Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; PhD, Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy at First Liberty Institute.

Posts by Jordan J. Ballor

May 03, 2006

Coercing charity

This section from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics strikes me as quite true: The coercive factors, in distinction to the more purely moral and rational factors, in political relations can never be sharply differentiated and defined. Continue Reading...
May 01, 2006

How do you spell relief?

You may have heard about the debate in Washington that erupted late last week, as Senate Democrats and Republicans sought ways to respond to rising gas prices. According to Marketplace’s Hillary Wikai, the majority Republicans settled on “a $100 gas-tax rebate to be paid for by drilling in Alaska’s Wildlife Refuge.” Continue Reading...
April 25, 2006

Alarmist profiteering

Remember when I said that I thought there is a dangerous incentive in climate change research to make things seem worse than they are? (If not, that’s OK. I actually called it an “analogous phenomenon” to the possibility that AIDS statistics are exaggerated.) Continue Reading...
April 24, 2006

The morality of narrative imagination

While doing research for my upcoming lecture at the Drexel University Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Symposium, I ran across this excellent book by Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (New York: Free Press, 1997). Continue Reading...
April 22, 2006

Evangelicals and Earth Day

Check out my Detroit News column today, “Humanity’s creativity helps environment,” in which I give a brief overview of the conflicting evangelical views of environmental stewardship. Continue Reading...
April 21, 2006

College and carbon neutrality

Tom Friedman asks in today’s NYT, “Why doesn’t every college make it a goal to become carbon-neutral — that is, reduce its net CO2 emissions to zero?” (TimesSelect subscription required) I’ll give an initial possible answer: they already have enough to worry about with double-digit tuition increases practically every year without adding such costs. Continue Reading...
April 20, 2006

Talking about the tithe

Here’s an article in the Washington Post recently that I want to pass along, “Tithing Rewards Both Spiritual and Financial,” by Avis Thomas-Lester. Among the highlights are the Rev. Jonathan Weaver of Greater Mount Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church, who says, “Some people have a sense that pastors are heavy-handed . Continue Reading...
April 20, 2006

Getting stewardship right

Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy passes along a report from Peyton Knight about a briefing in Washington sponsored by the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, the Acton Institute, and the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2006

Evangelical litmus tests

This article, “Evangelicals Debate the Meaning of ‘Evangelical’,” which appeared in the New York Times on Easter, is instructive on a number of levels. First off, the article attempts to point out widening “fissures” among evangelicals, in which “new theological and political splits are developing.” Continue Reading...
April 17, 2006

An Easter reflection

Having completed his discussion of the covenant of redemption, Herman Witsius writes the following at the conclusion of Book II of his De oeconomia foderum Dei cum hominibus: What penetration of men or angels was capable of devising things so mysterious, so sublime, and so far surpassing the capacity of all created beings? Continue Reading...