Beginning today, the conference “Religion and Liberty — A Match Made in Heaven?” gets underway in Jerusalem. Sponsored by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (JIMS), the Acton Institute and others, the event asks questions such as, “Is capitalism not only efficient but also moral?” In conjunction with this May 20-24 conference, Acton is offering its two Jewish monographs through Amazon Kindle at no charge.

Read more on Free Acton Institute eBooks on Judaism, Law and the Market Economy (May 20-24)…

Much of the discussions I’ve been involved in over recent months that have focused on the federal budget have involved some basic assumptions about what the Christian view of government is. Sometimes these assumptions have been explicitly conflicting. Other times the assumptions have been shown as the result of exegetical commitments about what Scripture says.

Read more on The Belgic Confession and Political Justice…

Patriarch Bechara Rai

As a Lebanese Maronite Catholic student in Rome and a new intern at Istituto Acton, I had the great honor and privilege to attend the audience of the new Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, Bechara Rai, with Pope Benedict XVI. The April 14 audience gave me the occasion to think about our new Patriarch’s role in promoting the entrepreneurial vocation in Lebanon. Our new patriarch seems to be a very active, energetic man, in keeping with the majority of his flock, but both his church and his country face many daunting challenges.

Read more on Can Maronites bridge the cultural divides in Lebanon?…

It turns out there’s a phrase for the reality of ‘crony capitalism’ in Hebrew: hon v’shilton, which is “literally translated as capital and government, an expression Israelis use to describe the rich’s influence on government.” Check out Bloomberg Businessweek for an overview of current controversy on Israel’s “business elite.”

Read more on How Do You Say ‘Crony Capitalism’ in Hebrew?…

The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Faith McDonnell:

Conducting “truth commissions” to denounce American armed forces and organizing divestment campaigns to cripple Israel are vital issues to some American church officials. Raising the banner of Intifada and expressing solidarity with Palestinians are also very important to this collection of liberal leaders. They “spiritualize” the Democratic immigration and health care reform agendas with pompous prayer, but their social justice-focused prophetic vision has strange blind spots. Leftist church leaders hardly ever see, let alone condemn, the imprisonment, enslavement, torture, and murder of Christians in the Islamic world, North Korea, and China.

Read more on Progressive Christianity’s habit of ‘Embracing the Tormentors’…

I did a brief interview yesterday with Greg Allen of The Right Balance and have a couple more scheduled for next week. It’s kept me thinking about some of the issues surrounding the debate about Christianity, democracy, and Iraq.

Read more on OT Israel: Constitutional Monarchy?…

“‘Disproportionate’ in What Moral Universe?” asks Charles Krauthammer in today’s Washington Post.

He continues:

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel “proportionate” attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.

Read more on Krauthammer on Proportionality…