Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Posts by Joe Carter

What Works in Helping the Poor?

How do we help struggling Americans rise out of poverty? Robert Doar, AEI’s fellow in poverty studies and former New York City welfare commissioner, offers four key principles everyone concerned with fighting poverty should know. Continue Reading...

How an Excess of Social Capital Can Hurt the Poor

What are the barriers that prevent the poor from moving into the middle class? One surprising answer, says Megan McArdle, is an excess of social capital. In the video below, McArdle explains why understanding how social and financial capital function in low-income communities can help us be more effective in helping then poor. Continue Reading...

The Last Article on the Hobby Lobby Case You’ll Ever Need to Read

Are you sick to death of hearing about the recent Hobby Lobby contraceptive mandate kerfuffle? Me too. Yes, it’s one of the most important religious liberty cases in decades. But the constant debates about the case on blogs, newspapers, TV, radio, and social media, has left even those of us concerned about freedom beaten and exhausted. Continue Reading...

Student Debt and the Value of an Education

“Despite the mounting cost and swelling debt,” notes Laura Prejean in this week’s Acton Commentary, “America’s demand for education, particularly higher education, has not decreased, defying typical market expectations.” This is what economists call inelastic demand, when people continue to buy a good or service regardless of an increase in prices. Continue Reading...

Is Religious Freedom a Slippery Slope?

Many pro-life Catholics and evangelicals cheered when the Supreme Court ruled that small business employers don’t have to pay for abortifacients in health insurance plans. But could support for conscience rights lead down a slippery slope? Continue Reading...

Exile and Shalom

Christians are called to be in the world but not of it (John 17:14-15). But what does that mean for how we should live? At TGC Stephen J. Grabill, the director of programs and international at the Acton Institute, explains why living faithfully in exile and seeking the shalom of our cities are two big ideas that the church needs to embrace in order to recover a robust “in-but-not-of” theology of culture: God’s people have always been—and are now—living in a permanent state of “in between.” Continue Reading...