Praying For Human Flourishing and Human Suffering

One of the consistent themes in Christian social teaching is the recognition that this world has both material and spiritual realities. As such, it is not only important that we think about the moral, political, and economic structures that contribute to set the stage for human flourishing but that we also pray for those who are suffering that they would be free to live out their callings as human persons made in God’s image. Continue Reading...

Celebrating the Things of the Spirit

Each Independence Day, I make a point of re-reading President Calvin Coolidge’s speech given on the 150th anniversary Declaration of Independence. I’d encourage you to do the same. Coolidge has a deep understanding of American history, and after contemplating what led the founders to write what they wrote, and what inclined Americans to follow their lead, he ultimately concludes that it was their spiritual inclinations, and the moral and spiritual orientation of the American people, that played the most important role: Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Continue Reading...

The Opposite of Love

A common lesson that many of us were taught in grammar school was what defined an ‘opposite.’ As children we learn that hot and cold are antonyms; as are bad and good, living and dead, love and hate. Continue Reading...

5 Basic Principles of Christian Stewardship

In Faithful in All God’s House: Stewardship and the Christian Life, Lester DeKoster and Gerard Berghoef explore the range and reach of Christian stewardship, emphasizing that the practice of stewardship extends far beyond the handling of our money, stretching into life and time and destiny. Continue Reading...

Only The Federal Government Can Keep Republicans Honest, Says Dyson

Over at Mediate.com we have the opportunity to see one of America’s famed black public intellectuals provide another example of unreasonable commentary. Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, in response to the recent Supreme Decision striking down one section of the 1965 Voting-Rights Act said that Clarence Thomas joining the majority opinion is like “A symbolic Jew [who] has invited a metaphoric Hitler to commit holocaust and genocide upon his own people.” Continue Reading...

Making ‘Good Intentions’ Good

I recently wrote on the implications of “pathological altruism,” a term coined by Oakland University’s Barbara Oakley to categorize altruism in which “attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm.” Continue Reading...