Contrary to the trite assertion made every year by people who don’t know how to appreciate football, it is not really true that mercials the best thing about the Super Bowl (at least not always). Sure, it seems that way because the television viewer is mercials than actual game play (in an average game, theratio mercials to playing time is seven to one). The reality, however, is that most of mercials aren’t all that memorable. Only a few stand out...

Wanting a baby and not being able to have one is one of the worst feelings is the world; I know firsthand. It puts a person in a vulnerable and sometimes desperate state of mind, not to mention the bundle of emotions one must deal with. The fertility industry knows this, and preys on it. Jennifer Lahl also knows this; she is the founder and president of theCenter for Bioethics and Culture. She wants to call out the fertility industry...

When is a ban not a ban? One answer might be when it is based on moral suasion rather than legal coercion. (I would also accept: When it’s a Target.) In this piece over at the Federalist, Georgi Boorman takes up the prudence of a petition to get Target to remove smutty material and paraphernalia related to Fifty Shades from its shelves. Boorman rightly points to the limitations of this kind of cultural posturing. Perhaps this petition illustrates more of...

In the latest Journal of Markets and Morality, Joseph Gorra reviews Dr. Charlie Self’s new book,Flourishing Churches and Communities, calling it a “joyous, practical, and insightful primer to the integration of ‘faith, work, and economics” that will inspire “a pathway for leaders of Pentecostal thought to reflect on public life in a renewed way.” The book is one of four tradition-specific primers from the Acton Institute, and although it focuses specifically on a Pentecostal perspective, Gorra rightly observes that Self...

For all of their wailing and gnashing of teeth about transparency, some in the American progressive movement certainly turn a blind eye toward the funding of their own pet causes. Last week, The Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay reported that millions of dollars from unknown sources have been passed through pany in Bermuda and transferred to American nonprofits who oppose hydraulic fracturing and, it seems, any industry involved with fossil fuels. Among these nonprofits are several established groups of religious...

A friend of mine recently shared this short clip of Thomas Merton’s last lecture. He has some interesting things to say munism and monasticism, as well as what is clearly a sly promo for Coca-Cola at the end. “From now on, brothers, everybody stands on his own feet.” This would be a great summary statement of what the monastic vow of poverty actually meant to most monks, historically. With regards to monasteries being the only places that have ever fulfilled...

One of the primary assumptions of the modern age is that all choices are multiple choice. Whether we are choosing the color of the car we drive, the occupation that we will work, or the lifestyle we will live, choice is the dominate paradigm. While the expansion of choices has, in many ways, expanded human flourishing, it has also led, in some areas, to a false belief that merely wanting something to be multiple choice will make it so. But...

As of March 2, panies that contract with the U.S. federal government ply with laws aimed at curbing labor trafficking. According to JDSupra, these laws impact contractors and sub-contractors, a group that includes over 300,000 businesses and organizations. Such organizations will now be required to Prevent severe forms of trafficking and forced labor by taking concrete, preventive steps to ensure employees do not engage in trafficking-related activities.Cooperate with, and provide access to, enforcement agencies pliance with anti-trafficking and forced labor...