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

July 28, 2005

You catch more bees with honey

Following months of Zimbabwe’s brutal “Drive Out Trash” campaign, pleasantries exchanged between Mugabe and a UN delegation may have made some headway. The UN report on the situation, according to Claudia Rosett, began “with a delicacy over-zealously inappropriate in itself to dealings with the tyrant whose regime has been responsible for wreck of Zimbabwe” by describing Mugabe’s reception of the UN officials with a “warm welcome.” Continue Reading...
July 28, 2005

SCOTU$

Slate features an article by Henry Blodget, a former securities analyst, which examines the investments of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. In an analysis that has more than you would ever need to know about a person’s finances (and perhaps reads a bit too much into the investments), Blodget writes of Roberts, “His fortune is self-made, which suggests a bias toward self-reliance rather than entitlements and subsidies.” Continue Reading...
July 27, 2005

ExTORTion

S. T. Karnick over at The Reform Club comments on a recent suit filed against DuPont over Teflon, claiming that “DuPont lied in a massive attempt to continue selling their product.” Continue Reading...
July 27, 2005

Great debate

Foreign Policy hosts this exchange on environmental issues and economics. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, gets the first word and Bjørn Lomborg, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, gets the last word. Continue Reading...
July 27, 2005

Animal cruelty?

I’m not quite sure what to make of this local story: “Four people are charged for their alleged involvement in killing two bald eagles.” The details of the alleged crimes are as follows: “Prosecutors say two teenagers shot the eagles in the Muskegon State Game Area with a .22 caliber rifle in April 2004 and then chopped them up with a hatchet.” Continue Reading...
July 26, 2005

The hermeneutical spiral

Mr. Phelps takes issue with my characterization of Stanley Fish’s position as amounting “to a philosophical denial of realism.” Let me first digress a bit and place this comment within the larger context of my post. Continue Reading...
July 26, 2005

Textual interpretation

A week ago Stanley Fish, a law professor at Florida International University, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about the principles of constitutional interpretation, especially as represented by Justice Antonin Scalia. Continue Reading...
July 25, 2005

We must kill religion to save it

There are so many things wrong with this news item from Canada, I hardly know where to begin. But I’ll make perhaps the most obvious point of contradiction. This guy is “worried that the separation between church and state is under threat,” so he wants to initiate state control over religion, especially “given the inertia of the Catholic Church.” Continue Reading...
July 25, 2005

Labor (dis)union

The New York Times reports this morning that “leaders of four of the country’s largest labor unions announced on Sunday that they would boycott this week’s A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention, and officials from two of those unions, the service employees and the Teamsters, said the action was a prelude to their full withdrawal from the federation on Monday.” Continue Reading...
July 22, 2005

Roadmap out of poverty

The last of many gems here: “Here’s Williams’ roadmap out of poverty: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Continue Reading...