Is God a Shakedown Artist for the Welfare State?

On Forbes, Doug Bandow surveys how both the religious left and religious right are using explicit faith teachings and moral arguments in the federal budget and spending battles: Does God really insist that no program ever be eliminated and no expenditure ever be reduced if one poor person somewhere benefits? Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg on the New Poverty Numbers

Writing on National Review Online’s Corner blog, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks ahead to the Census Bureau’s release on Monday of poverty numbers based on a new measurement and analysis of those new numbers in a recent New York Times article: Some of the reports using these fuller measures — more of them produced by organizations with no particular ideological ax to grind — claim that black Americans are less poor than previously supposed and that some of the officially poor are, well, not poor. Continue Reading...

Orthodox-Catholic Statement on ‘Arab Spring’

A round up of news: Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation October 29, 2011 Washington, DC The Plight of Churches in the Middle East The “Arab Spring” is unleashing forces that are having a devastating effect on the Christian communities of the Middle East. Continue Reading...

Ronald Reagan at Eureka College

John J. Miller has an interesting article about Ronald Reagan and his relationship with Eureka College. Those that have studied the 40th president have long known that Eureka, a Disciples of Christ school, has not always embraced its most notable graduate. Continue Reading...

Of Trampolines and Foam Pits

A couple weeks ago I engaged CPJ senior fellow Gideon Strauss in a debate at the Christian Legal Society, “Justice, Poverty, Politics & the State: Is There a Christian Perspective?” One of the questioners afterward proposed that the large scale of the poverty problem required an institution equally as large, i.e. Continue Reading...

The Dynamics of Digital Source and Resource

In an editorial in a previous issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, “Printed Source and Digital Resource in Economics and Theology” (PDF), I examined developments in research methodology, particularly with an eye toward digital research tools. Continue Reading...