On January 18-19, over 200 Christians gathered at the Common Good RVA event in Richmond, VA, to “explore what it means to see our everyday work as a meaningful part of our Christian calling.” Barrett Clark, director of strategy and analytics for Ivy Ventures, attended the event and provided a helpful summary to On Call in Culture.

By Barrett Clark

Throughout history, the term “common good” has been used in a variety of ways, taking on various meanings, often in the service of personal or political ends.

At the recent Common Good RVA event in Richmond, VA, hosted by Christianity Today and two Richmond churches, local believers were challenged to give meaning to the phrase in their faith and daily lives. As the event sought to affirm, the Common Good is ultimately God–acting through his people, by his delegation.

The conference was an extension of Christianity Today’s This is Our City series, which covers Christian-led cultural renewal efforts in several American cities, whether it be selling mattresses or providing low-cost lighting to the developing world. With a band, beards, and a program broken up by videos and tweets, the event had all the signs of a conference geared toward 20- and 30-something creatives and young professionals.

Andy Crouch, senior editor of Christianity Today, led the event, covering some of the main points from his book, Culture Making. Pointing to the current state of American Protestant church, Crouch drew parallels with 19th-century Pope Leo XIII, who chose to lead from a position of spiritual power when the Catholic Church lost a degree of temporal power in physical territory and earthly governance. In a similar way, Crouch argued, today’s American church is losing some of its own temporal power when it comes to directly influencing government, policy, and power. Once again, we are pressed to rely more heavily on spiritual power, engaging society and culture for the Common Good at lower, closer levels of human interaction and engagement. Read more on Promoting Community Flourishing at Common Good RVA…

At the request of Andy Crouch, who is among other things editorial director for The Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today, I have taken a look at the editorial from The Economist’s special issue from Sept. 9.

To recap, Andy asked me, “what are your thoughts about The Economist’s special report on climate change last week, in which they conclude that the risks of climate change, and the likely manageable cost of mitigation, warrant the world, and especially the US, taking prompt action?”

He continues, “This is, obviously, a magazine with impeccable liberal economic (not to mention journalistic) credentials, and one of the sponsors of the Copenhagen Consensus that raised questions about the wisdom of prioritizing climate change. I believe they would not have taken this editorial position five years ago. Do you think they are mistaken in doing so now? What do you see as the salient evidence they missed, if so?”

The special report consists of a number of articles examining the issue of climate change and are available for purchase as a PDF set here. Read more on A Change of Climate at The Economist…

In today’s Times of London, taking a cue from Blaise Pascal (at least he thinks), Gerard Baker argues, “Unless the sceptics are really, really certain that we’re all going to be OK, we must act now.”

Read more on Pascal and Climate Change…