Once, in a Bible study I was involved with, we women got chatting, and one lady (as we were discussing poverty in Haiti) said, “If we could just get those women to stop having so many kids…” [drawn-out sigh.] My reply was that we didn’t need to stop women from having babies; we needed to help educate women. For years, organizations like the World Health Organization have tried to distribute artificial birth control in the developing world. The thinking here...

Earlier today, Elise Hilton was featured on the Neal Larson Show discussing several facets of the current “Border Crisis” and suggesting how to address this situation. Listen below: Read mentary this paring our current situation with one 50 years ago in Cuba. ...

In a scathing report in The Washington Post, reporters David Nakamura, Jerry Markon and Manuel Roig-Franzia detail how the current border crisis involving a surge of children from Mexico and Central America was predicted by several human rights organizations and that the Obama administration failed to act, thus creating not only the increase in children illegally crossing the border, but also the desperate conditions the children have had to endure. In 2013, the University of Texas at El Paso issued...

I recently detailed the relationship between stewardship and the use of one’s God given gifts through vocational jobs as a path toward human flourishing. Much like vocational work’s hands on occupations, are artisanal jobs, which are on the rise in America. These positions are developed by the individual as a creative outlet to provide a good or a service not in the market. They do not require formal training, but education is important as a foundation for inspired enrichment. The...

For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exilesisa 7-part series from the Acton Institute that seeks to examine the bigger picture of Christianity’s role in culture, society, and the world. Each Monday — from July 7 to August 18 — The Gospel Coalition (TGC) ishighlighting one episode and sharing an exclusive codefor for a free 72-hour rental of the full episode. Here’s the trailer for episode 3, The Economy of Creative Service. Visit TGC to get the code...

Last week was a busy one, news-wise, and this may have slipped by you. Suddenly, 4.5 million people in the 5 U.S. territories (American Somoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are now exempt from Obamacare. Just like that. What’s the story? Obamacare costs too darn much, and insurance providers were fleeing the U.S. territories, leaving many without insurance or at least affordable insurance. These territories have spent the last two years begging to get...

The Transom links today to a piece about how Proctor & Gamble is ramping up product lines aimed at older adults. “The flip side of the low birthrate is we’re all living longer,” said corporate exec Tom Falk. In fact, the global trend over the last two hundred years has been toward longer lives and fewer babies. This trend really gathered momentum in just the last half-century or so. Consider this short video I put together for a talk at...

When es to political and lobbying spending, it’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, to quote the Kinks’ Ray Davies. Leftist organizations such as the Center for Political Accountability, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, and As You Sow seemingly check the closets and under the beds each night to ensure corporations aren’t exercising their First Amendment rights to freely engage in the political process. These shareholder activist groups work together and individually to stifle corporate speech by submitting proxy resolutions...

Snowpiercer is the most political film of the year. And likely to be one of the most misunderstood. Snowpiercer is also very weird, which you’d probably expect from a South Korean sci-fi post-apocalyptic action film based on a French graphic novel that stars Chris Evans (Captain America) and Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia). The basic plot of the movie is that in 2014, an experiment to counteract global warming (which is based on a real plan) causes an ice...

Economics, at first glance, doesn’t seem very…well…sexy. It’s all about numbers, right? How the stock market is doing, how much people are willing to spend on stuff they need or want, whether or not people have jobs. That’s economics, right? As the Rev. Robert Sirico is fond of saying, economics is fundamentally about human action. If this is true, then economics applies to sexual activity as well. In the following video (from the Austin Institute), today’s sexual landscape is examined...