Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries from Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Islam’s Quiet Revolution

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Society is changing as economic freedom and diversification gradually creep into the Middle East. Dr. Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, explores the effects of free trade on nations including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and, in turn, the effect those nations are having on their neighbors.

The diversification of economies, notably the development of new products and services for export, allows nations to grow out of reliance on oil production as the main source of capital. The emerging economies create an entrepreneurial atmosphere open to all and encourages foreign investment. The result is a rise out of poverty and more open foreign relations.

Read the full commentary here.

Posted by Jonathan Spalink in International Trade at 12:21 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
diversity, free trade, international trade, middle east

Un-Christian Retributiveness

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

How’s this for an expression of un-Christian retributiveness?

If God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before their death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one’s enemies – but not before they have been hanged.

--Heinrich Heine, Gedanken und Überlegungen; quoted and translated in Freud, Civilization and its Discontents.

Read that quote within the context of these two related biblical texts, Genesis 4:23-24 and Matthew 18:21-23, and tell me what you think.

The justification for capital punishment isn’t that it is a necessary precondition for personal forgiveness.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Bible and Theology at 10:23 | Comments (3) | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
bible and theology, capital punishment, forgiveness, retribution

Saving Secular Society

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I used to have more regular and extensive interaction with people whose worldviews were starkly different from my own. That’s not so much the case anymore, so it’s good to be reminded occasionally that some people live in different worlds that are sometimes hard to comprehend. That happened today when I came across an announcment for a conference, “The Secular Society and Its Enemies.” In the strange universe in which the conference’s organizers live, “The world is finally waking up to the dangers of religious faith,” “The American courts are stacked with judges who openly denigrate the nation’s vital and historic separation of church and state,” and “societies the world over face the ominous threat of de-secularization.”

Not meaning to be too flippant, I concede that the question of the relationship between government and religion is critical, especially in light of the advances of Islam around the world. But the conference description suggests that its agenda will be driven by the silly view that Islamic advocates of sharia and conservative American evangelicals and Pope Benedict XVI all have pretty much the same problem: they’re theocrats.

HT: James Kushiner at Mere Comments

Posted by Kevin Schmiesing in News and Events at 09:35 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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secularism