Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a senior writer for The Gospel Coalition, author of The Life and Faith Field Guide for Parents, the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible, and coauthor of How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator. He also serves as an associate pastor at McLean Bible Church in Arlington, Va.

Posts by Joe Carter

How Common Core Will Increase Poverty

In his Epidemics, Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, wrote that the physician has two special objects in view: to do good or to do no harm. That same principle should be the special object of every educator. Continue Reading...

A Constitutional Amendment Against Little Platoons

The great British statesman Edmund Burke claimed that “to love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections.” Burke was referring to the mediating social institutions that that lie between the individual and the state. Continue Reading...

Economics, Environment, and Eucharistic Vision

Cooperation and creativity are essential for both a well-functioning market and the celebration of the Eucharist, says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary. As he has done in the past, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in his encyclical for the beginning of the Orthodox Christian ecclesiastical year (September 1) meditates on “the ongoing and daily destruction of the natural environment.” Continue Reading...

The Crisis of Sexual Abuse in Juvenile Detention Centers

“Inmates are still people, and therefore need to be treated as such, with all the challenges and potential that face all human persons,” says Acton research fellow Jordan Ballor. “One of the things it means to treat someone with the dignity they deserve as a human being is to not subject them to conditions where the threat of rape is rampant.” Continue Reading...

Celebrating Grandparents as Caregivers

For the first three years of my life, I lived with and was primarily raised by my grandparents. While I was always grateful for the experience, I never realized until I was a parent myself of the depths of their sacrifice, and the burden and stress raising an infant put on them. Continue Reading...

Let’s Bring Back the Ignominy of Being a ‘Deadbeat Dad’

“Deadbeat Dads”—absent fathers who don’t provide financial support for their children—are one of the most significant factors contributing to child poverty in America. So why do some single women have children outside of marriage when they know they will receive little to no support from the child’s father? Continue Reading...

How to Turn Corn into Cars

Imagine if a scientist was able to create technology that turns corn into cars. As economist Bryan Caplan explains, we already have such an innovation: foreign trade. Caplan argues that foreign trade is a form of technology that lowers our cost of living and increases our standard of living. Continue Reading...