On January 18-19, over 200 Christians gathered at the Common Good RVA event in Richmond, VA, to “explore what it means to see our everyday work as a meaningful part of our Christian calling.” Barrett Clark, director of strategy and analytics for Ivy Ventures, attended the event and provided a helpful summary to On Call in Culture.

By Barrett Clark

Throughout history, the term “common good” has been used in a variety of ways, taking on various meanings, often in the service of personal or political ends.

At the recent Common Good RVA event in Richmond, VA, hosted by Christianity Today and two Richmond churches, local believers were challenged to give meaning to the phrase in their faith and daily lives. As the event sought to affirm, the Common Good is ultimately God–acting through his people, by his delegation.

The conference was an extension of Christianity Today’s This is Our City series, which covers Christian-led cultural renewal efforts in several American cities, whether it be selling mattresses or providing low-cost lighting to the developing world. With a band, beards, and a program broken up by videos and tweets, the event had all the signs of a conference geared toward 20- and 30-something creatives and young professionals.

Andy Crouch, senior editor of Christianity Today, led the event, covering some of the main points from his book, Culture Making. Pointing to the current state of American Protestant church, Crouch drew parallels with 19th-century Pope Leo XIII, who chose to lead from a position of spiritual power when the Catholic Church lost a degree of temporal power in physical territory and earthly governance. In a similar way, Crouch argued, today’s American church is losing some of its own temporal power when it comes to directly influencing government, policy, and power. Once again, we are pressed to rely more heavily on spiritual power, engaging society and culture for the Common Good at lower, closer levels of human interaction and engagement. Read more on Promoting Community Flourishing at Common Good RVA…

I have been highlighting James Madison’s words on religious conscience on the PowerBlog over the past several weeks. The HHS Mandate is not simply an issue that can be wished, compromised, or willed away. Rick Warren’s statement, “I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do” is tied to Madison’s thoughts below. Madison has an understanding here that a citizen must be faithful to his religious conscience above and beyond any whims of the state. In fact, a citizen that is loyal to the higher order first can be compelled to act in good faith concerning the civil law. Thus to Madison, the highest law is the “Universal Sovereign” and man’s duty to his Creator trumps any civil pronouncement. Virginia’s advancement on the issue of religious liberty specifically found its way into the Bill of Rights.

Read more on Madison: Religious Conscience Trumps Civil Pronouncements…

James Madison has rightfully been forever identified as father of the U.S. Constitution, author of the Bill of Rights and coauthor of the Federalist Papers. In his new biography of America’s fourth president, Richard Brookhiser introduces us to Madison the politician. In many ways, Madison is the father of modern American politics, with all its partisanship, wheeling and dealing, vote getting, partisan media, and popular opinion polling.

Read more on Madison the Politician…

Mark your calendar! As announced earlier this year, Dr. Hunter Baker is the recipient of the 2011 Novak Award. Hunter will deliver the 11^th annual Calihan Lecture and receive this year’s Novak Award on October 5, 2011 at Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. Hunter’s presentation will conclude a day-long conference, “Whole Life Discipleship: Integrating Faith, Economics, & Work,” which will consist of two other lectures and a panel discussion. For more information or to register to attend, please see the event page or the press release.

Read more on Hunter Baker to Deliver Acton Institute’s Calihan Lecture…

In what is another book that points to America’s cultural divide, Gina Welch decides to go undercover at the late Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. An atheist, Yale and University of Virginia liberal graduate from Berkeley, California, Welch declares her undercover ruse was needed to better understand evangelicals.

Read more on Review: In the Land of Believers…

Whoever wrote this deserves an award for managing to keep all of the various threads together. It’s almost a perfect storm of public policy ineptitude:

Just in case you lost track of the bouncing ball, here it is: Virginia has finally put the crisis-ignoring haters of truth in their place by passing a roads package to encourage the use of cars that are destroying the planet, so people can reach their sprawling subdivisions that Virginia is trying to keep in check with tax-subsidized conservation easements that will grow less popular as corn grows more expensive thanks to ethanol mandates from a federal government that is also mandating a cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay whose pollution will be made worse by corn farming.

I’m almost positive that there’s a really powerful moral to this story having to do with good governmental intentions going awry or something, but I’m laughing too hard to tease it out and I really need to get to bed, so go ahead and figure it out for yourselves.

Read more on We’re Doomed. Just Accept it….