Today’s Christian Science Monitor has a story on the increasing use of micro-loans by Christian aid and development groups. According to the story, “Religious organizations are increasingly adopting the Talmudic sentiment that the noblest form of charity is helping others to dispense with it.” Ron Sider, in the twentieth anniversary edition of his book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, strongly endorses the use of micro-loans as a means of getting desperately needed capital to those who need it...

Time for the annual spate of “gap between rich and poor increases” stories in the MSM. There are a number of problems with the judgmental assumptions implicit in these kinds of stories. For example, there is a zero-sum view of wealth that pits individuals against each other. It’s essentially the “pie” view of money and wealth: if I take a piece, there’s that much less available for others. This is the distributivist economic model. This is a fundamentally flawed economic...

A post by Leslie Sillars over at Signs of the Times takes ABC’s show, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” to task. His difficulty, essentially, is this: is this charity in any reasonable sense of the word? It looks like the best kind of charity—unmerited favor for someone in need, out of the blue—yet, ABC makes buckets of money on the program, Sears and the other sponsors get loads of exposure, and Ty and the rest of them are portrayed as angels...

Rev. Robert Sirico spoke with Frank Beckmann today on Detroit-based WJR about faith and politics, emphasizing the proper role of religion in society as providing a solid moral foundation with which to approach political, social, economic decisions. Sirico also talks with the emergence of what Pope Benedict XVI refers to as the dictatorship of relativism – an idea which views the expression of religion as an impedance on liberty – and suggests an understanding of the integration between faith and...

In his “Bad Economics, Bad Public Policy and Bad Theology,” columnist Raymond Keating makes the case on OrthodoxyToday.org that the Religious Left offers “assorted biblical passages that speak of aiding the poor, the necessity for charity and justice, or other vague generalities, and then simply assert that these quotations support the particulars of their big government philosophy. Of course, this ranks as either ignorant or disingenuous from a theological standpoint.” Keating examines resurgent activism by liberal/leftist religious leaders on environmental...

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has found a new way to get the word out about its efforts. Food Force is a free downloadable video game (for the PC and Mac) designed by the WFP, in which the users will “Play the game, learn about food aid, and help WFP work towards a world without hunger.” Within the context of the fictional nation of Sheylan, the player embarks on a series of missions intended to give users a...

The Telegraph reports that there is growing dissent among the ranks of some scientists, whose dissenting viewpoint is unable to find a place in many major academic journals. According to the story, Two of the world’s leading scientific journals e under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming. … The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have plete agreement among climate experts, not only...

Interested in reading and reviewing various publications for your blog? Head on over to Mind & Media, a blog-based book reviewing service. The Acton Institute has placed three titles from the Lexington Books Studies in Ethics & Economics series, edited by Acton director of research Samuel Gregg. One of the books is Within the Market Strife: American Catholic Economic Thought from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II, by Acton research fellow Kevin Schmiesing. e a reviewer ...

This es from Han Solo, which pretty well sums up his critique of Jedi knights in the Star Wars saga, “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.” I also wonder whether it might be apt in describing the sometimes contemptuous relationship between scientific progress and religion (Christianity in particular), as the guiding pragmatic ethos of naturalism wars against orthodox Christian belief. Forbes has posted a slideshow giving reviews of the various technologies...

A story in the Sunday New York Times highlighted the move of the undergraduate library at the University of Texas at Austin to a predominantly electronic collection. mon reference materials like dictionaries will remain in hard copy, all other stacks of books “will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic mons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.” This move should not be taken as indicative of...