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February 20, 2013

Check Your Rhetoric: What Common Good?

In the Winter-Fall 2012 issue of Modern Age (54, nos. 1-4), Jonathan Daly contributes a helpful exploration of what happens when desire for the common good goes bad. His article, “Bolshevik Power and Ideas of the Common Good,” focuses on the disastrously ill-conceived effort by the Russian revolutionaries to promote the common good through their self-proclaimed “revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” Continue Reading...
February 20, 2013

Vice, Virtue, and Shareholder Activism

King Louis XIV censored Moliere’s 1664 play Tartuffe after determining audience members might too easily confuse the titular priest’s hypocritical nature with every priest in real life. According to the king, some priests’ “true devotion leads on the path to heaven,” while others’ “vain ostentation of some good works does not prevent from committing some bad ones.” Continue Reading...
February 20, 2013

How to Become Pope

While most Catholics are likely to already be familiar with the process, my fellow Protestants will likely find this video on how the pope is selected to be helpful and informative. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2013

Toiling for Pharaoh

My friend John Teevan of Grace College sends out a monthly newsletter, “Economic Prospect.” He passes along this in the current edition: I found this note from a newly retired accountant (age 66) who has not gone on social security yet. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2013

From the Roots of Society to the Fruits of Discipleship

I recently wrote about the need to reach beyond an earthbound economics, re-orienting our thinking around a more transcendent framework that requires active spiritual engagement and discernment. Even as Christians, far too often we set our focus too strongly on temporal features like material needs, happiness, and quality of life—all of which come into play accordingly—without first concerning ourselves with what God is actually calling us to do as individuals. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2013

Calvin Coolidge: A Rare Kind of Hero

Calvin Coolidge is ripe for national recognition and his wisdom is being sought out perhaps now more than ever. If you’re a voracious reader of commentary and columns you’ve noticed his common sense adages are being unearthed at a rapid pace. Continue Reading...