A Boston-area Church of Christ is using environmental stewardship to boost membership. The United Church of Christ, to which the Newbury congregation belongs, has called upon its members to e more deeply engaged in stewardship initiatives. Gary Gardner, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington, wrote in 2002 that the union of environmentalists and religious institutions is "a bination that until recently remained virtually unexplored. . . . Each looks at the world from...

There’s a lingering issue that continues to bother me about the so-called “global warming” Supreme Court case from 2007, Massachusetts v. EPA (05-1120), and that is a nagging concern about federalism and environmental standards. As it stands currently, individual states are often prevented from enacting tougher legislation or regulation regarding some forms of pollution than the federal EPA standards. In order for a state EPA to partner with the federal EPA, be “authorized,” and thus receive funds, “a state must...

Is Senator Obama a closet socialist waiting for inauguration day, at which time he and a Democratic Congress will immediately pursue a massive increase in the size and power of government in our lives, panied by massive tax increases and massive redistribution of wealth? Or is he really a moderate pragmatist, a canny politician who when he was getting started in politics used his radical contacts from his ultra-leftwing Hyde munity, but now is in a position to use more...

The election day sermon was an important institution in colonial New England. It was one delivered by Samuel Danforth in 1670 that furnished the venerable Puritan concept of America as an “errand into the wilderness.” (For more, see Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity.) One need not share the Massachusetts colony’s view of church-state relations (one of the chief tasks of government was the suppression of heresy) to recognize that the election day sermon served a useful purpose. The...

I received this notice via H-Net last week: THE LAKE INSTITUTE ON FAITH & GIVING THE CENTER ON PHILANTHROPY INDIANA UNIVERSITY DOCTORAL DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIP The Lake Institute on Faith and Giving at the Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University will offer a one year doctoral dissertation fellowship of $22,000 for the academic year 2009-2010. This doctoral dissertation fellowship will be given to a scholar whose primary research focus is in the area of religion and philanthropy or faith and giving. The...

First posted on the PowerBlog by Brittany Hunter, and picked up by a number of other prominent blogs, the “How Not to Help the Poor” Acton video short has collected over eight thousand YouTube hits. The video has only been on the YouTube site for just over a couple of weeks. The clip is from the Acton Institute’s Effective Stewardship Curriculum titled “Fellow Man.” Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish also posted mented on “How Not to Help the Poor”...

Acton Media’s latest Birth of Freedom short video is a timely message in the face of tomorrow’s election. In this video, William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, discusses how faith, “the pelling part of one’s existence”, ought to fit in when evaluating a political candidate. Check out more Birth of Freedom shorts, learn about premieres in your area, and discover more background information at . ...

The lyrics to “Busted,” written by Harlan Howard, and made famous as performed by Johnny Cash: My bills are all due and the babies need shoes, But I’m Busted Cotton’s gone down to a quarter a pound And I’m Busted I got a cow that’s gone dry And a hen that won’t lay A big stack of bills Getting bigger each day The county’s gonna haul my belongings away, But I’m Busted So I called on my brother to ask...

Via Drudge, Australia is joining none other than China in censoring the internet. Here’s a surprising endorsement/justification the writer uses to bottom line the article: The Australian Christian Lobby, however, has ed the proposals. Managing director Jim Wallace said the measures were needed. "The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry’s desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said. I’m not endorsing porn. But earth to Mr. Wallace: Scan up a...

According to a report from the Zenit News Service, Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, recently insisted that the “logic” of the market be changed. He said that the logic “was till (sic) now that of maximum gain, and therefore the most investments possible directed toward obtaining maximum benefit. And this, according to the social doctrine of the Church, is immoral.” This is because, according to the Cardinal, the market “should be able to...