…check out the helpful website by the Seymour Institute. Founded by the Rev. Gene Rivers in Boston, the Institute brings together information and tools to advocate for marriage in the munity. ...

Seth Godin wants to know. ...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Anthony Bradley takes a look at the Spanish economy as it faces a “dilemma,” as he puts it, “simultaneously needing immigrants and seeking to curb them.” Bradley also notes that “institutions like marriage and family seem silly to many Spaniards.” As APM’s Marketplace reports, shifting trends in Spain might claim another Spanish institution, the siesta. A variety of factors, including petition with labor forces in other nations, are leading some to question the viability of...

I recently received a letter from a reader of my Acton Commentary column, "Marriage as a Social Justice Issue," which she had seen reprinted in modified form at Town Hall. My correspondent was concerned that I had overlooked a key fact: the lack of marriageable black men. She said, in part: Education and the lower number of available black men are 2 major things you left out of your article. I know that marriage is important in the munity, but...

The children of the Chinese One-child policy are finding new obstacles in their paths: no one wants to hire them. Incredible, but true. It seems that many of the only children have been so pampered by their parents, that employers do not find them suitable workers. Some have called these children, "Little Emperors," because their parents dote on them so thoroughly. Evidently, this is not good preparation for working in the global economy! Recently, China Daily reports, the Sinohydro Engineering...

In a much discussed op-ed for CNN last week, hipster church leaders Marc Brown and Jay Bakker (the latter’s profile, incidentally, immediately precedes that of yours truly in The Relevant Nation…a serendipitous product of alphabetical order) lodge plaint against Christianity that doesn’t respect the call “love others just as they are, without an agenda.” Speaking of Jesus, Brown and Bakker write, “The bulk of his time was spent preaching about helping the poor and those who are unable to help...

The January 2007 issue of First Things features a lengthy review of Stephen Grabill’s new book on Protestant natural law thinking (no link to the review, unfortunately). J. Daryl Charles, an assistant professor at Union University, has this to say about Grabill’s Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Eerdmans, 2006): Grabill’s examination of theological ethics in the Protestant Reformed mainstream is pelling, and it represents a shot across the bow of theological ethics, as it were. Protestants for...

From the new Solzhenitsyn Reader, which I highly mend (especially if you are behind on your Christmas shopping): Human society cannot be exempted from the laws and demands which constitute the aim and meaning of individual human lives. But even without a religious foundation, this sort of transference is readily and naturally made. It is very human to apply even to the biggest social events or human organizations, including whole states and the United Nations, our spiritual values: noble, base,...

There can be little doubt that one of the greatest political and economic problems in the US is the way that our Congress “earmarks” billions of dollars for special projects that benefit lawmakers in their bid for personal security and re-election. The system works in a very straightforward way. Congress can pass massive spending bills and all the while representatives can add “earmarks” that benefit projects and people in their district or state. It is a form, quite often, of...

I’ll post the link to this story on an eco-friendly church being built in the Philippines with only one ment: I am very surprised at the claim that this is the “world’s first-ever environmentally-friendly church.” Obviously it all depends how one defines “eco-friendly,” but still, I’m skeptical that this is the first church building to incorporate the features listed in the article. Surely some progressive congregation somewhere has already set the standard in this field? ...