The latest take on the “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) phenomenon is passed along by Allen Galbraith of Life is a Journal (HT: Lifehacker). Allen’s advice: “When dealing with difficult people imagine how one of your role models or heroes would deal with them.” Allen notes the possibilities of using Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, or Jesus as part of this thought experiment. But he also notes, “You could even use fictional characters as role models. In my case I would...

Rev. Robert A. Sirico On Monday, October 2, Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico debated the President and Founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, Dr. Ronald J. Sider on the campus of Calvin Theological Seminary. The topic of their exchange was Wealth and Poverty in Light of the Gospel: How Can Christians Work Together if We Disagree? The event was jointly sponsored by Calvin Seminary and Western Theological Seminary. Their spirited exhange is now available online in both video(streaming video...

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, my aim is to probe the natural-law doctrines of only a few influential sixteenth-century Protestant theologians. Some, such as John Calvin, may already be familiar to you, while others, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli (known as Martyr) and Jerome Zanchi, may be entirely new. What is surprising about Martyr and Zanchi is how much their natural-law doctrines are in line with the metaphysical essentialism of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. Before...

Over at Jim Wallis’ Beliefnet blog, Ron Sider reflects on his interpretation of the landmark text, “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” issued by the National Association of Evangelicals. Citing the line, “faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda,” Sider concludes that of the seven areas the document addresses (religious freedom, family, sanctity of human life, justice for the poor, human rights, peace and creation care), “This document refuses to lift...

The Templeton Foundation and Movieguide are sponsoring two panels at the ing Screenwriting Expo in Hollywood (Oct. 19-22). According to AgapePress (courtesy of The Church Report), “‘Christians in Hollywood’ and ‘Writing for the Family Film Market’ are the titles of two panels slated for what is billed as the world’s largest conference and trade show for screenwriters’.” “Christians in Hollywood” is briefly described in the catalog (PDF) as a chance to “Meet the players—and the prayers—in the Hollywood Christian Community,...

Via International Civic Engagement: Already available in English, Japanese, Italian and Polish, the game will now be accessible in French, Hungarian and Chinese by the end of next week, vastly increasing the forum for the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) ‘Food Force’ – designed to teach youngsters about the problems of global hunger and what humanitarian organizations do to fight it. The English, Japanese, Italian and Polish versions, which were launched over the past 18 months, have totalled over 4.5...

Tonight at 9 PM on PBS stations across the country, Bill Moyers’ program, Moyers on America, will take up the question, “Is God Green?” The one-hour documentary goes inside the conversation among evangelical Christians over the environment. The debate is not about whether or not Christians are called to care for creation. There is no disagreement about that. For more on this point, see Rev. Gerald Zandstra’s, “What is Evangelical Environmentalism?” The debate is rather about how we should best...

A while ago, I reported Damon Linker’s turn against his erstwhile colleagues at First Things. Now The New Republic online (free registration required) features an unusually productive and revealing debate between Linker and Atlantic Monthly‘s Ross Douthat on the threat, or lack thereof, posed by “theocons” such as Richard John Neuhaus (and the Acton Institute?). I especially enjoyed their exchange on the role of religion in historical American social movements, which Douthat got the better of. This es in the...

Can you find the tension in the lead sentence from this WSJ story on the annual Communist Party meeting in China? Here it is: “China’s munist elite opened an annual meeting that will focus on policies for spreading the nation’s newfound prosperity more evenly and on President Hu Jintao’s attempts to further consolidate his power.” It still amazes me that so many people still think that centralizing political power is both an effective way to spread out wealth and one...

Rev. Robert ments on California’s Proposition 86, a measure which would nearly triple state tobacco taxes to fund health care initiatives. “It is true, of course, that governments always act on moral premises of some sort,” he writes. “Punishing crimes against person and property are acts of moral sanction. But on the taxation of cigarettes, we have seen that numerous faith leaders and religious groups are more than willing to cede their responsibility for moral leadership to the government.” Read...