Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Virtue

January 08, 2013

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Intergenerational Justice

So … what happened? With regular coverage of the US “Fiscal Cliff” running up to the new year, PowerBlog readers may be wondering where the discussion has gone. While I am by no means the most qualified to comment on the matter, I thought a basic summary and critique would be in order: With six minutes to read this 157 page bill, the US House of Representatives passed it. Continue Reading...
January 04, 2013

Combatting Textbook Tyranny

In addition to my post in late November about the textbook bubble (spurred by this post from AEI’s Mark Perry), the Atlantic‘s Jordan Weissmann joins the discussion, asking, “Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?” Continue Reading...
December 28, 2012

The ‘Ghost of Fiscal Future’

Matt Mitchell at Neighborhood Effects offers an interesting perspective regarding the fiscal cliff. As we hurriedly approach the edge, Mitchell’s insights ought not to be ignored, whatever the outcome of today’s last minute meeting at the White House. Continue Reading...
December 26, 2012

Life-Long Learners or Good Test-Takers? An Orthodox Christian Critique

The video below of a second grade teacher in Providence, RI reading his letter of resignation has recently gone semi-viral with over 200,000 views on YouTube. What I would like to offer here is an Orthodox Christian critique of the anthropological assumptions that separate this teacher from the “edu-crats,” as he terms them, who in his district so strongly championed standardized testing-oriented education at the exclusion of all other methods and aims. Continue Reading...
December 13, 2012

Asceticism and the Free Society

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to present a paper at the Sophia Institute annual conference at Union Theological Seminary. This year’s topic was “Marriage, Family, and Love in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.” Continue Reading...
October 22, 2012

On Thrift and Generosity

Recently at Big Questions Online, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead answers the question, “Does a culture of thrift cultivate generosity?” with a solid yes, documenting the history of thrift and generosity in the United States and their subsequent and unfortunate decline in recent years: By the 1960s, however, the coalition of national organizations promoting thrift ceased their activities. Continue Reading...
September 26, 2012

Societal Development and the Kalamazoo Promise

In a recent New York Times article (here), Ted C. Fishman offers and in-depth feature on the Kalamazoo Promise: Back in November 2005, when this year’s graduates were in sixth grade, the superintendent of Kalamazoo’s public schools, Janice M. Continue Reading...