Both the working poor and small businesses got some e, albeit temporary, news yesterday: the Treasury Department announced it is delaying what’s called the “employer mandate” under the Affordable Care Act until January of 2015. That mandate panies with more than 50 full-time employees to offer health insurance or pay a $2,000 penalty. Most businesses with more than 50 employees already offer insurance, but panies and startups often cannot afford the cost. Even some supporters of Obamacare admit this mandate...

mon lesson that many of us were taught in grammar school was what defined an ‘opposite.’ As children we learn that hot and cold are antonyms; as are bad and good, living and dead, love and hate. One statement that I recently heard challenged a childhood preconception of mine. It declared that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. If we think about what indifference is, we soon see that it is in stark opposition to love. To...

In an open letter to all Americans, religious leaders as varied as Catholic Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and Susan Taylor, the National Public Affairs Director of the Church of Scientology, have responded to the Obama administration’s “final” ruling regarding the HHS mandate that all employers carry health insurance that includes birth control, abortificients and abortion coverage. The letter, entitled “Standing Together For Religious Freedom”, acknowledges the signators have a wide range of beliefs and that many of the signators...

The Declaration of Independence contains the clearest, most concise, and most eloquent articulation of the American creed, says David Azerrad, a political definition of man in two axioms, and three corollary propositions on government. In the course of making this argument and building their case, the founders also laid down the timeless and universal principles that were to define the new country. In that second paragraph, we find the clearest, most concise, and most eloquent articulation of the American creed....

In Faithful in All God’s House: Stewardship and the Christian Life, Lester DeKoster and Gerard Berghoef explore the range and reach of Christian stewardship, emphasizing that the practice of stewardship extends far beyond the handling of our money, stretching into life and time and destiny. The practice of stewardship is “the supreme challenge of the Christian life,” they argue, and thus, we must strive to properly orient our thinking and behavior accordingly. The forms of stewardship are submitted to all...

A new generation of evangelicals is beginning to re-think and re-examine the ways they have typically (not) engaged culture, with theological concepts like Abraham mon graceleading many to stretch beyond their more dispensationalist dispositions. Over at Comment, James K.A. Smith offers some helpful warnings for the movement, noting that amid our “newfound appreciation for justice and shalom,” we should remain wary of getting too carried away with our earthly-mindedness.“By unleashing a new interest and investment in ‘this-worldly’ justice,” Smith argues,...

Wes Selke thought he might be called to seminary. Instead, he wound up in business school. That doesn’t mean he’s any less filled with a sense of mission and purpose. An article in Christianity Today has Selke discussing his desire as a Christian to invest in social entrepreneurship and how his faith and his work life intertwine. As co-founder of Hub Ventures, Selke seeks to help entrepreneurs get off to a solid start through a 12-week, intensive training course. He...

On Friday, June 28, the Department of Health and Human Services offered up its final ruling on the mandate for all employers to offer insurance plans covering abortion services and abortificients. The ruling itself is over 100 pages, and will take some time to dissect. However, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty made this statement: ‘Unfortunately the final rule announced today is the same old, same old. As we said when the proposed rule was issued, this doesn’t solve the...

The Great Awakening (1730 – 1760) was central to America’s revolution and independence. It united the colonies and gave them a new spiritual vitality. It made churches more American and less European. These changes wedded with enlightenment thought allowed Americans to see the world with new eyes. Ties to Europe, and England especially, began to unravel. “The Revolution could not have taken place without this religious background,” says historian Paul Johnson. “The essential difference between the American Revolution and the...

Each Independence Day, I make a point of re-reading President Calvin Coolidge’s speech given on the 150thanniversary Declaration of Independence.I’d encourage you to do the same. Coolidge has a deep understanding of American history, and after contemplating what led the founders to write what they wrote, and what inclined Americans to follow their lead, he ultimately concludes that it was their spiritualinclinations, and the moral and spiritual orientation of the American people, that played the most important role: Our forefathers...