Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'family'

February 13, 2015

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the economy of love

On August 12, 1943, months after having been arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his young fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer: When I consider the state of the world, the total obscurity enshrouding our personal destiny, and my present imprisonment, our union—if it wasn’t frivolity, which it certainly wasn’t—can only be a token of God’s grace and goodness, which summon us to believe in him. Continue Reading...
January 20, 2015

Motherhood Is More Than a Job

I have plenty of hesitations about heeding various calls to “work-life balance,” mostly because they tend to dismiss or downplay the reality that “work” is often a lot less work than “life.” Continue Reading...
January 20, 2015

Life in Exile: Being in the World but Not of It

Given the many warnings about the “crisis of Christianity,” the inevitable rise of secularization, and the decline of our public witness (etc.), it may not be all that surprising that the most popular verse of 2014 focuses on the key tension the underlies it all. Continue Reading...
January 13, 2015

Real Life is Much More Than Economic

I think it is important to keep in mind that it is not the world of economics that is critical to human life on earth. When I left the field of economics for what I still believe to be a more important life agenda, it was because I regarded economics as driving cross-country at 80 mph with my eyes firmly fixed on the rear-view mirror. Continue Reading...
December 04, 2014

Delivery Boy for a Day

In light of my recent posts on boyhood and the formative power of work, a new holiday ad for UPS does a nice job of illustrating a key point: something deep down in a boy longs for work, and that basic desire ought to be guided, encouraged, and discipled accordingly, not downplayed, distorted, or ignored. Continue Reading...
November 21, 2014

Three Keys to a Flourishing Middle Class

In the latest edition of his monthly newsletter, Economic Prospect, John Teevan offers three keys to cultivating a flourishing middle class, as excerpted below: Income and Jobs: America looks at jobs and incomes alone and can only explain fading middle class by blaming rich people. Continue Reading...