usage of natural resources. While there are more than a few grains of truth in these charges, the emotional appeal of being on the side of Mother Nature can...

However misguided their aims, there was one a time when progressives worked to protect the welfare and improve the lot of the individual. Today, the goal of many progressives is to protect the welfare and improve the lot of public bureaucracies. A prime — and stunningly inane — example of this tendency is found Allison Benedikt’s “manifesto” in Slate titled, “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person“: You are a bad person if you...

PovertyCure, an international coalition of more than 250 organizations and 1 million individuals (the Acton Institute is a founding partner), is seeking entries for their International Short Film Festival, slated for December 12, 2013 in New York City. Guidelines for the film festival may be found here. With $30,000 in prizes, PovertyCure is seeking short films (25 minutes or less in length) that “push the boundaries” of thinking about poverty and ways to alleviate it. Since PovertyCure’s vision of poverty...

There are times when you have to imagine that black justice pioneers like Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and the like, must be turning in their graves at the nonsense circumstances that black Americans find themselves in in 2013. For example, MTV’s Video Music Awards promoted, yet again, the race-driven stereotype of black women as sexualized jezebels. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University explains the history of the jezebel stereotype: The portrayal of black...

The concept of the American Dream can cause a fair amount of tension within the church, says Drew Cleveland. Some have gone as far as to make the American Dream a concept against which the church ought to be opposed: The concern that this dream can be misused is not wholly invalid. Even Smith acknowledges that “this dream easily slides towards idolatry,” and yes, it is often true that a good thing can e an object of worship if not...

As noted here last week, Obamacare is seen by some as an elitist system of health care, rather than the equalizing force it purports to be. This week, the news is that the nation’s unions aren’t happy with how Obamacare is shaping up for them, and the Obama administration is scrambling to find new ways to entice them to publicly support the Affordable Health Care Act. Richard Trumpka, president of the AFL-CIO (the nation’s largest labor union), is saying that...