The WCRC and Social Justice

December 21, 2010 • by Jordan J. Ballor

The WCRC and Social Justice

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December 20, 2010

Ecumenical-Industrial Complex at Work?

I assert the existence of the “ecumenical-industrial complex” in my book Ecumenical Babel. On that point, this bears watching: “Ecumenical news agency suspended, editors removed.” From the piece: Earlier this year the WCC, which has been ENI’s main funder and in whose headquarters the agency was based, said it was reducing its financial support for 2011 by over 50 percent. Continue Reading...
December 20, 2010

The Beginning and End of Christian Giving

Over at Mere Comments, and following up on this week’s Acton Commentary, “Christian Giving Begins with the Local Church,” I discuss some reasons why Christian giving doesn’t end there. It’s vitally important, I think, to distinguish between the church as institution and the church as organism. Continue Reading...
December 18, 2010

Colson: Our Work Matters to God

In this week’s “Two Minute Warning,” Chuck Colson shows that “work is something we are all called to do, using our gifts to God’s glory.” As a special offer this week, the Colson Center is giving away complimentary copies of Lester DeKoster’s little classic on this subject, Work: The Meaning of Your Life—A Christian Perspective from Christian’s Library Press. Continue Reading...
December 17, 2010

Addendum to Loss of Institutional Faith

Here’s a final and brief follow-up to the discussion about the loss of faith in institutions over recent decades. We might observe that the increase in charitable giving to religious organizations amidst declines in charitable giving overall might show that at least there is not a corresponding loss of faith by religious people in charitable institutions. Continue Reading...
December 16, 2010

Understanding Human Behavior

In “Human Nature and Capitalism” on AEI’s The American, Arthur C. Brooks and Peter Wehner look at three different “pictures” of what it means to be human and point to the one, foundational understanding that has undergirded the flourishing American culture of democratic capitalism: “If men were angels,” wrote James Madison, the father of the Constitution, in Federalist Paper No. Continue Reading...
December 16, 2010

Loss of Institutional Faith

In this week’s commentary I say that part of the reason less money is being given to local churches is that it is reflective of a broader trend of distrust towards institutions. Continue Reading...
December 15, 2010

Why the Nativity?

  Increasingly the Nativity tends to be associated with the political, as the crèche and other overtly religious symbols are banished from the public square by public pressure or the courts. Continue Reading...
December 15, 2010

In the ‘pressure cooker’

Video: Hundreds of protesters clashed with riot police across central Athens on Wednesday, smashing cars and hurling gasoline bombs during a nationwide labour protest against the government’s latest austerity measures. The former Development Minister Costis Hatzidakis was attacked by protesters outside a luxury hotel. Continue Reading...