I’ve noted the recent rash of books roughly on the theme of the danger of theocracy. As though in (indirect) response, several books celebrating Christianity’s impact on Western civilization (and democracy) have appeared. There was Thomas Woods’ How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Then there was Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason, about which others mented in this venue. Now there is Robert Royal’s The God that Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West. ...

Unlike the flooded market for conventional coffee products, the specialty coffee market enjoys increasing demand along with limited supply. This means that the potential exists for developing countries to increase the quality and quantity of their coffee production to meet the demand. Rwanda is a case in point, and shows how market pressures help to effectively and efficiently signal which and in what quantity modities should be produced. As Laura Fraser writes in The New York Times, “From the late...

I saw a post on the Web somewhere in the last few days (I can’t recall where), about the trend toward worshiping human life itself as the highest principle…detached from recognition of any higher theological realities. Then I ran across this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that struck me as especially relevant, and so I wanted to pass it along: Vitalism ends inevitably in nihilism, in the destruction of all that is natural. In the strict sense, life as such is...

As a brief follow up to my last post and the point about nationalism, see the Liberty Bible offered by the American Bible Society. The Kruse Kronicle passes along some more partisan options for those of us who put being a Republican or a Democrat above being an American (which are both above being a Christian). For my use of the quote appearing on the GOP Bible, go here. I’m willing to bet that the Liberty Bible will sell pretty...

The Green Wifi Prototype One of the concerns with the “little green machine” (discussed previously here and here) has been the issue of Internet connectivity. Little enclaves of mini-networks just won’t cut puters need access to the global web. Word out of the tech world is now that a couple of innovators, Bruce Baikie andMarc Pomerleau, who are “veterans” of Sun Microsystems, working on a solar-powered wi-fi access nodes, “which consist of a small solar panel, a heavy-duty battery, and...

I pleted an interview that will air this Sunday on the Michigan Talk Network about state-run lotteries and Christian views on gambling for the “Michigan Gaming and Casino Show,” hosted by Ron Pritchard. The occasion was this piece I wrote awhile back, “Perpetuating Poverty: Lotteries Prey on the Poor.” For more, see also “Betting on Gambling is a Risky Wager” and “Gambling Hypocrisy.” You can check out the show live on the MLive talk radio feed here (click on “News...

“I’ve got a bunch of government checks at my door / Each morning I try to send them back / But they only send me more.” –Nelly Furtado, “Hey Man,” Whoa, Nelly! (Dreamworks, 2000). Here’s a question maybe our own Karen Woods can address: Does the second phase of welfare reform make it harder for people to get off welfare for good? That seems to be the implication of this article in today’s WaPo, “Welfare Changes A Burden To States,”...

More news on the campus that may disturb those who are already hyperventilating about corporate involvement in higher education: university newspapers are receiving increasing corporate attention. In an article in today’s WSJ, Emily Steel writes, “Hip, local, relevant and generated by students themselves, college newspapers have held steady readership in recent years while newspapers in general have seen theirs shrink. Big advertisers are going on campus to reach these young readers. Ford Motor Co., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., and...

The Acton Institute’s Jordan Ballor was a guest on the Michigan Gaming and Casino Show on the Michigan Talk Radio Network on Sunday afternoon to discuss his March 3rd, 2004 article, “Perpetuating Poverty: Lotteries Prey on the Poor”. Ballor and host Ron Pritchard discussed the negative financial impacts of gambling on the poor and the larger question of the morality of games of chance in general. To listen to the interview, click here (4.3 mb mp3 file, 25 minutes). ...

This Sunday’s sermon at the church I visited was on Joshua 5:13-15: Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied, “but mander of the army of the LORD I have e.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message...