In his new book, Knowledge and Power, the imitable George Gilder aims at reframing our economic paradigm, focusing heavily on the tension between the power of the State and the knowledge of entrepreneurs —or, as William Easterly has put it, the planners and the searchers. “Wealth is essentially knowledge,” Gilder writes, and “the war between the centrifuge of knowledge and the centripetal pull of power remains the prime conflict in all economies.” In a recent interview with Peter Robinson, he...

There are, according to Christian teaching, 7 deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. Unchecked, these dark places in the human heart will lead to the ultimate death of Hell (yes, some of us still believe in that.) There is much discussion today about e inequality.” President Obama has declared it the most important issue of our time. He says it is not about equal es, but equal opportunity, referencing the rise of Abraham Lincoln from poverty...

It doesn’t take much snow to wreak havoc in the Deep South. I remember one time being immediately sent home from high school on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi for the lightest dusting of snow. But yesterday, heavier snow in the Deep South left thousands and thousands of people stranded at schools, work, and on the road. Atlanta, Ga. and Birmingham, Ala. were two metropolitan areas hit hard. Unfortunately, it’s still an ongoing problem. USA Today has great images, video,...

In a rather snarky piece in The Atlantic, author Anthony Murray questions whether or not a Supreme Court justice who believes in “natural law” (quotations marks are Murray’s) can make sound rulings. Murray is especially worried about cases involving the HHS mandate such as Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Secretary, etc. and Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al. v. Sibelius. Murray misunderstand natural law. He believes it to be religious, and frantically scrambles through the words of Thomas Jefferson in...

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Senator Ted Cruz (R.- Texas) discusses the presidency of Barack Obama, on the heels of the president’s State of the Union address last night. Cruz takes the current president to task on a simple theme: the rule of law. Rule of law doesn’t simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. That no...

The core economic challenge facing the American experiment is not e inequality per se, but rather stratification and stagnation —weak mobility from the bottom of the e ladder and wage stagnation for the middle class. These challenges are bound up in a growing social crisis— a retreat from marriage, a weakening of religious munal ties, a decline in workforce participation— that cannot be solved in Washington D.C. But economic and social policy can make a difference nonetheless, making family life...

“‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say–but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’–but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others” (1 Cor. 10:23-24). Christians are called to productive service of others in our work. The fact that someone will pay you for your work is a sign that they value it, and we must say that they are better-positioned than anyone else (other than...

If the American Founding got one thing right more than anything, it was mitment to a broad and liberal religious liberty. In 1790, President George Washington told a Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, “The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy; a policy worthy of imitation.” Currently, the country faces a number of threats to religious liberty and America seems to...

While serving in an inner city ministry, Ismael Hernandez began to have doubts about whether he was effectively serving the poor. “For the first time in my ministry work I felt dissatisfied with what I was doing,” says Hernandez. “I saw that I was simply a ‘stuff-giver’, a bureaucrat passion, and under the weight of the free stuff I was dumping at the poor was their spirit, slouching aimlessly, awaiting.” He realized that the human person is not only called...

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama has signaled that e inequality will be his domestic focus during the remainder of his term in office. The fact that the president considers e inequality, rather than employment or economic growth, to be the most important economic issue is peculiar, though not really surprising. For the past few years the political and cultural elites have e obsessed with the issue. But what should Christians think, and how should we...