Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of WORLD Magazine, just listed Samuel Gregg’s Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future in his mid-Winter roundup of books to read. He says:
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Andreas Widmer joins Rev. Robert Sirico on WORLD Magazine’s best business books of 2011-2012 list with The Pope & the CEO: John Paul II’s Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard named as a top five book in business. Widmer is an Acton Research Fellow in Entrepreneurship and a 2012 Acton University lecturer. Here’s what David Bahnsen, senior vice president at a leading financial firm, had to say about Widmer’s book:
Rev. Robert Sirico, Acton Institute president and co-founder, released Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, in late May and the book has been no stranger to critical acclaim ever since. The latest? Defending the Free Market cracks WORLD Magazine’s top five business books of the past year. Sirico’s book is critically necessary for 2012 says David Bahnsen, senior vice president at a leading financial firm:
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My recent piece in The American Spectator took the left to task for its misuse of the terms justice and social justice. The piece was more than a debate over semantics. In it I noted that Sojourners and its CEO, Jim Wallis, continue to promote well-intended but failed strategies that actually hurt the social and economic well-being of poor communities. I also called on everyone with a heart for the poor to set aside a top-down model of charity that “has trapped so many humans in a vicious cycle of paternalism and dependency” and instead to focus “on cultivating political and economic freedom for the world’s poor.” Sojourners’ Tim King responded here and then emailed me to ask for my thoughts on his response. I’ll start by emphasizing a few areas of agreement, adding a caveat here and there so as not to overstate the areas of overlap, and then I’ll move on to some areas of difference.
The recent budget battle may have sparked new questions for Americans to answer, such as what is poverty and who falls under such a classification? Furthermore, due to its massive debt, government may need a limited role in helping the poor. While Christians who stood behind the Circle of Protection advocated for the protection of programs they claim that benefit the poor, other Christians looked at the debate differently arguing for another way to help the poor. However, despite how we decide to help the poor, is our understanding of what it means to be poor misleading?
The green movement has had a dramatic, long lasting impact on public policy, individuals, and even religion. But many people of faith have criticized supporters of the green movement, equating its strong followers with those who practice a pagan religion in support of Mother Nature.
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On Nov. 18, at the General Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, Gene Edward Veith of Patrick Henry College gave a lecture titled, “Vocation: The Doctrine of Christian Life.” In the lecture, he explains why theological educators can’t fulfill their own vocation until they recover the vocations of those around them. The lecture was sponsored by the Oikonomia Network, a project of the Kern Family Foundation, dedicated to integrating discipleship with everyday life by developing a biblical perspective on work and economics. The event was hosted by Greg Forster, the Foundation’s program director for American history, economics and religion.
World magazine has an update on the Jim Wallis story that I blogged about earlier this week.
A Sojourners spokesman today reversed an earlier Wallis denial and confirmed the organization has received funding from Soros’ Open Society Institute. Sojourners is a leading organization on the religious left founded by Wallis, who is a spiritual adviser to President Obama. Soros is the billionaire financier of Moveon.org, a Democrat-leaning organization that pushes for abortion, atheism, bigger government, and other progressive causes.
Got the socialism blues? Worried that a friend or maybe a teenage son or daughter may contract a nasty case of it? Marvin Olasky at World magazine recommends former Acton research fellow Jay Richards’ 2009 HarperOne book, Money Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem:
While the Samaritan Award is on hiatus for 2009, be sure to check out WORLD Magazine’s Hope Award for Effective Compassion.
WORLD is profiling nine finalists for the award, continuing the “Profiles in Effective Compassion” series began by highlighting Samaritan Award finalists in 2006.
