As we close out the year, we want to thank our PowerBlog readers for reading and contributing to our blog. If you’re a new reader we encourage you to catch up by checking out our top 10 most popular posts for 2012: 1. What’s Next in the Fight Against the HHS Mandate Elise Hilton Kyle Duncan, general counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, gives us a glimpse of what is ahead in the fight for religious liberty regarding...

It was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire. The Brits colonized vast areas of the earth, civilizing exotic places with the likes of afternoon tea and cricket. Oh, and happily using up natural resources along the way. Those days are gone, but we’ve entered a new era of colonialism: renting the wombs of women in exotic places to fulfill a desire to have a child, under any circumstances. And now the natural resources are the...

Christian’s Library Press has released the third book in their Work & Economics series,Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work, and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship by Charlie Self. Dr. Self isdirector of PhD studies in Bible and theology and associate professor of church history at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri. Previous books in the series wereFlourishing Faith by Chad Brand andHow God Makes the World A Better Place by David Wright. While Pentecostal Christianity...

In an effort to foster goodwill amid fiscal cliff negotiations, Starbucks aimed to send a message to Congress by instructing its D.C.-area employees to write “Come Together” on every cup of coffee sold. Critiques abound, with this post from Mickey Kaus grabbingmuchof the attention, asking, “Is Starbucks a cult?” From Kaus: “Room for smarm in your latte?”Isn’t there something creepy about Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz having [in Politico‘s words] “asked his Washington-area employees to write ‘Come Together’ on each customer...

Note: This is the second in a series on developing a Christian mind in business school. You can find the intro and links to all previous posts here. Before we move on to how to think Christianly in business school, we should first discuss how to think Christianly about the decision to go (or not go) to b-school. For many Christians—particularly my fellow evangelicals—the concept of thinking Christianly about decision-making is reduced to a simply-stated yet deeply confused question: “Does...

In the German newsmagazine Spiegel, Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati says that foreign aid to Africa is doing more harm than good: SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa… Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really...

Acton’s Twitter followers are at an all-time high, and we’re gaining about 45 new followers every month. Here’s a look back at our 10 Most Tweetable Moments of 2012: Acton Commentary: The LBJ Curse on the Black Vote How to explain the entitlement crisis to an 8 year old The FRC Shooting & the vocation of a hero The Israelites of the Hebrew Bible never quite figured out how best to arrange human political affairs Internships for 2012 Christian schools...

The BBC News reports that 1 out of 10 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are struggling to cope with life. The main culprit: despair related to unemployment. The survey of 2,000 teens and young adults was conducted by The Prince’s Trust Youth Index. The mentators seem surprised that education and training opportunities alone are not enough to provide hope for unemployed young people. Young people rightly want to know why they are training for jobs that...