Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Jordan Ballor'

March 14, 2013

5 TV Shows That Demonstrate the Importance of Ordinary Work

Television is often lamented for its propensity to exaggerate the mundane and the ordinary. Yet when it comes to something as routinely downplayed and unfairly pooh-poohed as our daily work—the “rat race,” the “grindstone,” yadda-yadda—I wonder if television’s over-the-top tendencies might be just what we need to reorient our thinking about the broader significance of our work. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2013

Not All Exchange Is Created Equal

Jordan Ballor recently reviewed Nicholas Eberstadt’s A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic, pointing out in some additional commentary that when “government is contiguous with society…perhaps our conceptions of ‘making’ and ‘taking’ need some re-examination.” Continue Reading...
December 28, 2012

The ‘Ghost of Fiscal Future’

Matt Mitchell at Neighborhood Effects offers an interesting perspective regarding the fiscal cliff. As we hurriedly approach the edge, Mitchell’s insights ought not to be ignored, whatever the outcome of today’s last minute meeting at the White House. Continue Reading...
November 30, 2012

The Future of Free Enterprise

In a web exclusive preview to the latest issue of Renewing Minds, a new journal of Christian thought from Union University, Jordan Ballor considers the future of free enterprise: That the United States has been blessed with great prosperity is beyond argument. Continue Reading...
November 28, 2012

Commentary: Living in the Shadow of the Fiscal Cliff

Jordan Ballor looks at the bipartisan lack of discipline in Washington on debt and spending, and the effect on future generations. “Christians, whose citizenship is ultimately not of this world and whose identity and perspective must likewise be eternal and transcendent, should not let our viewpoints be determined by the tyranny of the short-term,” he writes. Continue Reading...
October 03, 2012

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today

Jordan Ballor’s paper, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today,” just made the Social Science Research Network’s current Top Ten download list for Philosophy of Religion eJournal. From the abstract: Last century’s Protestant consensus on the rejection of natural law has been quested in recent decades, but Protestant social thought still has much work to do in order to articulate a coherent and cogent witness to contemporary realities. Continue Reading...
September 12, 2012

Leaves and Fruit: The Spiritual Value of Manual Labor

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.” Continue Reading...