As noted here, last week PBS ran a special by Bill Moyers’, “Is God Green?” examining the “new” trend among evangelicals toward stewardship of the environment. Arguably what is “new” about this move is its coherence with liberal/leftist environmentalism. As also noted previously, “The munity for 5,000 years or more has taken its responsibility for the environment seriously. The whole concept of ‘stewardship’ is one es directly from sacred texts.” Stewardship isn’t new. Perhaps the method for stewardship proposed is....

I wrote disparagingly of a developing “baby market” in a recent mentary. The phenomenon is described in much fuller detail by Cheryl Miller in The New Atlantis in the course of her review of a recent book by Debora L. Spar, The Baby Business. ...

Another one for the “is there anything they won’t try to regulate?” file: THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube. The European Commission proposal would require websites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standards laid down in Brussels. Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers” who...

As I mentioned in Part 2, mon stereotype of Protestant ethics is that it is wedded to nominalism. While this may be true for some (particularly modern) Protestant ethicists, it is false for Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi, two older Reformed moral theologians. Before showing how this is so, and still by way of introduction, I want to point to four doctrines where natural law exerts some influence. First, it is important to recognize that none of the confessional...

Today I toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I was unprepared for how deeply I would be moved by my three hours in this museum. The sights, sounds and tributes all moved me profoundly. Twice I had to wipe tears from my eyes. The whole thing is so powerfully presented that it actually overwhelms you, with both information and emotional impact. I believe it is one of the most important museums I have ever toured. The...

Yesterday the Detroit News ran an op-ed in which I argue that corporate America should apply the fundamental insight behind President Bush’s faith-based initiative and open up their charitable giving to faith groups, since they “often provide prehensive and therefore often more effective assistance than purely secular or governmental counterparts.” A number of large corporate foundations either explicitly rule out donations to faith groups or refuse to contribute matching funds to them. One of the advantages to liberalizing the corporate...

Aside from the blasphemy, which ought not be overlooked, one of the biggest problems with an ad like this (HT: Think Progress, which also has a printed transcript of the ad) is that it undermines itself. It’s simply bad rhetorical strategy. Whatever potential arguments (economic or otherwise) there may be against minimum wage legislation, virtually no one of sympathetic inclinations is going to listen when you mock Judeo-Christian values by reducing something as vitally important as the divine revelation of...

Dr. Joel Hunter, President of the Christian Coalition and Pastor of the 12,000-member Northland Church in Longwood, FL, Dr. Paul De Vries, National Association of Evangelicals board member and President of New York Theological Seminary, and Rev. Gerald Durley, Pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta and civil rights leader held a teleconference last Thursday to "address the importance of this issue to munities and will take questions from reporters about the Statement, the Call to Action, and the...

Despite a recent surge in economic growth in the European Union, the lack of political will to reform unsustainable welfare systems and curb regulatory excesses does not bode well for the future. Samuel Gregg looks back to the Freiburg Ordo-Liberal School, practitioners of an economic philosophy that helped engineer the post-war revival for West Germany, as a possible path toward greater freedom and economic growth. Read the mentary here. ...

I spent another wonderful day in Washington, D.C. today. It was a gorgeous fall day in every way. I had an opportunity to spend several hours with Rev. Dan Claire, who works with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and also pastors The Church of the Resurrection, a fine young church on Capital Hill. (I hope to preach there in 2007.) Dan is an unusually gifted Christian leader with a real vision for a missional church in an emerging context....