Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics

November 27, 2013

When Economic Moralism Clashes with Reality

With the November 26 publication of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, we have the first teaching document that is truly his own. And it very much shows, both in style and content, compared to the encyclical Lumen Fidei, which was mostly written by Pope Benedict XVI. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2013

Pilgrims, Property Rights, and the Source of Stewardship

Each Thanksgiving brings with it another opportunity to pause, meditate, and express our gratitude for the great blessings in life. As one who recently welcomed a new baby boy to my family, it seems particularly evident this season that the greatest blessings are not, after all, material. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2013

Amazon, Kmart, and the Moral Limits of Shopping

Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who is’t that can inform me? Continue Reading...
November 26, 2013

The End of Urban Ministry

Derick Scudder, senior pastor at Bethel Chapel Church, an evangelical congregation in the northern part of Philadelphia, recently completed a 4-part series explaining why he is “done with urban ministry.” Bethel Chapel is a “Bible-teaching church focused on the Good News that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Continue Reading...
November 22, 2013

Israel Really Wants A King (Part I)

I recently posted some thoughts at The Power Blog on “God’s Problem With Centralized Power”, which took a macro view of what I believe to be God’s clear disdain for mankind pursuing their own ends instead of His articulated purposes when it comes to how we organize ourselves communally. Continue Reading...
November 13, 2013

Sports Journalism, Cultural Marxism, and the Miami Dolphins

Class struggle. Racially-charged rhetoric. Anti-capitalist diatribes. Sounds like the lineup to a “Fantasy Diversity” team from a sociology professor at Wellesley College, right? Alas, I’m merely referring to the controversy surrounding ex-Miami Dolphins players Jonathan Martin (black) and Richie Incognito (white).   Continue Reading...
November 12, 2013

How Does the Economy Actually Work?

In every stage of my formal schooling – from high school to college to graduate school – I’ve taken courses in economics. Yet with all that education I still struggle to understand a seemingly simple question: How does the economy actually work? Continue Reading...