Andreas Widmer, entrepreneur, former Swiss guard, and contributor to PovertyCure, has published an article at First Things, titled “Can Business Save Your Soul?”  It is Widmer’s take on the statement by the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice regarding the role of business (see commentary on this by Acton’s Kishore Jayabalan here).

Read more on Can Business Make You Holy?…

Younger Millennials (ages 18-24) report significant levels of movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center. The survey also finds that they support government intervention to address the gap between the rich and poor.

Some of the highlights from the survey include:
Read more on College-Age Millennials Are Losing Their Religion…

“Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good,” said Thomas Aquinas, “while envy grieves over it.” Unfortunately, grieving over our neighbor’s good has become a dominant part of recent economic discussions (“income inequality,” the “Buffett rule,” the “99%”).

Journalist Matt Lewis recently talked to talked to Dr. Victor V. Claar about the rise of envy in economics. You can listen to the audio below.
Read more on Envy and Economics…

How do potatoes from Idaho end up in supermarkets in New York City? As economist Walter Williams explains, its because of the power of the profit motive.

“When conducting Business as Mission, the primary purpose has to be to expand the Kingdom of God,” said Joseph Vijayam, founder and managing director of Olive Technology, a Colorado Springs-based information technology services provider. “Profits and an increase of shareholder wealth are an important result of a solid business that is well executed and are essential for the survival of any business, but they need not become the very purpose for existence.”

Vijayam invites Christian business leaders to reflect on the place of profits in the context of Tax Day here in the US: “I am not challenging business owners to stop making profits, but instead to look at those profits in a completely new way.”

In a piece for Comment magazine last year, “Reforming Economics,” I argued, “For too long a view has held dominance that has portrayed profit as a purpose or end, rather than as a means or a consequence. That is to say, the pursuit of profit is acceptable when it is couched within the broader framework of and constrained by the norm of service of others.”
Read more on Profits, Service, and Tax Day…

John L. Allen, Jr., at the National Catholic Reporter, took note of the address recently given by Cardinal Peter Turkson, just as Acton did.  Allen’s blog post, which referenced Acton’s Samuel Gregg and his National Review Online piece,  noted that the Cardinal posed some very specific and probing questions for business people who wish to integrate their spiritual life and work life:

Read more on More on Cardinal Turkson: ‘A Vatican document to make Socrates proud’…

The Hunger Games may lack a single reference to religion or God, but as Jordan J. Ballor and Todd Steen point out in an article for First Things, the books and film presents a secularized alternative to the Christian virtue of hope:
Read more on Hope and The Hunger Games…

On his albums Bruce Springsteen may pose as a working-class hero. But as Bruce Edward Walker notes, in his real life he’s a crony corporatist:
Read more on Getting Hip to Bruce Springsteen’s Ruse…

Cardinal Peter K. Turkson, in a recent address to French businesspeople, spoke about integrating faith and work.

In its exercise of business, therefore, humanity would become a ‘rock’ that sustains creation through the practice of love and justice. And this appears to be really the vocation of the Christian business leader: to practice love and justice and to teach the business household for which he or she is responsible to do likewise, for the sustenance of all creation, beginning with our brothers and sisters.

The cardinal was focusing on themes from the pontifical council’s new document ‘Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection.’  He urged his audience to focus not only on business, but an integrated spiritual life in order to avoid a personal ‘disconnectedness’.

Read more on ‘The Transformative Power of Work’…

Zhao Xiao, a government economist in China, on the differences between market economies with Churches (like the U.S.) and market economies without churches (like China):

Is it not integrity that you are pursuing? Then you ought to know: places with faith have more integrity. For China’s crawling economic reforms, this ought to be an important inspiration. Market economies with churches are different in another respect from those without: in the former, it is much easier to establish a commonly respected system. The reason is simple: a people that share a faith, compared to people who only believe in themselves, find it easier to establish mutual trust, and through that to conclude agreements. However, where is the cornerstone for the American constitution? In fact, as early as the first group of English Puritans who came over to the New World on the Mayflower, there was the Mayflower Compact, which would become the foundation of autonomous government in the separate states in New England. Its contents comprised civic organizations as well as working out just laws, statutes, regulations, and ordinances, and the first line of the covenant was “In the name of God, Amen.” So shared faith is the foundation for shared law. Otherwise, a legal system, should it arise, will not be respected.

Read more on Market Economies with Churches and Market Economies without Churches…