Year: 2013

August 30, 2013

Should Christians Oppose the ‘American Dream’?

The concept of the American Dream can cause a fair amount of tension within the church, says Drew Cleveland. Some have gone as far as to make the American Dream a concept against which the church ought to be opposed: The concern that this dream can be misused is not wholly invalid. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2013

Maximizing labor, minimizing wages

For this week’s Acton Commentary, ahead of Labor Day weekend, I write about “working harder and smarter,” lessons we can learn from Ashton Kutcher and Mike Rowe. One of the implications of connecting hard work with smart work is that the difficulty of work on its own does not determine its value in the marketplace. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2013

A Commodities Primer for Confused Clerics

Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune ran a story by Cezary Podkul on concerns raised by the Missionary Oblates Catholic community regarding commodities trading. Titled “For Nuns and Analysts Alike, Bank Commodity Earnings Are a Mystery,” the story focuses on Rev. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2013

Slavery In America: 50 Years After ‘I Have A Dream’

Yesterday, as a nation, we spent time reflecting on the American landscape 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech. In it, Dr. King decried that our nation – while abolishing slavery legally – still had a long way to go “until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'” Continue Reading...
August 29, 2013

Kuyper for the 21st Century: Calvin College to Celebrate New Biography

James D. Bratt recently released Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, the first full-scale English-language biography of the influential Dutch theologian, minister, politician, newspaper editor, etc. The book has spurred plenty of discussion across the web, and now, Calvin College is hosting a special event to celebrate its publication. Continue Reading...
August 28, 2013

Raphael Lemkin: The One-Man NGO Against Genocide

Today marks the 54th year since the passing of one of the world’s most influential international human rights lawyers. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ‘genocide’, made the crime illegal under international law, and possessed an almost prophetic sense of the atrocities that would occur under Nazi tyranny in World War II, died a largely unnoticed man. Continue Reading...