In 1973, a pair of Supreme Court rulings helped convince many evangelicals and Catholics to align as co-belligerents in the struggle against abortion. In 2012, an executive branch mandate is having a similar effect, this time bringing the groups together to defend religious liberties. A new level of cooperation occurred last week when Wheaton College, a leading evangelical liberal arts school, joined with The Catholic University of America in filing a federal lawsuit opposing the Health and Human Services “Preventative...

A Reuters article highlights the fact that U.S. Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack is praying for rain to help relieve droughts in the Midwest. The drought is having a significant impact on farmers and their crops. The negative affect will of course inevitably lead to higher food prices as the supply is cut. Experts say it could be the most severe dry spell since 1950. The lack of rain and heat is really a simple reminder of our lack of control...

Last month, a Christianity Today editorial noted some of the intellectual foundations for ecumenical efforts in the public square, particularly relevant to evangelical and Roman Catholic cooperation against the HHS mandates. The editorial focuses on Chuck Colson, and says “you can credit Colson, who died on April 21, for a major part of evangelicals’ reduced anxiety about relations with Roman Catholics.” The editorial goes on to describe how Colson’s ecumenism and broader theological foundations were inspired by “key evangelical theologians,”...

It’s hard to think of anything more onerous than preventing enterprising people from entering the market. To do so is to interfere with their ability to serve others and engage in their vocation. It keeps people poor by preventing them from improving their lives. And one of the worst barriers of this kind is a type of law known as occupational licensing. And that’s exactly what a group of monks in Louisiana ran into in 2010 when the state government...

Review Essay: “Was Robert Bellarmine Ahead of His Time?” John M. Vella, Homiletic & Pastoral Re Despite his rehabilitation in the last quarter of the 19th century, Bellarmine’s intellectual legacy remains mixed. In one respect, at least, he was a product of his time because his vision of a res publica Christiana depended on a united Christendom that could never be restored. Yet, what is easy to see, in hindsight, was not so clear in the early 17th century. On...

Pundits and politicians have been having a field day with President Obama’s speech given in Roanoke, Virginia, last Friday. The quote providing the most fodder is the president’s assertion, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” (Here are a couple recent examples from Paul Ryan and Larry Kudlow.) This has been widely understood to mean that the president is saying that if you have a business, you didn’t build it…and certainly not on...

The free-market economist Milton Friedman used to argue that for a nation to prosper, all that was needed was to increase privatization and reduce the size of the state. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and munist states made him realize that “Privatization is meaningless if you don’t have the rule of law.” Today, the idea that the rule of law is a ponent of growth is all monplace. So why don’t more economists and policymakers connect the dots...

Over at Y’all Politics, Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel penned an excellent essay on conservatism and the moral order. Deeply influenced by Russell Kirk, McDaniel’s words are worth the read. They are a reminder that sustainable political liberty has to have a proper moral order and foundation for society to flourish. Below is an excerpt of his essay: The embrace of Judeo-Christian morality is an ponent of American life and conservative ideology, particularly in the State of Mississippi. It is...

Richard Land argues the case that free-market capitalism is the economic model that most closely fits in with Christian anthropology: When I lived in England as a Ph.D. student, I was visited during my first fortnight in the country by a fellow student seeking to sign me up for the Socialist Club. In some wonderment I asked him, “Why would you think I would want to join the Socialist Club?” He responded, “Well, I’ve been told you are a Christian...

Over at the Christian Post, Napp Nazworth does a good job summarizing some of the political jockeying that has been going on ahead of and now in the midst of the release of the latest Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises.” He includes the following tidbit: Chuck Dixon, ic book writer who created Bane in the 1990’s, did not like the idea paring his villainous creation to Romney. Calling himself a “staunch conservative,” Dixon said that Bane is more of...