Marvin Olasky, a Senior Fellow in Acton’s Research Department, has an article in World Magazine regarding evangelism and effective economic development in Ghana. There is an effort to teach strategic economic skills to budding entrepreneurs incorporating a wholistic approach, combining not only economic lessons, but spiritual ones as well.

Read more on ‘We have no excuse for our poverty. We will not advance without integrity and compassion.’…

Albert Hahn: Dr. Kuyper’s care for the little people (1905)

In yesterday’s post I highlighted a pair of articles that cover the transition over the last 120 years or so in the Netherlands from an emphasis on private charitable giving to reliance upon the welfare state. In some ways this story mirrors a similar transformation in American society as described by Marvin Olasky in his landmark book, The Tragedy of American Compassion.

Olasky’s work does double-duty, however, not only chronicling this transition but cogently arguing the superiority of voluntary aid and charity, which can effectively address both spiritual as well as material aspects of poverty.

In the special issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality on “Modern Christian Social Thought,” we also find a wonderful resource on this topic in the form of Abraham Kuyper’s reflection from 1895 on the relationship of Christ and the gospel to material concerns, “Christ and the Needy.”
Read more on The Tragedy of Dutch Compassion…

All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Galatians 2:10 NIV

This video is part of an extended interview with Rev. Dr. John Dickson (Director, Centre for Public Christianity and Senior Research Fellow, Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University) for The Faith Effect, a project of World Vision Australia. (HT: Justin Taylor)

Read more on Continuing to Remember the Poor…

In a world in which experience and reality drove political decisions on the economy, the claims made in the recent op-ed by Sen. John Kyl would be considered too obvious to warrant publication. Unfortunately, we don’t live in such a world, which is why it’s important to have politicians willing to point out the obvious:
Read more on The Correlation Between Prosperity and Economic Freedom Is No Coincidence…

If you weren’t able to attend last week’s Acton Lecture Series event here at Acton’s Grand Rapids office, we’ve got you covered. we’re pleased to present video of Rudy Carrasco’s lecture, entitled “Business as Mission 2.0,” below.

Read more on Video: Business as Mission 2.0…

In The American Spectator, Acton Institute’s Michael Matheson Miller throws his hat into the ring as he launches a tongue-in-cheek candidacy for World Bank president, but also raises serious questions about the institution’s poverty fighting programs. Miller is a research fellow at Acton, where he directs PovertyCure, an initiative that promotes enterprise solutions to poverty. Jeffrey Sachs — are you listening?

Read more on Miller: Here I Come to Save the World Bank…

Rudy Carrasaco, US Regional Director for Partners World Wide speaks today at the Acton Lecture Series about Business as Mission 2.0.

Take a look at this short video of Rudy on Business as Mission and Transforming Communities that we did for PovertyCure. Rudy will be featured in the forthcoming PovertyCure curriculum.

Read more on Business as Mission 2.0…

We all know the promises government has made over the years about how certain programs and initiatives would eradicate poverty. But perhaps nothing rivals the Methodist movement in terms of effectively stamping out poverty in England. Charles Edward White and Bobby Butler’s essay “John Wesley’s Church Planting Movement: Discipleship that Transformed a Nation and Changed the World” is a splendid overview of Methodism’s impact on English society, especially as it relates to the middle class explosion.

Read more on What Methodism Teaches us about Poverty…

Acton’s Director of Media Michael Matheson Miller joined host Dave Jaconette this morning on WJRW Radio in Grand Rapids, Michigan for an interview touching on a number of subjects including 3rd world poverty, Kony 2012, entrepreneurship in the developing world, and even a discussion of the HHS mandate issue.

Read more on Audio: Miller on Kony 2012 & HHS Mandates…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. The important thing is neither that bitterness nor envy should have gnawed at the heart during this time, that we should have come to look with new eyes at matters great and small, sorrow and joy, strength and weakness, that our perception of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy should have become clearer, freer, less corruptible. We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune. This perspective from below must not become the partisan possession of those who are eternally dissatisfied; rather, we must do justice to life in all its dimensions from a higher satisfaction, whose foundation is beyond any talk of ‘from below’ or ‘from above’. This is the way in which we may affirm it.

Read more on Bonhoeffer on ‘the view from below’…