Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Poverty

November 27, 2013

When Economic Moralism Clashes with Reality

With the November 26 publication of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, we have the first teaching document that is truly his own. And it very much shows, both in style and content, compared to the encyclical Lumen Fidei, which was mostly written by Pope Benedict XVI. Continue Reading...
November 26, 2013

The End of Urban Ministry

Derick Scudder, senior pastor at Bethel Chapel Church, an evangelical congregation in the northern part of Philadelphia, recently completed a 4-part series explaining why he is “done with urban ministry.” Bethel Chapel is a “Bible-teaching church focused on the Good News that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Continue Reading...
November 20, 2013

Cities Need The Black Middle Class

While overall crime rates are falling, in major U.S. cities the untold story is that crime is now more concentrated among the underclass. For example, The New York Times ran a story of the concentration of crime in the city of St. Continue Reading...
Downtown St. Louis
November 08, 2013

France: What Not To Do

Since the French Revolution, Americans have glanced over to our friends across the Atlantic Ocean as a model of what a country should not do. That tradition continues. France’s centralized planning of the economy, health care, education, the family, religion, and so on is not working. Continue Reading...
November 08, 2013

It’s Time To Rethink Food Stamps

Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute released a recent policy analysis that raises important questions about whether or not we should completely re-conceptualize how to provide food for the truly disadvantaged. 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...