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’…

Despite the rise of globalization and democracy, violent persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities is still shockingly common in many parts of the world. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has released its latest survey of religious freedom and as Doug Bandow reports, it makes for grim reading:

Read more on The Global Assault on Religious Liberty…

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Be incarnationally present with a man who can’t fish and you’ll teach him how to be “missional” while on an empty stomach.

This update on the ancient Chinese proverb isn’t entirely fair to my fellow Christians (mainly my fellow evangelicals) who believe that one of the most important ways we can help those in need is to being intimately, and often sacrificially, involved in underserved communities. But the maxim’s addendum does capture some of the well-meaning naiveté of missionally oriented activism.
Read more on The Wrong Kind of School Choice…

On Sunday Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren appeared on ABC’s This Week and was asked if he agreed with President Obama’s economic gospel. As Kathryn Jean Lopez says, “I’m thinking the president probably wishes he picked a different pastor for the inaugural prayer.” Warren’s answered the question by saying:

Read more on Rick Warren on Obama’s Economic Gospel…

Whether a problem is a matter of “public policy” or “private-policy” often depends on how we think about property rights, says economist David R. Henderson. Take, for example, the debate about whether evolution or Intelligent Design theory should be taught in schools:
Read more on How Property Rights Solve Policy Problems…

We are continuing to interview people in different areas of work to showcase what being On Call in Culture looks like on a daily basis. Today we introduce Rachel Bastarache Bogan, video editor for SIM. Learn more about Rachel at http://www.Rachelfinder.com
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A marvellous and mighty paradox has thus occurred, for the death which they thought to inflict on Him as dishonour and disgrace has become the glorious monument to death’s defeat. ~ Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word.

Read more on Musings for Good Friday…

Jon Erwin, director of the pro-life October Baby movie, was recently interviewed by National Public Radio and, in the background article that accompanied the audio, the network reported his view that Christians didn’t feel very welcome in Hollywood’s movie community. This provoked a lot of comment by NPR listeners about what, really, a Christian is. The title of the NPR article, “‘October Baby’ Tells A Story Hollywood Wouldn’t” probably had something to do with that.

Read more on Rev. Sirico Responds to NPR’s ‘Christian Is Not Synonymous With Conservative’…

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…

Sam Gregg’s response to President Obama’s latest invocation of the “my brother’s keeper” motif brings out one of the basic problems with applying this biblical question to public policy. As Gregg points out, the logic of the president’s usage points to the government as the institution of brotherly love:

Read more on Who Keeps the Keepers?…