Hannah And Her Sisters… and Brothers

The other day on this PowerBlog I posted “Learning To Tell The Truth” and ended the article with an observation: It may be instructive to note that the young female reporter who took part in the videos is named Hannah. Continue Reading...

Give Temperance a Chance

Just about every state has dealt with the issue over the last few years, it seems. But here in Ohio, the legal status of gambling is the issue that won’t go away. Continue Reading...

Learning To Tell The Truth

Last week when the videos were aired showing ACORN employees in their Baltimore and Washington DC offices consulting “a couple” pretending to be a pimp and prostitute I watched with amazement. Continue Reading...

Hope Award for Effective Compassion

While the Samaritan Award is on hiatus for 2009, be sure to check out WORLD Magazine’s Hope Award for Effective Compassion. WORLD is profiling nine finalists for the award, continuing the “Profiles in Effective Compassion” series began by highlighting Samaritan Award finalists in 2006. Continue Reading...

Speaking Truth to School Children

On the weekend I read the text of the talk Barack Obama gave on Tuesday to a public school in Virginia and through the medium of technology to students throughout the nation who wished to see and hear him on their school televisions. Continue Reading...

Stewardship, Soulcraft, Work, and Eternity

In what deserves to be considered a modern classic, Lester DeKoster writes on the relationship between work and stewardship. These reflections from God’s Yardstick ought to be remembered this Labor Day: The basic form of stewardship is daily work. Continue Reading...

Health Care and ‘Rights’ Talk

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the talk of health care as a ‘right’ is so vague as to border on willful and culpable obfuscation. I certainly advocate a rich and complex description of ‘rights’ talk, such that simply calling something a ‘right’ doesn’t end the ethical or political discussion. Continue Reading...

What Can the Church Do?

Ron Sider: “If American Christians simply gave a tithe rather than the current one-quarter of a tithe, there would be enough private Christian dollars to provide basic health care and education to all the poor of the earth. Continue Reading...

‘Pro-Consumption and Pro-Environment’

Saleem H. Ali, a ‘pro-consumption environmentalist’ at the University of Vermont “argues that sometimes a nation has to extract a nonrenewable resource like oil, or tricky-to-recycle metals and gems, in order to leapfrog from dire poverty to a more diversified economy.” Continue Reading...