Last month, a Christianity Today editorial noted some of the intellectual foundations for ecumenical efforts in the public square, particularly relevant to evangelical and Roman Catholic cooperation against the HHS mandates. The editorial focuses on Chuck Colson, and says “you can credit Colson, who died on April 21, for a major part of evangelicals’ reduced anxiety about relations with Roman Catholics.”

Read more on Colson and Kuyper Together…

In 1973, a pair of Supreme Court rulings helped convince many evangelicals and Catholics to align as co-belligerents in the struggle against abortion. In 2012, an executive branch mandate is having a similar effect, this time bringing the groups together to defend religious liberties.

A new level of cooperation occurred last week when Wheaton College, a leading evangelical liberal arts school, joined with The Catholic University of America in filing a federal lawsuit opposing the Health and Human Services “Preventative Services” mandate. As the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty notes, “This alliance marks the first-ever partnership between Catholic and evangelical institutions to oppose the same regulation in the same court.”

Read more on Evangelicals and Catholics Join Together to Defend Religious Freedom…

Over at Y’all Politics, Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel penned an excellent essay on conservatism and the moral order. Deeply influenced by Russell Kirk, McDaniel’s words are worth the read. They are a reminder that sustainable political liberty has to have a proper moral order and foundation for society to flourish. Below is an excerpt of his essay:

Read more on Miss. State Senator Chris McDaniel on Self-Government & the Moral Order…

Poor countries are unhealthy countries
Roger Bates, AEI

American leftists might laud the nationalized healthcare provision in Cuba, but cholera outbreaks should remind even these folks that without wealth generation, a healthy nation is rarely attained and never sustained.

Read more on PowerLinks – 07.20.12…

The free-market economist Milton Friedman used to argue that for a nation to prosper, all that was needed was to increase privatization and reduce the size of the state. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and other communist states made him realize that “Privatization is meaningless if you don’t have the rule of law.”

Today, the idea that the rule of law is a necessary component of growth is all but commonplace. So why don’t more economists and policymakers connect the dots between America’s slow growth and our poor ranking, compared to other nations, on measures of the rule of law?

As F. H. Buckley, Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law, points out, America is not as high on the rule of law scale as most of us would assume:
Read more on How Does the U.S. Fare on Measures of the Rule of Law?…

Review Essay: “Was Robert Bellarmine Ahead of His Time?”
John M. Vella, Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Despite his rehabilitation in the last quarter of the 19th century, Bellarmine’s intellectual legacy remains mixed. In one respect, at least, he was a product of his time because his vision of a res publica Christiana depended on a united Christendom that could never be restored. Yet, what is easy to see, in hindsight, was not so clear in the early 17th century. On the other hand, his defiance of royal absolutism, in defense of rule of law and religious truth, is far from outdated.

Conference: “Sister Reformations II: Reformation and Ethics”

Read more on ResearchLinks – 07.20.12…

Pundits and politicians have been having a field day with President Obama’s speech given in Roanoke, Virginia, last Friday. The quote providing the most fodder is the president’s assertion, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” (Here are a couple recent examples from Paul Ryan and Larry Kudlow.)

Read more on The Truth about Roads, Bridges, and Businesses…

It’s hard to think of anything more onerous than preventing enterprising people from entering the market. To do so is to interfere with their ability to serve others and engage in their vocation. It keeps people poor by preventing them from improving their lives. And one of the worst barriers of this kind is a type of law known as occupational licensing.

And that’s exactly what a group of monks in Louisiana ran into in 2010 when the state government tried to prohibit them from selling handmade caskets to their fellow Louisianians. Kevin Schmiesing wrote on that issue in 2010 on the PowerBlog.

It’s the coffin business that got St. Joseph’s in trouble. By selling its pine boxes without a funeral director’s license, the monastery violates state law. So the abbey is suing the State of Louisiana in federal court.

It’s a classic case of what economists call “barriers to entry”: regulations put in place by existing businesses or professionals to limit competition and thereby drive up prices and compensation. Usually the vested interest posits some rationale concerning the public good (e.g., not just anybody should be allowed to practice medicine…), but frequently enough the reasoning is pretty thin (e.g., should you really need a license to cut hair or drive a taxi?).

The monks are represented by the libertarian public-interest group, Institute for Justice. They won their case in 2011 and appeared last month before a Federal Appeals Court. A decision won’t be out for several months.

This all started when the Benedictine monks at Saint Joseph Abbey started receiving several requests from their community to sell caskets that the monks had constructed for their own deceased members for many years. In a hard hit post-Katrina Louisiana, this seemed like a reasonable way for them to serve their community and bring in some money to the abbey. Unfortunately, they ran into occupational licensing laws, which forbid non-funeral homes from selling caskets. The Institute for Justice argued that such laws could only serve to reduce competition and drive up the prices of caskets. The BBC has a good video on their troubles with the state. Read more on Monks, Florists, and the Poor…

‘Guilty as charged,’ Cathy says of Chick-fil-A’s stand on biblical & family values
K. Allan Blume, Baptist Press

“We don’t claim to be a Christian business,” Cathy said in a recent visit to North Carolina. He attended a business leadership conference many years ago where he heard Christian businessman Fred Roach say, “There is no such thing as a Christian business.” “That got my attention,” Cathy said. Roach went on to say, “Christ never died for a corporation. He died for you and me.”

Read more on PowerLinks – 07.19.12…

Richard Land argues the case that free-market capitalism is the economic model that most closely fits in with Christian anthropology:

When I lived in England as a Ph.D. student, I was visited during my first fortnight in the country by a fellow student seeking to sign me up for the Socialist Club. In some wonderment I asked him, “Why would you think I would want to join the Socialist Club?” He responded, “Well, I’ve been told you are a Christian minister, and if you are you would have to be a Socialist.”

Read more on Is Capitalism the Most Biblical Economic Model?…