Just after the Presidential inauguration several leaders raised questions about whether or not President Obama should have sworn the oath of office by placing his hand on the Bible. Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church—a Protestant mega-church in Seattle—after seeing Obama sworn in said, “Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.” Driscoll’s comments stirred up a firestorm of controversy across the country and the Internet.

From a different angel, Dr. Cornel West, professor of Religious Philosophy and Christian Studies at the Union Theological Seminary, reacted strongly against President Obama placing his has on the Bible of Martin Luther King, Jr. in particular. From West’s perspective President Obama had no business placing a hand on King’s Bible for any reason. Obama is no King, suggests West:
Read more on Questioning Obama’s Hand On The Bible…

The Food Bank For New York recently released their annual report on the state of hunger in the city and the growing disparity between low-income New Yorkers and New York City’s professional class. The report refers to this disparity as the food “haves” and “have nots.” The report, “NYC Hunger Experience 2012: One City, Two Realities,” was released Tuesday at the 21st annual Agency Conference.

The New York Non-Profit Press summarized the key findings:
Read more on Debating Food Equality in New York…

Ernesto Sirolli says we are failing at helping the developing world, and he should know: he’s been doing this work for a long time. In this fresh, funny and insightful TedX talk, Sirolli says the key to bringing people out of poverty is entrepreneurship. Pointing out that the prevailing attitudes of paternalism and patronization don’t work, Sirolli emphasizes that we must become servants to the local passion before any development can occur. He quotes Peter Drucker: “Planning is actually incompatible with an entrepreneurial society and economy. Planning is the kiss of death of entrepreneurship.”

Read more on ‘Well, at least we fed the hippos’: How To Fail At Aid In Developing World…

The Pew Center on the States is reporting that ten states voted to raise the minimum wage for workers in 2013. Teens and low-skilled workers should be protesting in response. According to the report,

Read more on Ten States Further Crippling Workers in 2013…

The BBC News reports that 1 out of 10 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are struggling to cope with life. The main culprit: despair related to unemployment. The survey of 2,000 teens and young adults was conducted by The Prince’s Trust Youth Index.

The survey commentators seem surprised that education and training opportunities alone are not enough to provide hope for unemployed young people. Young people rightly want to know why they are training for jobs that do not exist. This has been particularly difficult for Northern Ireland where 20% of 18 to 24-year-olds cannot find employment. From the BBC:
Read more on Unemployment and Despair in the UK…

In the German newsmagazine Spiegel, Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati says that foreign aid to Africa is doing more harm than good:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…

Read more on African Economics Expert: “Please stop the Aid!”…

In France, more than half of the population benefits directly or indirectly from welfare payments. Not surprisingly, the result has been that that the poverty rate for the past twenty years has remained unchanged. “Despite its good intentions,” says Sylvain Charat, “welfareship has created a ‘poverty trap.’”
Read more on The Poverty Trap in France…

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to present a paper at the Sophia Institute annual conference at Union Theological Seminary. This year’s topic was “Marriage, Family, and Love in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.” My paper was titled, “What Makes a Society?” and focused, in the context of marriage and the family, on developing an Orthodox Christian answer to that question. The Roman Catholic and neo-Calvinist answers, subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty, respectively (though not mutually exclusive), receive frequent attention on the PowerBlog, but, to my knowledge, no Orthodox answer has been clearly articulated, and so it can be difficult to know where to begin. To that end, it is my conviction—and a subject of my research—that a historically sensitive, Orthodox answer to this question can found be in the idea of asceticism, rightly understood.

While I will not reproduce my paper here, I wanted to briefly summarize two of its main points that might have broader interest. First of all, what is asceticism? Second, how can asceticism be viewed as an organizational principle of society? Lastly, I want to briefly explore—beyond the scope of my paper—the relevance of this principle for a free society. Read more on Asceticism and the Free Society…

When it comes to government programs for redistributing income, nothing is quite as malevolently effective as state lotteries. Every year state lotteries redistribute the income of mostly poor Americans (who spend between 4-9% of their income on lottery tickets) to a handful of other citizens—and to the state’s coffers.

A prime example is yesterday’s Powerball jackpot. Two people became instant multimillionaires from a voluntary transfer of wealth from their fellow citizens. The money came from the 563 million tickets that were sold, as the old adage says, to those who are bad at math.

The odds of winning were 1 in 175 million, which means that if every person in America had bought a ticket, only two would have won. The chances of a single ticket holder winning the Powerball were only slightly higher than meeting a random stranger on the street who hands you a million dollars.

Yet despite the harm it does to our financially vulnerable neighbors, Christians—who are called to seek justice for the poor—often participate and encourage this activity. Even more disconcerting is that the state not only allows, but participates, in this exploitation. Jordan Ballor explains how lotteries allow the state to prey on the poor:
Read more on How Powerball Preys on the Poor…

Africans unite to save Norwegians from dying of frostbite. By joining Radi-Aid, you too can donate your radiator and spread some warmth in the frozen wasteland of Norway.

Why Africa for Norway?
Read more on Africans Join Together to Aid Frozen Norwegians…