Good News for the Poor

The essence of what Jennings has extracted from Wesley is that the Christian ethic revolves entirely around providing for the poor. Moreover, the “rich” who do this are not just people living in great plenty but also those who have attained only sufficient shelter, food, and clothing to sustain life at a reasonable level of comfort–in other words, anyone in the lower middle class.

by Herbert Schlossberg

Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis

Some of Goodman’s and Musgrave’s premises seemed to be self-evident, although they are not usually included in the discussion of health care. For example, they reminded us that, in a market system, the pursuit of self-interest is usually consistent with social goals. With that statement considered, some of their other conclusions become a lot clearer: We cannot solve America’s health care crisis if 250 million Americans find it in their self-interest to act in ways that make the crisis worse.

by John Hartnedy

John Wesley's Social Ethic

Marquardt begins by examining several areas of Wesley’s social praxis. They include slavery, economics and ethics, his work on aid to the poor, prison reform, and education. One of Wesley’s greatest strengths was his ability to organize. The Methodist Societies were established to provide forums in which the members could help one another in living the Christian life, and in which they could more effectively engage in social action.

by John Lunn

No Longer Exiles

The book is actually a compilation of papers that were delivered at a conference held in November, 1990, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Following a preface by editor Michael Cromartie, the book consists of four chapters. Each chapter contains a paper that was presented at the conference, followed by a formal response from another conference participant, which in turn is followed by more informal comments from other participants. The book concludes with an afterward by George Weigel, president of the Center.

by Tim Coyle

John Gray's Demolition Derby

The title of John Gray’s book could mislead some readers in the United States of America since “liberal” in England and Europe means the more or less coherent school of political thought wherein what is most important is the freedom of persons to govern themselves (as distinct from being governed by other persons). Government is established in societies to protect the right to this freedom. It is this negative right to liberty that the liberalisms of Gray’s book focus upon.

by Tibor Machan

Free Market Environmentalism

In the decade or so preceding her death this past spring, the noted scientist and occasional politician, Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, earned a reputation as the nation's most insightful critic of modern environmentalism. In a letter written three years before her death, she summed up what she had learned, observing that environmentalism, “as we have come to know it in the waning years of the twentieth century,” is “anti-development, anti-progress, anti-technology, anti-business, anti-established institutions, and, above all, anti-capitalism.”

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On Catholic Communitarianism

These twelve essays that comprise Catholicism and Liberalism were originally read for study sessions at Georgetown University in 1989 and 1990 under the auspices of the Woodstock Theological Center and Georgetown’s Department of Government. The distinguished collaborators in this project convened to explore ways to improve relations between the historically antipathetical forces of liberalism and Catholicism. At the threshold of the 1990s both traditions looked vital and promising.

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Earthkeeping through Markets

In 1977-78, a group of scholars gathered at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to produce an interdisciplinary book on environmentalism from a Christian perspective. Earthkeeping in the Nineties was a serious attempt at integrating Christian faith and the insights from several disciplines. That volume was revised substantially and reissued in 1991. The revised edition builds on the scholarship of the first and represents an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of environmental issues.

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The Cross and the Rain Forest

The most fruitful and majestic tree in the history of the world was the one on which hung its Savior, Jesus Christ. Today there is a growing trend among some environmentalists to look past the incarnate expression of God's love and see only a violated and barren tree. This trend toward reinterpreting symbols and the created order is an outgrowth of a larger crisis in the belief that God is both Creator and Father.

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Learning Charity from an Exemplar

In the past three years on visits to church-based urban ministries nationwide, I have interviewed dozens of down-and-outers who have become up-and-comers: ex-welfare recipients, victims of domestic violence, former drug addicts, ex-cons. When I asked them what helped them turn their lives around, almost all responded, “A friend who cared.” Effective ministries know that friendship is a powerful poverty-fighting tool.

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Renewing American Compassion

We hardly need another polemic about the failure of America’s “war on poverty.” After decades of bitter wrangling and torpid inaction, there is at last a broad consensus that the welfare system is a cure no less malignant than the disease it was intended to remedy. Liberals and conservatives, politicians and program administrators, social workers and taxpayers have all been forced to acknowledge that the poor are not best served by our current lumbering and impersonal entitlement bureaucracy. They never have been. They never will be.

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Evangelical Political Activism: Faith and Prudence

The political resurgence of America’s evangelical community raises anew ever-important questions about religion and politics. In The Politics of Reason and Revelation, John West revisits some of those questions: “Does religion have a political role, and if so, what should it be? What are the advantages of religion in politics? What are the dangers?

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