Year: 2013

September 27, 2013

Surplus = Happiness, Deficit = Misery

Joe Carter points to a Lifehacker article that sums up two basic equations that lead to the creation of wealth (with what I consider to be a clarifying correction applied in the first formula): Income spending = surplus Surplus x time = wealth Likewise, Wilhelm Röpke, in his A Humane Economy, points to two equations arising from classical literature that connect surplus with happiness and deficit to misery (the Micawber Principle). Continue Reading...
September 27, 2013

Shareholder Activists More Goliath than David

When graying cohorts of nuns, priests, clergy and other religious proxy shareholders hitched their wagon to the Center for Political Accountability’s crusade against Citizens United and corporate political spending, it was reported by most news sources as cute and endearing. Continue Reading...
September 27, 2013

Presuppositions Matter, So Let’s Work Together

It is truly amazing to encounter Protestants who believe that their views on theology and justice are objective and neutral — as if the Fall did not happen. In a recent discussion about the sacraments, a leader of an international ministry said to me, “If hermeneutics involves being taught to believe a certain theology, then it is not true hermeneutics. Continue Reading...
September 27, 2013

White House: We Don’t Negotiate With (GOP) Terrorists

In what presumably was a misguided attempt to have Aaron Sorkin pen their newest round of armor-piercing media talking points, the White House sent adviser Dan Pfeiffer to the set of CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper armed to the teeth with explosive political metaphors meant to describe the GOP’s position on debt-ceiling negotiations. Continue Reading...
September 26, 2013

How Christians Become Cultural Leaders

Christianity can and should be a leading influence in human culture, says Greg Forster. We do this not by seizing control of the institutions of culture but acting as cultural entrepreneurs — like the biblical figure Job: Before he was stricken, Job was a cultural leader. Continue Reading...