October 2013 Archives

October 23, 2013

The Spending Splurge and the End of Sacrifice

America’s debt is creating not servants of higher things but slaves to government, says Ray Nothstine in this week’s Acton Commentary. As our nation’s $17 trillion debt spirals out of control, and spiritual disciplines decline in the West, we need to face the reality of America’s inability to collectively sacrifice. Continue Reading...

October 23, 2013

An Eastern Orthodox Moral Case for Property Rights

While Chrysostom speaks in terms of the morally good use of wealth, says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary, it is a standard inconceivable apart from private property. As a pastor, I’ve been struck by the hostility, or at least suspicion, that some Orthodox Christians reveal in their discussions of private property. Continue Reading...

October 23, 2013

Health Care Sharing Ministries: ‘Faith, Liberty, and Charity’ in Health Care

While many Americans are struggling to navigate healthcare.gov and some are fighting against the Affordable Care Act’s threat to religious liberty, an estimated 100,000 people are exempt from the legislation as members of a health care sharing ministry (HCSM); these organizations offer the opportunity for individuals with similar beliefs to share their health care costs. Continue Reading...

October 23, 2013

Now Available from CLP: ‘Exodus’ by Cornelis Vonk

Christian’s Library Press has now released Exodus, the second primer in its Opening the Scriptures series. Written by Dutch Reformed pastor and preacher Cornelis Vonk, and translated by Theodore Plantinga and Nelson Kloosterman, the volume provides an introduction to the book of Exodus. Continue Reading...

October 22, 2013

How Conservatives Can Become Storytellers

“The plural of anecdote is not data”, claimed toxicologist Frank Kotsonis, in an attempt to correct sloppy thinking. While Kotsonis has provided a useful aphorism, it can obscure the equally interesting fact that the singular of data is anecdote. Continue Reading...

October 22, 2013

Entrepreneurs, the Working Class, and the Mosaic of Culture

In an essay for AEI’s The American, Henry Olsen does a deep dive on the white working class, a group that Republicans have won by significant margins in recent years. Continue Reading...

October 22, 2013

‘A Flight From Human Intimacy’

Japan is a nation going under, demographically speaking. It is estimated that Japan will lose 10 million people in population over the next ten years. Like many nations, Japan is not having babies fast enough to keep its population stable. Continue Reading...

October 21, 2013

The Evangelical Work Ethic

Forget Max Weber and his Protestant work ethic, says Greg Forster. We don’t need social science to know that God cares about our work: Nothing shows the difficulty of understanding the relationship between work and faith more than our continued insistence on framing this issue as a debate over Max Weber’s long-discredited theory of the Protestant work ethic. Continue Reading...