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April 30, 2013

Are Free Markets and Fracking Producing Cleaner Energy?

A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency finds that one of our cheapest sources of energy may be cleaner than we had previously thought: The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change? Continue Reading...
April 29, 2013

Shock Value vs. Moral Courage

Salman Rushdie, the British Indian novelist, has a piece in The New York Times entitled “Wither Moral Courage?” He is saddened that we have “no Gandhis, no Lincolns anymore” and that those who do stand up to the “abuses of power and dogma” are quickly imprisoned or vilified. Continue Reading...
April 29, 2013

Review: ‘Becoming Europe’ a Little Bit Late?

The Pilot, a South Pines, N.C. newspaper, recently featured a review of Samuel Gregg’s Becoming Europe by Don Delauter. He says: This is a scholarly work in which the author presents a review of the historical path which led relentlessly to the social and economic cultures of modern day Western Europe. Continue Reading...
April 29, 2013

Neuhaus’ Law and Religious Liberty

In the latest issue of Renewing Minds, a journal of Christian thought published by Union University, I examine two different visions of religious liberty. They are roughly analogous to the two versions of the “empty shrines” of secularism described by Michael Novak and George Weigel, respectively, as well as to the visions of the American and the French Revolution. Continue Reading...
April 29, 2013

Farm Loans and the ‘Floodgates to Fraud’

“Anytime you are going to throw money up in the air,” says Abraham Carpenter Jr., a farmer in Grady, Arkansas, “you are going to have people acting crazy.” Although “throwing money up in the air” is increasingly one of the main functions of the federal government, Mr. Continue Reading...
April 26, 2013

Virtue Matters More Than Money

There is such powerful interest in sports being a way out of poverty for many low-income males, especially black males, that we tend to forget about other things, like wisdom, that contribute to success. Continue Reading...
April 26, 2013

Is Higher Education a Sinking Ship?

A recent CNBC article by Mark Koba notes the bleak outlook for 2013 college grads looking for work: A survey released last week from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reported that businesses plan to hire only 2.1 percent more college graduates from the class of 2013 than they did from the class of 2012. Continue Reading...
April 26, 2013

Buying Our Way Out of Crime Will Not Work

Americans continue to be fed the false narrative that poverty causes crime rates to rise. While it is true that not having material needs met makes people vulnerable to do things like steal—even the Bible teaches that (Proverbs 30:8-9)—the ongoing reduction of morality and materiality is doing nothing but setting the stage for the failure of well-intended programs because we are missing core moral issues. Continue Reading...