AEI’s Values & Capitalism recently posted an interview with Dr. Charlie Self, professor at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and senior advisor for the Acton Institute. In the last few weeks, I’ve posted several excerpts from Self’s new book, Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work, and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship, which he discusses at length in the interview.
Read more on Charlie Self on Spiritual Empowerment in Work and Economics…
Joe Carter has done a marvelous job of outlining the details surrounding the Obama administration’s abortion/contraceptive mandate. In a recent cover story for WORLD Magazine, these details are brought to life through a series of snapshots of real businesses and non-profits facing a real choice to either violate their Christian consciences or become economic martyrs.
Thus far, Hobby Lobby has received much of the national spotlight—due in part to their visibility in the marketplace and corresponding outspokenness. In the WORLD article, we begin to see the bigger picture, beginning with Chris and Paul Griesedieck, brothers and owners of American Pulverizer, a small, 105-year-old, family-owned manufacturing company, which could face fines of up to $5 million per year if the owners choose to be guided by Christian principles above economic penalties:
Like Hobby Lobby and other plaintiffs, the Griesediecks filed a lawsuit against HHS. They say the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (a law designed to protect against government infringement of religious freedom) and their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion. The brothers made a simple argument based on Christian principles: “It would be sinful for us to pay for services that have a significant risk of causing the death of embryonic lives.”
…Frank Manion—an attorney at the American Center for Law and Justice—represents the Griesediecks, and says the federal government is imposing a stark choice on his clients and all Christian employers who oppose the mandate: “Abandon their beliefs in order to stay in business, or abandon their business in order to stay true to their beliefs.”
Abraham Kuyper famously wrote that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” This view may seem uncontroversial to some, yet it is increasingly seen by our scrupulous government overlords to be irrelevant to First Amendment protections: Read more on When Little Government Foxes Spoil the Vines of Business and Ministry…
Panel: “Why Morality-Free Economic Theory Doesn’t Work”
“Why Morality-Free Economic Theory Does Not Work: A Natural Law Perspective in the Wake of the Recent Financial Crisis.” The recent worldwide financial crisis has revealed a serious flaw in current thinking about markets and morals. Contemporary legal theorists and political economists commonly assume that markets can (and even should) provide morally neutral zones for the exchange of goods among free persons, constrained by nothing other than the laws of contract and the imperatives of self-interest. Professor Bruni’s lecture will challenge this dominant assumption, and will offer an alternative, ‘natural law’ perspective on the interrelatedness of markets, morals, and human sociality.
Ahead of tonight’s vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Hunter Baker (a Baptist political scholar) and I (a Reformed moral theologian), offer up some thoughts as “Protestants in Praise of Catholic Social Teaching” in a special edition of Acton Commentary.
Read more on Up for Debate: Catholic Social Teaching and Political Discourse…
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:
Read more on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today…
Thanks to Andrew Walker for a great review of Wisdom & Wonder appearing in the fall issue of The City:
It is important to remember that for Kuyper, reflection upon these disciples is not for the sake of their own merit, but instead, in an attempt to bring a coherent understanding of how, as the foreword states, ‘the gospel, and thereby the practice of the Christian faith, relates to every single area of society.’
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Many who profess an interest in Kuyper have often become Kuyperians by reading about Kuyper instead of reading him. For many, Kuyper’s influence is mediated through second-hand sources. Wisdom & Wonder is an important step in bringing Kuyper’s cultural theology to bear on new audiences.
Wisdom & Wonder consists of the last ten chapters of Volume 3 in the larger Common Grace set by Abraham Kuyper. Common Grace Volume 1 will be released in early 2013. Click here for more information on the Kuyper Translation project. Read Walker’s entire review here, and connect with the Common Grace project on Facebook here.
Are you a risk-adverse investor? Then you may want to avoid choosing a mutual fund that’s headquartered in an area with lots of Catholics.
New research from the University of Georgia and Southern Methodist University and published in Management Science shows that the dominant local religion—whether Protestant or Catholic—significantly affects mutual fund behaviors.
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…
On of Chuck Colson’s heroes was Abraham Kuyper, and when we set out to publish a translation of Kuyper’s three volumes on the topic of common grace, Chuck was happy to support the project.
Here’s what he said about the first selection from the larger translation project, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art:
Abraham Kuyper was a profound theologian, an encyclopedic thinker, and a deeply spiritual man who believed that it is the believer’s task ‘to know God in all his works.’ In a day when secular science is seeking to establish hegemony over all knowing, and when postmodern art is threatening to bring an end to art, Kuyper’s solid, Biblical insights can help to restore perspective and sanity to these two critical areas of creation.
Beroud, Louis (1852–1930) Central Dome of the World Fair in Paris 1889
The newest edition of the Journal of Markets & Morality is now available online to subscribers.
This issue of the journal (14.2) is actually a theme issue on Modern Christian Social Thought. Accordingly, all ten articles engage the history and substance of various approaches to Modern Christian Social Thought, with special emphasis on the Reformed and Roman Catholic traditions.
There is also another installment of our Controversy section, featuring a three-way debate over the question, “Does Libertarianism Tempt Some Catholics to Stray from Catholic Social Thought?”
As always we have another thorough collection of first-rate book reviews from top scholars and experts in the fields of theology, ethics, and economics.
Lastly, our Status Quaestionis section includes two works from the nineteenth century which have never before been translated into English: “Critical Analysis of the First Concepts of Social Economy” (1857) by Luigi Taparelli, SJ and “Christ and the Needy” (1895) by Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper. All in all, it may possibly be our largest issue yet.
Read more on Journal of Markets & Morality 14.2…
