The President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, visited Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican yesterday, and the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano carried a front-page article by Piñera on “Economic Development and Integral Development,” a theme of great interest to us at Acton and the subject of our current conference series Poverty, Entrepreneurship and Integral Development. Chile is justly famous for its acceptance of free-market economics through the influence of the “Chicago Boys” who studied under Milton Friedman and others at...

Now is a great time to check out Acton’s first documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur. Call of the Entrepreneur's new design. The website has pletely redesigned to be more user friendly and attractive. You will find links to social media forCall of the Entrepreneur as well as options to share the documentary with your friends at the bottom of the site. We’ve also added the high definition trailer to the site. The only trailer available on the previous website...

If you weren’t able to make it to Derby Station on Wednesday for our latest Acton On Tap event, have no fear: we’re pleased to present the full recording of the evening’s festivities featuring Dr. Carl Trueman of Westminister Seminary via the audio player below. If you’re unfamiliar with Dr. Trueman or his work, check out Jordan Ballor’s introduction right here. Considering that the PowerBlog’s focus over the past few days has been on how Christians are approaching the debt...

I posted some initial thoughts on “A Call for Intergenerational Justice: A Christian Proposal on the American Debt Crisis,” which was released by the Center for Public Justice and Evangelicals for Social Action yesterday. I’ve been engaged in what I think are largely helpful conversations on this document in a number of venues in the meantime. Gideon Strauss challenged me to look at the document again, and reconsider my criticisms, and I have been happy to do so. For instance,...

International aid e in for a lot of criticism recently and with the debate on the federal budget just beginning, U.S. funding for aid is on the chopping block. With a rising deficit, and a struggling economy, many are asking why the United States chooses to continue funding international, or foreign, aid. People of faith are often caught in the middle of the debate on whether international aid should or shouldn’t be cut, along with the role the state should...

Jordan Ballor has already done a fine job menting on A Call for Intergenerational Justice, and I’m sure that others will be chiming in on the PowerBlog as well. I’d like to focus on a couple of points that stand out to me from an initial reading of the document. I suppose it says something about a document when you can’t finish reading the title without alarm bells going off. “Intergenerational Justice” is a fine sounding term, but what does...

My first reaction to “What Would Jesus Cut?” is that it tends to reduce Christ to a distributor of material goods through government programs. Jesus is not a budget overseer or a dispenser of government largesse. Sojourners founder Jim Wallis has already countered this accusation with his own post saying, “We haven’t been trying to get Jesus to be the head of any mittee, or think that he would ever want that job!” But still, to use Christ as an...

A number of prominent evangelical leaders in America have issued a statement on the budget fights in the federal government. “A Call for Intergenerational Justice: A Christian Proposal on the American Debt Crisis,” is sponsored by the Center for Public Justice and Evangelicals for Social Action. Signatories include Ron Sider of ESA, Gideon Strauss of CPJ, Richard Mouw, Michael Gerson, Shane Claiborne, Andy Crouch, and Jim Wallis. Here are some initial thoughts: There is very little principle in this statement,...

I read with considerable attention “Congressional bosses from Hell: Sheila Jackson Lee” in the Daily Caller today. From the article: Congress was in recess, and the 435 lawmakers who drive the frenetic pace on Capitol Hill were home in their districts glad-handing constituents. For that reason, the door to [Sheila] Jackson Lee’s office was open and the sounds emanating from inside were pleasant laughter and conversation. ‘You could tell when she wasn’t there,’ Stephens said. That was because on a...

For PowerBlog readers around New York City, Rev. Robert A. Sirico will be speaking tonight, Wednesday March 2nd. The event, Business and Compassion: Rehumanizing Our Economy, is hosted by Heart’s Home, International Center for a Culture of Compassion, and the American Bible Society. Rev. Sirico is one of four members speaking on a panel. The event will be from 7:00pm-9:00pm (EST) at the American Bible Society National Headquarters (1865 Broadway, New York, NY 10023). The cost of admission is $15...