Latest Posts

Dear Grads: Welcome To Work

If you’re a college grad, what was your first job out of college? Mine was working at a day-care center. It was not my dream job. I’m not sure I even knew then what my dream job was, but I knew that wasn’t it. Continue Reading...

The Myth of Homo Economicus

“As a social psychologist, I have long been amused by economists and their curiously delusional notion of the ‘rational man.’” writes Carol Tavris. “Rational? Where do these folks live?” In a review of behavioral economist Richard Thaler’s new book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Tavris notes how economists are slowly beginning to see — or, one could argue, finally returning to the notion — that the discipline ought treat man as more than a mere robot or calculator. Continue Reading...

Religion & Liberty: From Shark Tank to Redemption

The Houston- based Prison Entrepreneurship Program looks at convicted criminals as if they were “raw metal in the hands of a blacksmith – crude, formless, and totally moldable.” PEP puts prisoners through a rigorous character training and business skills regimen to prepare them for a productive, even flourishing, re-entry to life after incarceration. Continue Reading...

Senate Approves Religious Freedom Measure for Trade Bill

Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted 92-0 to approve an amendment which adds a religious liberty provision to the overall negotiating objectives outlined in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The addition would require the Administration to take religious freedom into account whenever negotiating trade agreements within the partnership. Continue Reading...

The Moral Mess Of Myanmar

Greed. Lust. Corruption. Thirst for power. A wretched lack of compassion for human life. That is Myanmar. Myanmar is home to 1.3 million Rohingya, a religious and cultural minority in what was once known as Burma. Continue Reading...

How to Help Syrian Refugees

I attended an informative — and very moving — presentation yesterday on the humanitarian relief effort underway in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. The talk was given here in Grand Rapids by Mark Ohanian, director of programs for International Orthodox Christian Charities (see my podcast with him here). Continue Reading...