Religion & Liberty Online Archives

On Call in Culture

January 21, 2013

Rick Warren on Hobby Lobby Lawsuit: ‘Every Business is Either Moral or Immoral’

In response to the Hobby Lobby lawsuit, Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church, has released a statement at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty: …The government has tried to reinterpret the First Amendment from freedom to PRACTICE your religion, to a more narrow freedom to worship, which would limit your freedom to the hour a week you are at a house of worship. Continue Reading...
January 17, 2013

Happiness, work, and the eternal quest for meaning

In my cautionary post on the constant temptation to indulge in earthbound economics, I mentioned that even seemingly noble, intangible features such as “happiness” can be just as futile and vain when pursued on our own terms and for our own limited purposes. Continue Reading...
January 15, 2013

Access vs. Ownership in ‘Collaborative Consumption’

New rental markets are popping up all over the place, as detailed by a recent Wall Street Journal article. The trend is beginning to drive a larger movement labeled by some as “collaborative consumption,” wherein “sharing” is pushed as a way of “reinventing old market behaviors.” Continue Reading...
January 14, 2013

C.S. Lewis on transcendent economics

I recently discussed our pesky human tendency to limit and debase our thinking about economics to the temporary and material. Much like Judas, who reacted bitterly to Mary’s outpouring of expensive ointment, we neglect to contemplate what eternal purposes God might have for this or that material good and the ways through which it might be used or distributed. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2013

Self-Denial in the Age of Self-Help

I recently discussed the importance of aligning ourselves to God before getting too carried away with our own plans for economic restoration. We should instead seek to supplant the personal for the divine, embracing a transcendent framework through which we can pursue what we already recognize to be transcendent ends. Continue Reading...
January 08, 2013

Beyond an Earthbound Economics

We humans have a pesky tendency toward earthbound thinking. The natural world comes more easily to us, for obvious reasons, and thus, even when we aim to overcome our disposition and contemplate ways to improve things beyond the immediate, it’s hard for us to break out of the box. Continue Reading...