The first Christmas after my wife and I were married, we received an interesting gift from her grandparents - a year's worth of dues for membership at their Moose lodge. We had visited the lodge with them and other family members, using the expansive dance floor in a conservative setting to two-step our way to an enjoyable evening, but we had never seriously considered ing members. Exercising the gift meant joining the lodge and going through its applications and...

Graying hippies with ponytails hold forth on the minutiae of capitalism. Sixties psychedelic music is used mercials for retirement planning. Your broker has a tattoo. Is not this strange? All around us, the square and the hip have morphed into an odd new thing. Bohemians and bourgeoisie, batants, are now convivial, enjoying venti cappuccinos in each pany in coffee houses all across upscale American neighborhoods. At least that is the contention of David Brooks, senior editor of the Weekly...

In this book, as the title suggests, New Testament scholar Craig L. Blomberg states his purpose as giving prehensive survey, in roughly historical sequence, of the major biblical witnesses to a theology of wealth for people in the church age–that is, from Pentecost onward” (30). Christian scholars of the more orthodox type will look hopefully to the notable aims of the volume, as to those of the entire series of studies in biblical theology of which it is a...

In 1994, a group of evangelical Christian scholars, members of the Evangelical Environmental Network, circulated a document titled “An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.“ The document’s aim was to spur concern for environmental action on the part of evangelical Christians. Care of Creation renews the call for the greening of evangelicalism and presents a series mentaries on that document by such notable theologians as Richard Bauckham, Calvin DeWitt, John Guillebaud, Jürgen Moltmann, Oliver O'Donovan, Ronald Sider, John...

Adam Smith (1723—1790) is best remembered today as the celebrated author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), who defined the workings of market economies and defended principles of liberty. To his contemporaries, particularly his fellow thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith was recognized first for his profoundly original contributions to moral philosophy and natural jurisprudence. In an important new book, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment, Charles Griswold, professor of philosophy at Boston University, challenges readers to look...

My love for the game of golf is, alas, not matched by an equivalent level of skill. Like many duffers, I tend to overcorrect. If I hook a shot, I am just as likely to slice the next, and my journey up the fairway reminds any spectator brave enough to watch of a drunken sailor tacking. Or I may push my putt past the hole only to follow by leaving the next one short. A good golfer learns from...

In one sense, this is a book that would make any economist happy. In describing the material and spiritual “state of the union,” Myers uses a framework of “on one hand” and “on the other hand.” Harry Truman once remarked that he wanted a one-armed economist to avoid hearing bination. But here, it is a pleasing characteristic, as Myers provides a thorough and mostly balanced survey of the relevant research on an array of topics that are crucial to...

Few Roman Catholic saints are the objects of as much sustained interest as Sir Thomas More (1478–1535). The highly favorable reception of Peter Ackroyd’s impressive 1998 biography, The Life of Thomas More, is one recent reminder of this fact; one has a hard time imagining a 450-page biography of Saint Theresa of Avila or Saint Anthony the Hermit being the featured selection of The Book-of-the-Month Club or described as a “brilliant” account of a person of conscience by Time...

Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits is the latest e out in an emerging series that carries the title, The Ethics of Everyday Life. In the preface, the editors describe it innocently enough as having been “produced by a group of friends [they are Timothy Fuller, Amy A. Kass, Leon R. Kass, Richard John Neuhaus, Mark Schwehn, and Meilaender], united by a desire to revive public interest in and attention to these matters [everyday ethical ones], now sadly neglected.”...