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

What Should a Pope Say About Capitalism?

Pope Francis’ recent comments about economics has raised concerns among conservatives and libertarians. But at National Review, James Pethokoukis says free marketeers shouldn’t take the critique so personally: If you are a free marketeer offended by Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) — in which he critiqued “deified” market capitalism and attacked income inequality — ask yourself: What should the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church say about economics in 2013? Continue Reading...

How John Locke Influenced Catholic Social Teaching

Joe Hargrave argues that John Locke and Pope Leo XIII have more in common than you might imagine: It isn’t often that John Locke is mentioned in discussions of Catholic social teaching, unless it is to set him up as an example of all that the Church supposedly rejects. Continue Reading...

How to Think About Money Like the Working Poor

After reading a comment thread in which her online friends were complaining about poor people’s self-defeating behavior, Linda Walther Tirado wrote an articled titled “Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, Poverty Thoughts,” which chronicled her struggles with near abject poverty. Continue Reading...

The Luxury of Solar-Powered Simplicity

There is a kind of trendy “green” simplicity that is a luxury only the comparatively wealthy can afford, says Dylan Pahman in this week’s Acton Commentary. But there is a movement catching steam that might perfectly encapsulate a type of solar-powered simplicity: The tiny house movement is a recent trend in the United States for building and living in eco-friendly domiciles about half the average size of an apartment. Continue Reading...

War on Contraception? No, an Attack on Religion

Until 2012, no federal law or regulation required employers to cover contraception or abortifacients in their company health plans. But last month a New York Times Times editorial claimed that “the assertion by private businesses and their owners of an unprecedented right to impose the owners’ religious views on workers who do not share them.” Continue Reading...

Free Societies Need Free Markets, Not Forced Conscription

How can we fix all that has gone wrong in our nation’s capital? Mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. At least that’s the provocative solution Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank proposed this weekend: There is no better explanation for what has gone wrong in Washington in recent years than the tabulation done every two years of how many members of Congress served in the military. Continue Reading...

Supreme Court to Decide Obamacare Contraceptive-Abortifacient Mandate

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of cases that challenge the HHS mandate requiring many private companies to insure contraceptive and abortifacients. The Obama administration asked the high court to review the issue after a federal appeals court in Colorado found in favor of Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based crafts franchise. Continue Reading...