A study from Harvard University and the University of Utah purports to show that merely thinking about money makes one unethical and more inclined to immoral acts. The Huffington Post reports:

Researchers split up roughly 300 participating undergraduate students into two groups. The first group was asked to perform activities that were associated with money-related words and images, and the second group participated in activities that were unrelated to money altogether.

Afterward, the participants were asked to make a series of illicit business decisions: to act dishonestly but earn more money, for example, or to hire a candidate who would share confidential information. The students who first participated in the money-related activities were more likely to engage in unethical behavior, the researchers found.

Read more on Thinking About Money? You Dirty, Rotten Scoundrel…

Yesterday, Jordan Ballor explored the relationship between money and happiness, referring to money as “a good, but not a terminal good,” and pointing to Jesus’ reminder that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Over at Café Hayek, economist Russ Roberts offers a good companion to this, advising college graduates to have a healthy perspective about money and meaning when entering the job market:

Don’t take the job that pays the most money. Nothing wrong with money, but it’s the wrong criterion for choosing if you are fortunate to have a choice in this not-so-great job market. People often confuse economics with anything that is related to money as if the goal of economics is to make you rich. But the goal of economics is to help you get the most out of life. Money is part of that of course, but usually there are tradeoffs–the highest paying job has drawbacks. Don’t ignore those. So take the job that is the most rewarding in the fullest sense of the word. Sure, money matters. But so does how much you learn on the job, how much satisfaction it gives you and whether it lets you express your gifts. The ideal is to find a job you love that still lets you put food on the table and a roof over your head. You spend a lot of time at work. Don’t do something you hate or that deadens your soul just because it pays well.

Time is precious. One of the simplest but most important ideas of economics is the idea of opportunity cost–anything you do means not doing something else. Don’t spend all of your leisure on email and twitter and entertainment. Keep your brain growing. Listen to Planet Money. Read a novel. Take a cooking class or keep working at that musical instrument.

Of course, the Christian must be especially careful that this goal of “getting the most out of life” is properly grounded and directed. Read more on Advice for College Graduates on Money, Meaning, and Mission…

Now available for pre-order on Logos Bible Software: all 15 volumes (30 issues) of the Journal of Markets & Morality and all 14 volumes of Acton’s Christian Social Thought series. More titles, including many from Christian’s Library Press, are upcoming as well.

Read more on Acton Publications On Logos Bible Software…

While the Christian Left tends to be skeptical of appeals to scripture, one Biblical author they do favor is James. The book of James is often used to justify appeals to social justice. But as David Nilsen realized, James wouldn’t necessarily support their position:

In the course of dialoging with my friend about federal welfare programs, I quoted from James, perhaps to establish my social justice cred, and also to preemptively rebut potential accusations that I don’t think Christians have a duty to care for the poor.  When I looked up the passage I had in mind, to quote it accurately, I was a little surprised.  James 1:27 reads,

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (NRSV)

Now, I always hear about the orphans and widows, but rarely hear about remaining unstained by the world, to the point that I forgot it was even part of the verse.  This prompted a thought.  While I believe it is certainly possible for Christians to support social welfare programs that demand more and more tax revenue and ever increasing government power, what happens when James 1:27a butts heads with James 1:27b?  In other words, what happens when our attempt at following the first half of James’ instruction ultimately forces us to compromise on the second half?  When Christians place the necessary responsibility of caring for widows and orphans in the hands of an increasingly secular entity whose goals are frequently in opposition to other important Christian beliefs, this dilemma is sure to follow.

Read more on True Religion And The Welfare State…

I recently wrote about Hobby Lobby’s billionaire CEO, who, in a recent Forbes profile, made it clear how deeply his Christian faith informs his economic decision-making.

This week, in Christianity Today, HOPE International’s Chris Horst profiles another Christian business, Blender Products, whose owners Steve Hill and Jim Howey actively work to elevate the practices of the metal fabrication business and, above all, operate their business “unto the Lord.”

Their company’s foundational verse? Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

“The metal fabrication business is extremely cutthroat,” says Hill. “Workers are given a singular task, and maximum output is demanded. They’re simply a factor of production. As a general rule, they have no access to management. There is very little crossover between guys on the floor and guys in the offices.”

Hill and Howey aim to subvert the us-versus-them mentality. Many days they walk the shop floor, engaging their workers as peers. Employees on the floor are treated as importantly as the managers, undermining the adversarial culture simmering in many manufacturing businesses.

“The company has tried to abide by a simple philosophy concerning our employees,” Steve said. “Pay them well, provide great benefits, and invest in lives…The guys in our shop… know that I’m a human too. I have many of the same struggles they do. Showing humanness to people is key to disarming those stereotypes.”

And the employees aren’t the only ones who benefit:

The very work that Blender employees accomplish benefits a broader community. On the shop floor, talented metal artisans convert stacks of sheet metal—what looks like an oversized stack of paper—into massive fans that improve the efficiency of machinery by mixing airstreams. Their proprietary mixing designs decrease pollution, reduce machinery fire risks, and improve ventilation wherever they’re installed. Fastened in hospitals, schools, office buildings, and factories, they silently make buildings and machines work better and safer.

But although Hill and Howey’s Christian values inform the way they conduct their business and treat their employees, the approach has impacted far more than employee paychecks, customer satisfaction, and environmental stewardship:
Read more on Christian Manufacturer Strives Toward Productivity and Grace…

In his Acton Commentary today, Jordan Ballor writes,

All work has a spiritual dimension because the human person who works in whatever capacity does so as an image-bearer of God. “While the classic Greek mind tended to scorn work with the hands,” write Berghoef and DeKoster, “the Bible suggests that something about it structures the soul.” If we derogate work with the hands, manual and skilled labor, in this way, we separate what God has put together and create a culture that disdains the hard and often dirty work of cultivating the world in service of others. The challenge that faces the church and society more broadly then is to appreciate the spiritual meaningfulness of all kinds of work, to celebrate it, and to exhort us to persevere in our labors amidst the unavoidable troubles that plague work in this fallen world.

This point—the need for a renewed appreciation of “the spiritual meaningfulness of all kinds of work” and “manual and skilled labor” in particular—reminds me of the following story that I recently reflected on elsewhere from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers:

Read more on Leaves and Fruit: The Spiritual Value of Manual Labor…

Check out this video, which is interesting on a number of levels (HT: James R. Otteson):

Hazony points to some really important ideas in this short video. In many ways the culture war, so to speak, really comes down to a clash of worldviews about what work is and ought to be. For a narrative that sets the problem up the same way, but favors the “Leavers” over the “Takers,” see the work of Daniel Quinn, particularly his novel Ishmael.

Read more on Abel the Righteous Entrepreneur…

Os Guinness makes the concise yet brilliant defense of the centrality of truth in the introduction to One Word of Truth: A portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by David Aikman.

This short introduction not only offers keen insight into Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but directly speaks to the ills of our society.

Read more on Os Guinness on Solzhenitsyn and Truth…

On June 29, both Houses of Congress passed, and President Obama signed, a law maintaining Stafford student loan interest rates at 3.4 percent for one more year – two days before they were scheduled to double. A number of human rights groups and religious communities have praised this development. The Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of over seventy-five churches, has been pushing for passage of this bill, and now celebrates it as a living-out of the Biblical practice of periodic forgiveness of debts. Even the organization’s use of the word “Jubilee” in its name is a reference to a practice God commanded for the Israelites in the Old Testament: “Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee,” (Leviticus 25:10). Similarly, the Catholic Church has a long tradition of periodically holding a Jubilee Year celebrating forgiveness. There’s no question that the concept of pardoning debts out of pure mercy is certainly a Judeo-Christian one. But intellectual honesty requires us to ask whether any particular event is an example of a given principle. Is maintaining the current Stafford student loan interest rate actually a Christian “jubilee” event?

The first Church-wide jubilee was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII on February 22, 1300, granting indulgences and remission of the penalty for sins to all the faithful who would make a pilgrimage to Rome and Saint Peter’s Basilica. As the concept of the Jubilee was gradually being developed, the details continued to change over the next hundred and fifty years (various lengths, such as 25, 33 and 100 years were proposed as the time span between Jubilees) but beginning in 1450, the Church has held Jubilees once every 50 years up to the present day, with only three omissions. Read more on Misplaced Jubilation Over Student Loans…

Does God side with the poor and oppose the rich? Glenn Sunshine looks at what the Bible says about the issue:

So why are the poor described as blessed? The issue isn’t poverty per se, but rather the attitude of humility and reliance on God that it can produce in us, which is why Matthew’s version of the beatitude isn’t just “Blessed are the poor,” but “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Reliance on personal wealth or government help (Ps. 146, esp. vs. 3-4, 7-10) for security is foolish, because they do not last. Rather, we need to place our hope in God alone.

Read more on Does God Always Side With the Poor and Oppose the Rich?…