In his essay on the eurozone crisis Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves claims there is a misunderstanding about the nature of criticism by “populists”:

That I submit is a problem, a serious problem and a threat to Europe we have only begun to realize. When we still talk about new and old members, we still talk nonsense about “populism” in all the wrong ways. Indeed I believe that the “populism” and the “specter of the 30s” that all kinds of pundits unknowledgeably appeal to has nothing to do with the populism we see in Northern Europe. That is not a populism of the dispossessed, the unemployed. It is a populism more akin to what Calvin and Luther appealed to than what the fascists of the 1930s appealed to. It is, like most populism, based on resentment, and resentment at unfairness. But the unfairness is, as it was in the 16th Century, a resentment of those who flaunt their flouting the rules by which others abide. Resentment on the part of those who take commitments seriously regarding those who do not: Is that the “specter of the 30s”?

Read more on Reformational Populism and the Eurozone Crisis…

Today’s blog post is from one of our faithful On Call in Culture community members, Sheila Seiler Lagrand, Ph.D. who earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, she studied anthropology and literature with an emphasis in writing. Currently she blogs at Godspotting with Sheila and contributes regularly at BibleDude.net. Sheila is a member of the The High Calling. Her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Here Comes the Bride and in Paul’s Letters to the Philippians: Community Commentary. Forthcoming are contributions to Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive and Wounded Women of the Bible. Sheila and her husband, Rich, live and worship in the foothills of South Orange County, California.

I don’t like being interrupted.
I love being interrupted.

I might be working my way through the grocery store, methodically selecting every item on the list:

Read more on Interrupt Me, Please?…

Working Paper: “Top Ten Myths of Medicare”
Richard L. Kaplan (University of Illinois College of Law), Illinois Program in Law, Behavior and Social Science Paper No. LBSS13-02; Illinois Public Law Research Paper No. 11-28; SSRN, Working Paper Series (PDF)

Read more on ResearchLinks – 09.14.12…

In his Acton Commentary today, Jordan Ballor writes,

All work has a spiritual dimension because the human person who works in whatever capacity does so as an image-bearer of God. “While the classic Greek mind tended to scorn work with the hands,” write Berghoef and DeKoster, “the Bible suggests that something about it structures the soul.” If we derogate work with the hands, manual and skilled labor, in this way, we separate what God has put together and create a culture that disdains the hard and often dirty work of cultivating the world in service of others. The challenge that faces the church and society more broadly then is to appreciate the spiritual meaningfulness of all kinds of work, to celebrate it, and to exhort us to persevere in our labors amidst the unavoidable troubles that plague work in this fallen world.

This point—the need for a renewed appreciation of “the spiritual meaningfulness of all kinds of work” and “manual and skilled labor” in particular—reminds me of the following story that I recently reflected on elsewhere from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers:

Read more on Leaves and Fruit: The Spiritual Value of Manual Labor…

In today’s Acton Commentary, “Mike Rowe and Manual Labor,” I examine the real contribution from a star of the small screen to today’s political conversation. Mike Rowe, featured on shows like The Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs, has written letters to both President Obama and Mitt Romney focusing attention on the skills gap and our nation’s dysfunctional attitudes towards work, particularly hard labor, like skilled trades and services.

In his letter to Romney, Rowe writes that “Pig farmers, electricians, plumbers, bridge painters, jam makers, blacksmiths, brewers, coal miners, carpenters, crab fisherman, oil drillers…they all tell me the same thing over and over, again and again – our country has become emotionally disconnected from an essential part of our workforce.”
Read more on Of Ministers and Muck Farmers…

Below is my review of A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future by Os Guinness. A final version of this book review will appear in the Fall 2012 Journal of Markets & Morality (15.2). You can subscribe here.

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A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future. By Os Guinness (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2012). 205 pages

Review: A Free People’s Suicide

That our republic suffers from disorder and decay is no secret. The moral and economic order appears increasingly chaotic and lacks a deeper meaning. The country, bitterly divided politically, cannot agree on the purpose of freedom. Frustration has turned into increased political activism and fragmentation, and perhaps the only national agreed-upon principle is that people feel increasingly separated from their own government.

The current year (2012) has seen some like-minded books published to address the magnanimity of the crisis we face. Sound thinkers such as Arthur Brooks and Rev. Robert Sirico have offered up, respectively, The Road to Freedom and Defending the Free Market. They are, without a doubt, worthwhile examinations of economics and our moral order. While there is no dearth of books to address our problems and its root causes, perhaps none is better than Os Guinness’s A Free People Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future.

Guinness trumpets a stirring defense of ordered liberty, examining the deep meanings of freedom and its ability to survive and perhaps flourish again. An assessment of freedom beyond the surface is truly central to our republic. Americans, as they have in the past, must once again ask, “How can a free Republic maintain its freedom?
Read more on Review: A Free People’s Suicide…

On his personal blog, author and publishing industry executive Joel J. Miller asks, “What if we dumped Rand for Röpke?” Good question. Miller says that it’s simply unnecessary for Christians to invoke Rand in their defense of the free market. Why not base that defense on the work of a Christian economist instead?

Read more on Rand or Röpke?…

From the video vault, a classic presentation by Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, based on his monograph The Entrepreneurial Vocation.

Margarita A. Mooney considers how personalism has influenced the development of Catholic social doctrine:

When people think of Catholic social teaching the first thing that comes to their mind may be the call to charity or solidarity with the poor, as exemplified by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. However, Gregg contends that for Wojytla/John Paul II, a proper understanding of human work is central to all Catholic social teaching.

Read more on Human Work as the Center of Catholic Social Teaching…

Over several weeks we have been talking about the skills we need to develop as we are On Call in Culture; a Kingdom-focused memory, storytelling (which involves observation and reflection), and vulnerability. Each one plays an important part of us making an impact on our culture as God works through us daily. We have also provided resources to help you develop each skill.

In “My Mind in God’s Hands” we thought about focusing our minds on Kingdom values so our memories will be tools that God can use in our work. Remembering to ask your coworker how their mom did after surgery or whether your boss’ migraine is feeling better can be important in God’s plan for your relationships with them.

Read more on On Call in Culture Skills Review…