From the PowerBlog archives:

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

–U.S. Book of Common Prayer, “For Labor Day,” (1979), p. 261

The devastation that we have seen this week in the Gulf Coast region and especially New Orleans is almost beyond our capacity to understand. Our instinct is to do something – anything – to help those in need, but when the crisis is this huge, what does one do?

Writing for National Review Online, Karen Woods, the Director of Acton’s Center for Effective Compassion, lays out some ways that we can most effectively use our resources to help the many thousands who are in need.

When we give, we are demonstrating that each of us bears the image of God. Even the smallest, simplest act is of great value.

Many people are suffering this weekend, and will be for some time to come. There are ways that those of us who were not in the path of the storm can help. I encourage you to seek out a reputable charity this weekend and give, if you haven’t done so already. And don’t forget to pray for those who have lost homes, property, and loved ones in this terrible calamity.

Pro running back Warrick Dunn, a native of Louisiana, is challenging every NFL player (other than New Orleans Saints) to donate at least $5,000 to hurricane relief efforts. “If we get players to do that, that would amount to $260,000 per team. I have heard from so many players both on my team and around the league who just want to do something. Well, this is the best thing that we can do and it’s something we should do,” he said. Dunn, a former Pro Bowler, starts for the Atlanta Falcons and played college ball for Florida State.

Dunn is from Baton Rouge, but he still doesn’t know the status of his grandfather who lives in New Orleans. His is clearly a heartfelt and genuine plea: “We’re such a great country and it’s at times like this a great country has to come together. We’re looking at people on TV who have no money, no homes, no job and no idea what they’re going to do with their lives. Now is when they need us most. We just have to respond and we have to respond.”

This effort by Dunn is a clear reminder that the purpose of work must be oriented beyond the mere accumulation of wealth. As the Heidelberg Catechism states, one of the major reasons that a person labors is “so that I may share with those in need” (LD 42, A 111).

The donations will be coordinated with the Arthur Blank family charitable foundation and a vote by NFL player representatives will determine which agencies receive the funds.

Dunn’s challenge is a pointed one: “If guys don’t donate they’re being selfish,” he said. He not only talks the talk, but he walks the walk. Dunn started the Warrick Dunn Foundation in March of 2002, dedicated “to help single mother families obtain first-time homeownership.”

This purpose flows out of Dunn’s experience growing up. Here’s a brief biographical excerpt from the foundation website: “As the oldest of six, Warrick grew up watching his mother, Betty Smothers, provide for he and his five siblings. As a single mother she worked endless hours as a Baton Rouge police officer and several off-duty jobs to make ends meet. During Warrick’s senior year at Catholic high school, his mother’s life was taken in the line of duty, leaving him the responsibility of keeping the family together. Although she worked hard all of her life, Betty was never able to realize the American dream of owning her own home.”

Clearly Warrick Dunn, diminuitive by NFL standards (5′ 9″, 180 lbs.), has a huge heart.

Following the devastation in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, bands of looters are running rampant throughout the city. Things have gotten so bad that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin “ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and stop thieves who were becoming increasingly hostile.”

According to reports, “Looters used garbage cans and inflatable mattresses to float away with food, clothes, TV sets — even guns. Outside one pharmacy, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break through the glass. The driver of a nursing-home bus surrendered the vehicle to thugs after being threatened.”

In the newest developments, looters are taking a cue popularized in the controversial game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. A common strategy in that game is to wreak havoc, wait for emergency personnel and ambulances to arrive, and then kill the rescue workers as well. This tactic has been seen in terrorist activities around the world. For example, in Iraq, “insurgents had planned to detonate the car bomb first , and then the two vest bombers would target responding Iraqi soldiers, police, and rescue workers.”

The evacuation of victims from the Superdome in New Orleans has been delayed after shots were fired at a military helicopter. Other reports include that of a rescue team: “When a medical evacuation helicopter tried to land at a hospital in the outlying town of Kenner, the pilot reported that 100 people were on the landing pad, and some of them had guns.”

Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome, said that the pilot was “was frightened and would not land.” He said medics were calling him and crying for help because they were so scared of people with guns at the Superdome.

The Christian tradition has dealt with the question of “Whether it is lawful to steal through stress of need?” In the situation of extreme need, such as that of Jean Valjean of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Thomas Aquinas writes, “If the need be so manifest and urgent, that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand (for instance when a person is in some imminent danger, and there is no other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this properly speaking theft or robbery.”

This judgment is made based on a view of property rights that is not absolute, but rather limited by the Christian concept of stewardship. Aquinas states, “Since, however, there are many who are in need, while it is impossible for all to be succored by means of the same thing, each one is entrusted with the stewardship of his own things, so that out of them he may come to the aid of those who are in need.” The prerogative of individual prudence of how to manage and distrubute one’s own goods can be trumped by the extreme and urgent need of another person.

Even so, the kinds of things that are being taken by looters in New Orleans hardly qualify as meeting a “manifest and urgent” need. Taking food and water when you are on the verge of starvation and death is one thing. Breaking in to a store so you can score some more guns is quite another. Somehow I don’t think that taking a Glock or a TV set meets Aquinas’ criteria.

The Census Bureau today released a report citing that 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003. "I was surprised," said Sheldon Danziger, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. "I thought things would have turned around by now." What’s missing are the poverty threshold numbers that reveal that a family of four is considered "poor" if family income is below $19,000. What’s actually on the rise is not the number of poor people but the minimum income required for official "poverty" status. In 1980, a family of four was poor if income was below $8,400.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the formation of Poland’s Solidarity movement. Samuel Gregg says that Solidary gives us a view of a labor union whose “stand for the truth about the human person and against the lie of Marxism contributed immeasurably to the collapse of one of the two great totalitarian evils that disfigured the twentieth-century.”

Read the full text here.

Rev. Robert Sirico responds to Pat Robertson’s highly-publicized call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. “What is needed here, I believe, is a time of reflection. Christianity is not a national religion. It is does not regard every enemy of the nation-state as worthy of execution. It prefers peace to war. It chooses diplomacy over threat. It respects the right to life of everyone, even those who have objectionable political views,” he writes.

Read the full text here.

Courtesy of Rev. Eric Andrae, Lutheran pastor Bo Giertz offers us a great exposition of the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and sums up the importance of the pastoral ministry. “‘It is a great thing to receive a heritage…. It is wonderful to stand in the same pulpit, to learn of [those who have gone before us,] and to carry forward the work they began. Sir…, can anything be greater than to be a pastor in God’s church?’” (Bo Giertz, The Hammer of God, 191).

President Bush offered an indirect answer to Giertz’s question last week. According to the McLaughlin Group (see Issue one: Uncle Sam wants you bad), in a speech from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president said: “I thank those of you who’ve reenlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces.”

The juxtaposition of these two quotes gives us an excellent opportunity to recall Jesus’ most excellent maxim: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21 NIV).

The Americans brought this on themselves.

That’s one reaction coming from around the world as it surveys the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. In what can only be described as callously political maneuvering, Germany’s environmental minister Jürgen Trittin said today, “The increasing frequency of these natural events can only be explained through global warming which is caused by people.”

Instead of offering condolences, well-wishes, or prayers, minister Tritten delivered the judgment of secular environmentalists. The Americans’ crime? “A U.S. citizen causes about two and a half times as much greenhouse gas as the average European,” said Trittin.

This mirrors the reaction of religious global warming advocates following the Indian Ocean tsunami late last year. The global warming boogeyman, blamed for seemingly everything under the sun, is the knee-jerk explanation for any natural disaster these days.

As one paper puts it, “Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.”

Why deal in facts when hysteria and rhetorical excess can do the trick instead? “The severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught ‘is very much natural,’ said William Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.”

Those scientists who do see a link between global warming and increases in the number and intensity of hurricanes are opposed by those who realize “worldwide weather records are far too inadequate for a thorough examination of such trends.”

As for the disastrous effects of Hurricane Katrina, the prudence of building a huge coastal city under sea level should be questioned long before any issues related to global warming arise.

Global warming serves as a convenient scapegoat in place of the recognition of the God of heaven and earth (see Job 38-41). As God says to Job, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:11 NIV). Hurricane Katrina should serve as a reminder to all of us of the fleeting days of life and the priority of the eternal over the temporal, a modern-day object lesson to heed the words of Jesus.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matthew 7:24-27 NIV).

Update: More on Trittin’s comments at Davids Medienkritik

Outsiders looking from the outside into Europe will probably answer that question in the affirmative, and with good reason. The churches are emptying, the economies are tanking, and the politicians continue to fiddle along. Very few have a clue of how to fix things.

Very few, but not all.

The President of the Czech Republic, Vผlav Klaus, spoke at a Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Iceland last week. Citing Friedrich von Hayek and Raymond Aron, Klaus has a clear eye for the remnants of socialism that still plague the continent.

The full text of his remarks can be found here. There’s an audio recording of his speech here.

He’s particularly good at diagnosing the new ideologies or “isms” that dominate Europe. These include environmentalism, radical human rightsism, multiculturalism, feminism, apolitical technocratism, internationalism and even NGOism!

It’s a brilliant speech, and by its very nature, impossible for other Euro-pols to reproduce. But the first step to a solution is to recognize the problem. And that Klaus has done. It is a sign of hope in the heart of Europe.

(HT: The Brussels Journal via Instapundit.)