Augustine observes that humans are constituted in large part by their sociality. As he puts it in the City of God, “For there is nothing so social by nature as this race, no matter how discordant it has become through its fault.”

I have written that a corollary of the natural law is a vision of society as one based on mutual aid. This includes economic exchange as well as the economy of gifts and the corresponding gratitude, as I have highlighted this week.

But this orientation towards others can take a negative turn. As I noted yesterday, Augustine describes a corrupted kind of “spiteful benevolence.”

C.S. Lewis explores this as well in his description of the person who must always be giving to the point of fostering dependency, foisting oneself upon others, and even creating the need for intervention if necessary. This “unselfish” giving of oneself to others can turn into the most depraved kind of selfishness.

As Wormwood relates a description of such a person in The Screwtape Letters, “She’s the sort of woman who lives for others–you can always tell the others by their hunted expression.”

This kind of need to be needed is of course a corruption of love. By contrast, the true expression of love is exemplified in no more glorious a fashion than the truly other-directed self-giving of a mother.

This is something to remember and celebrate this Mother’s Day.

Over at The High Calling, Michael Kruse observes that many pastors and church leaders are now looking for a “programmatic strategy” for helping their congregations integrate work and discipleship.

The problem, Kruse argues, is that such a strategy doesn’t exist:

As leaders, we need to realize that to make faith and discipleship integrated in our congregations, we cannot do it with our congregation’s existing knowledge and skills, requiring those in our congregation (including ourselves) to make a shift in our values, expectations, attitudes, and behaviors. You see, while some of us sense a need for better integration of faith with vocation, there are significant obstacles.

Most Christians do not have a theological framework that accommodates the integration of faith and vocation. Many are even hostile to the idea. They are more comfortable with a life that is not integrated, compartmentalizing work and discipleship. Any attempts at integration feel like intrusions into their private lives. Worship is viewed as an escape from “secular” concerns. And let’s face it, if we really pursue integration, we will discover uncomfortable things about our lives.

Indeed, as the Acton Institute’s Stephen Grabill points out in his foreword to Lester DeKoster’s Work: The Meaning of Your Life, despite many Christians having an “implicit sense that work is good because it carries out the cultural mandate,” we have failed to grasp that work is, further, “one of the core elements of discipleship and spiritual formation.”

To start chipping away at this convenient and comfortable disposition, Kruse offers some basic and broad ideas to help church leaders begin the integration process with their congregations. (Amy Sherman offered a similarly themed set of recommendations a few months ago.) (more…)

Barbara Hewson, a London barrister, has made the call for lowering the age of sexual consent in the United Kingdom from 16 to 13. Her reasoning (if one may call it that) is that the current age of consent leads to the harassment and “persecution of old men.” She also believes that under-age victims should have no right to anonymity, and that law based on the best interests of the child should not trump the “rights” of men who like to kiss a 13-year-old, or put one’s hand up a 16-year-old’s skirt.

It’s time to end this prurient charade, which has nothing to do with justice or the public interest. Adults and law-enforcement agencies must stop fetishising victimhood. Instead, we should focus on arming today’s youngsters with the savoir-faire and social skills to avoid drifting into compromising situations, and prosecute modern crime. As for law reform, now regrettably necessary, my recommendations are: remove complainant anonymity; introduce a strict statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions and civil actions; and reduce the age of consent to 13.

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Calvin Coolidge, civil rights pioneer?
Kurt L. Schmoke, Politico

The 30th president, Republican Calvin Coolidge, was a major supporter of Howard University and an overlooked figure in advancing the cause of racial equality in the United States.

Texas cheerleaders win in court again over Bible banners
CBS

A judge has ruled that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.

Apples, Oranges, and Four Stones of Common Grace
Ryan Hornbeck, Fieldnotes Magazine

In “The Right Questions” Max De Pree asks: “How are we in our organized life to find common ground in this new [rapidly changing] context? Do we share a vision?”

Big Government Isn’t Compassionate
Elliot Gaiser, AFF Doublethink Online

Conservatives lost the “cares about people like me” vote in the last election, but they can take it back. How? By taking up the cause of poor Americans through new welfare reform – especially if conservatives engage the nation in a debate on the right terms.

Some Christian free market enthusiasts mistakenly believe we have to make a choice between socialism and Randianism. But as Joel Miller points out, there are far better intellectual leaders than Ayn Rand. Wilhelm Röpke is a prime example:

Capitalism has had many defenders. Some, rather than being anti-religious like Rand, are self-consciously Christian. Rand’s contemporary, Wilhelm Röpke, is one such example.

Looking back at the tremendous upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, many responded by embracing socialism, both in Europe and even America. Not Röpke. A professional economist, he lectured, wrote several books, and was partly responsible for engineering Germany’s post-WWII recovery. One of his books, published one year after Atlas Shrugged hit the market, remains essential reading today.

[. . .]

Socialism is a dead end, one that represses human freedom. But I don’t need Rand to tell me that. Rand’s critique is unnecessary and ultimately unhelpful because it is undergirded by an atheistic, anti-Christian philosophy. Our choice isn’t between socialism and Rand. We would be far better served by giving more space to people like Wilhelm Röpke.

Read more . . .

Yahoo! Sports recently posted this interesting video about the Angola Prison Rodeo. In the Volume 22, Number 3 issue of Religion & Liberty,  Ray Nothstine had a chance to go to Angola and interview Burl Cain, the longest serving warden. During the interview Cain says:

I cannot change our reputation because it still makes people shudder, “Angola.” Life magazine called it the bloodiest prison in America. And we can’t shirk the reputation because the people who come here are so violent. People don’t realize how much they can change.

And that’s why we really built the Rodeo up and have so many tours in this riverboat tour. When they stop here in Baton Rouge or St. Francisville, they get in a bus and they come here, because I’m trying to get people to see that this place is not like they thought, and that people can truly change.

Nothstine also discussed Angola in his commentary, Angola Prison, Moral Rehabilitation, and the Things Ahead.

There has been ample evidence presented in the past several years to suggest shareholder activism exhibited via proxy resolutions not only wastes time but, as well, corporate funds. And yet, unions and “social justice” advocates such as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and As You Sow perpetuate the practice to the detriment of targeted companies.

And, according to a recently released study, this activism also works to the shareholders’ detriment as well. In effect, these proxy resolutions shoot the shareholder perpetrators in their own collective foot by reducing the profitability of the companies in which they hold stock – while simultaneously wounding other shareholders who don’t necessarily share the whole leftist/liberal magilla against hydraulic fracturing, free political speech and genetically modified organisms while advocating for network neutrality.

“Analysis of the Wealth Effects of Shareholder Proposals – Volume III” was released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative on May 2. The study was conducted by Navigant Consulting’s Allan T. Ingraham, Ph.D., and Anna Koyfman, whose analysis of proxy resolutions by shareholder activists concludes:

[T]here is no conclusive evidence of measurable improvements in (short-term or long-term) stock market or (long-term) operating performance in target companies as a result of shareholder proposals. Therefore, we find no evidence that shareholder activism has a positive impact either on firms or on the entities offering shareholder resolutions. (more…)

If Baby Boomers are said to have fled to the suburbs in the pursuit of the “American Dream,” using zoning laws as a tool, today’s young adults could be charged with the exact same mission in light of the promises of New Urbanism.

The American Dream has been defined as, “the notion that the American social, economic, and political system makes success possible for every individual.” Baby Boomers moved out to the suburbs in pursuit of the conditions that were believed to lead to social success for themselves and their children–which included, many argue, race and/or class homogenization. Why? Because this is what makes the American Dream a dream. It is not where you pursue social success but the Dream lies in the fact that one expects planned success to be tangibly achieved. In this regard, elites who planned the suburbs for social success, through public/private arrangements, and elites in the cities are both driven by the same cause: a lust for planned social success. It is the same dream in a different zip code.

Like the suburban planning of a few decades ago, New Urbanism promises to set up the conditions for everyone’s social success. For example, the Congress of New Urbanism on the 2012-2017 strategic plan commit to the following:
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In The Examiner, Tim Carney asks, “When do 21 Republicans senators vote for higher taxes? Answer: When the biggest businesses and local politicians hire top K Street lobbyists to push for the tax-hike legislation.”

A few weeks ago I wrote about how government and big corporate collusion decreases market fairness. NPR had a great write up explaining why Amazon is one of the main culprits pushing for expansion of online sales taxes.

Carney explains how former Mississippi Senator and Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott has his hands all over the Market Fairness Act. “Governors all over the country, have been active in saying this is a states’ rights issue for them,” said Lott. The states’ rights argument is that the federal legislation would fully empower governors and state legislatures to collect sales taxes for online purchases.

Carney adds:

Republicans’ aversions to taxes and regulations are often rooted in a desire to be “pro-business.” Once Wal-Mart and Amazon join hands, pro-business Republicans were happy to support legislation leading to higher taxes…

So there’s the formula for winning Republicans over to a tax-hike bill: combine a states’ rights argument with a K Street all-star team representing the biggest businesses in the industry.

In the next issue of Religion & Liberty, author Peter Schweizer talks about cronyism and sheds additional light on Washington’s moral failing to tackle the problem. You can find a preview of that interview on the PowerBlog.

Does the free market encourage moral behavior? Virgil Henry Storr, Research Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, recently wrote a report called “The Impartial spectator and the moral teachings of markets.” He addresses critics’ concerns that the free market brings out and nurtures human vices.

Countless commentators have stated that “engaging in market activity can be corrupting.” Storr highlights two notable quotes. Aristotle “believed that there was something unnatural about the kind of wealth getting that occurred in the market.” Karl Marx “believed that the market could transform man into a ‘spiritual and physical monster.’”

Storr, who is also Director of Graduate Student Programs in the Mercatus Center, addresses these famous claims with quotes from those who have “made the point that markets are moral training grounds where virtues are rewarded and cultivated.” Michael Novak stated that engaging in trade “teaches care, discipline, frugality, clear accounting, providential forethought … fidelity to contracts, honesty in fair dealings, and concern for one’s moral reputation.” Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says:

Capitalism has not corrupted the spirit. On the contrary, had capitalism not enriched the world by a cent nonetheless its bourgeois, antifuedal virtues would have made us better people than in the world we have lost. As a system it has been good for us.”

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