Many people that I know go out and vote to elect Congress members, U.S. senators, and all sorts of local officials. But I don’t know of that many people who are able or willing to go out and see what their elected officials are actually doing.
Archived Posts September 2006 | Acton PowerBlog
According to Census Bureau estimates, the population of the United States will hit 300,000,000 sometime in the next couple weeks.
Discussion of the significance of this demographic milestone, such as the latest issue of US News & World Report brings to mind a related topic: social security. Having harped on social security reform for some time, I gave it a rest for a while. But the issue hasn’t gone away. All the dire projections of a shortfall in social security—and other entitlements tied to the aging of America’s population, such as Medicare—have simply become clearer and more certain over the course of the last couple years.
Our week-long series concludes with a reflection on the implications of the great biblical theme of the consummation of creation into the new heavens and the new earth.
Consummation – Revelation 22:1–5
Photograph from NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity at the rim of “Victoria Crater” in Mars’ Meridiani Planum region (Sept. 26, 2006).
For anyone who reflects, the appearances of beauty become the themes of an invisible harmony. Perfumes as they strike our senses represent spiritual illumination. Material lights point to that immaterial light of which they are the images.
In case you missed it, there is a great discussion brewing on Amy Welborn’s blog about the Honor Roll. Specifically there is reference to the examination of civic education as a criterion, specifically regarding a school’s teaching of economics, business, and Catholic social teaching. Go to her blog to follow the discussion.
This year’s Catholic High School Honor Roll has been released. Go to Acton’s redesigned Honor Roll webpage to view both the top-50 and the category leader lists. The webpage also features a virtual newsroom that tracks news stories about Honor Roll schools.
America’s fertility clinics are now allowing parents to screen embryos according to sex, and more are opting for this practice. Kevin Schmiesing observes that the idea of children as “gift” is under increasing stress as alternative and sometimes conflicting notions of child as right, as burden, or as consumer item compete for dominance. Despite the great power of the market to satisfy the needs and wants of humanity, “its advantages turn pernicious when it encompasses human goods that should never be reduced to monetary values,” Kevin says.
The penultimate installment of the series on the biblical/theological case against chimeras focuses on the impact and significance of redemption.
Redemption – Romans 8:18–27
Flowing out of our discussion on creation and fall, it is the recognition that there still are limits on human activity with regard to animals that is most important for us in this discussion.
Chuck Colson introduces a new initiative at BreakPoint, a blog called “The Point,” which will feature contributions from “sixteen people blogging on pretty much everything under the sun: persecution of Christians, literary feuds, comedy troupes, AIDS, the Pope’s comments on Islam, TV dramas . . . you name it, they’re blogging about it.”
Part III of our series focuses on the human fall into sin and the disastrous consequences that follow from it.
Fall – Genesis 9:1–7
The harmonious picture of the created order is quickly marred, however, by the fall of human beings. The fall has tragic comprehensive effects, both on the nature of humans themselves, and on the rest of creation.
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