Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Posts by Joe Carter

November 06, 2013

From Too Big to Fail to Too Big to Flourish

“We hear a lot about ‘too big to fail’ banks and other financial institutions,” says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. “But what about a federal government whose size and scope have become so vast as to crowd out civil institutions?” Continue Reading...
November 06, 2013

Sid Meier, Slot Machines, and the Flow of Vice

My wife despises Sid Meier. She’s never met him, nor would she even recognize his name. But she knows someone is responsible for creating the source of my addiction. For over twenty years I’ve spent (or wasted, as my wife would say) countless hours playing Civilization, Meier’s award-winning strategy game. Continue Reading...
November 06, 2013

Does Advocating Limited Government Mean Abandoning the Poor?

Does promoting limited government require abandoning a commitment to the poor? Ryan Messmore, whose answer is a firm “no”, argues that non-government institutions can provide personalized assistance to help individuals fix relational problems, overcome poverty and lead healthy lives: Calls for limited government are often mistakenly equated with a disregard for people in need. Continue Reading...
November 05, 2013

Worship as a Political Activity

Today many Christians in America will engage in the political activity of voting. But as Peter Leithart reminds us, worship is the leading political activity of Christians: Christians are engaged in political action just by being part of the church. Continue Reading...
November 04, 2013

Challenging the Government Monopoly on Social Welfare

During the government shutdown billionaire philanthropists Laura and John Arnold gave $10 million to the National Head Start Association to keep the program for low-income children running. Mr. Arnold made it clear, however, that he did not believe this was a permanent solution, as “private dollars cannot in the long term replace government commitments.” Continue Reading...
November 04, 2013

Ever Heard of a Tea Party Catholic?

At Public Discourse, Nathan Shlueter takes an unusual approach in his review of Acton’s Director of Research Sam Gregg’s Tea Party Catholic — it’s a memo to the faculty of Georgetown University as written by Sen. Continue Reading...
November 01, 2013

Christians Need to Get Their Hands Dirty

To avoid the “twin errors of materialism and spiritualism” Christians need to mix it up with the “dirtiness” of this world, Jordan Ballor argues in Get Your Hands Dirty: Essays on Christian Social Thought (And Action). Continue Reading...
November 01, 2013

Federal Court Says Obamacare Mandate ‘Trammels’ Religious Freedom

The delivery trucks of Ohio-based Freshway Foods bear signs stating, “It’s not a choice, it’s a child,” as a way to publicly promote the owners’ pro-life views to the public. It wasn’t too surprising, then, that the company and it’s owners, Francis and Philip Gilardi, would be opposed to the Obamacare’s requirement that the health coverage for their nearly 400 full-time workers include abortifacients. Continue Reading...