Economic Prosperity: A Step of Faith

"There is a strong relationship between economic prosperity and religious liberty."

William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed; Economics and Christian Desire: Review Part 3

Finally in chapter 4, “Scarcity and Abundance,” Cavanaugh uses the logic of communion to challenge the logic of the market. We are desiring beings, but only in God can our desires be put to rest. An economics that bases itself on the assumption of scarcity is not only based on hunger but also on endless human wants. Shopping, then, is finally about the “pleasure of stroking desire,” for in “scarcity is implied . . . the daily erotics of desire that keeps the individual in the pursuit of novelty” (91). Such a lifestyle, Cavanaugh insists is “the death of Christian eschatology” (93). Instead, of placing our hope in Christ’s kingdom breaking into this fallen world system, we continually distract ourselves with more consumption even as we shrug before “a tragic world of scarcity.” Worse, we come to develop a taste for hearing of global tragedies: “Even the suffering of others can become a spectacle and a consumable item: tsunamis sell newspapers” (94). Cavanaugh holds that the Eucharist should teach us of “the communicability of pain from one person to another” within the Body of Christ. Rather than individuals facing off in competition over a scarce supply, we become truly individual as we impart help to each other, becoming dependent upon each other. We cannot give into despair but must respond in eschatological hope, for Christ daily gives of his self that we may know “where we are going” (100).

There are numerous ways to go about responding to Cavanaugh’s claims. One, for instance, could place his theology within numerous streams of Christian reflection. He draws off the Christian personalism of John Paul II and the economic distributism of early 20^th-century Catholic ethics. He also shows a great debt to the tradition of virtue ethics currently taught by Stanley Hauerwas at Duke Divinity School. Likewise, Cavanaugh is much indebted to the Augustinian tradition of reflection on ordered and disordered loves within the City of God and the City of Man, as well as the new Trinitarian insights of Hans urs von Balthasar, to name only one theologian. Each of these streams of Christian reflection has strengths and weaknesses. One could also ascertain whether he has truly understood the experience and logic of late, global capitalism in the last few decades. Has he, for instance, ignored counter-examples that might go against his theses of hypermobilization of capital, of the creation of constant, movable desire, and of globalization as a false parody of true Christian catholicity?

However, I want to respond more personally as one First World, Christian individual to his book. In my experience, much of what he claims rings true, at least some of the time. I am ashamed to say that I have found myself at various points in my life addicted to the buying of things, and of late, equally tempted by the consumption of short bursts of image and experience though online social networking and news. I, too, have often thrown up my hands in despair at the news of overseas economic abuses, wondering where to buy my clothing, my coffee, or my children’s toys. And I, too, have taken a kind of superficial pride and joy in my “diversity,” listening to African music while I eat fajitas, read a Russian novel, and look forward to watching a Dutch film on video later that evening. I would rather play it safe and not have to interact with the truly poor, unless, of course they seem grateful and don’t smell too much. After I finished reading Being Consumed , I struggled with what I should do in response, and my first desire was to simply and sadly think I could do nothing. Of course, this would simply be to “consume” Being Consumed as part of the endless diet of ideas in a collegiate environment. Instead, I am praying and seeking how my family should act differently in what we eat and buy and give. I have talked to my wife some about the book and will continue to do so.

It does not seem to me that you need be convinced by everything that Cavanaugh claims in order to respond to it with repentance and action. For example, I am somewhat dissatisfied with his theology of the Church and world. He seems to conflate the distinction between them too much at times, the logic of the Eucharist almost dissolving the need for individual repentance. I can’t always tell if his doctrine of the Supper actually merges nature and grace or simply brings them into a particular and local relationship for our time. Likewise, his portrait of multi-national abuses does not reflect the experience of local managers who are attached to their workers and seek to work for change for their benefit. Nonetheless, I am still left crying mea culpa. Well, not only “my fault” per se, for that too is part of his point. I am joined to the Body of Christ, and I must learn to work within the messy, faulty life of that local community called a church if I am to develop with others the habits and practices that help address some of these matters. Happily, Cavanaugh has provided some examples worth learning more about:

• Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, based on the principles of distributism, is worker-owned and governed and contributes greatly to neighborhood health, education, and lower crime.
• CRS Fair trade program in coffee, chocolate, and handcrafted items seeks to deal directly with growers and local artisans to promote fair payment, as well as promote a sense of solidarity with those overseas.
• Church Supported Agriculture (CSA) seeks to create a direct market between local family growers and local churches in hopes of providing a face-to-face buying environment with growers and helping to promote sustainable farming.
• The Economy of Communion Project associated with the Focolare Movement promotes a business model that divides profits into 1/3 aid to the poor, 1/3 education promotion, and 1/3 business sustainability. As of 2006, 700 businesses worldwide had adopted their model.

I would challenge us all to learn more about these and other Christian options like them.

William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed; Economics and Christian Desire: Review Part 2

Cavanaugh offers an insightful critique of consumerism, which he charges as being driven not by ownership of things but by consumption of things: “Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else; that’s why it is not simply buying but shopping that is the heart of consumerism” (35). Strangely then, consumerism is a kind of parody of the Christian call to be detached from things and, in giving things away, to become attached to others. Cavanaugh believes the problem is that currently we as consumers are disconnected from almost every stage of the making of things, including being separated from those who make them. Most of us, he believes, are not comfortable with the plight of exhausted and desperate workers in overseas sweatshops, but we are unable to know exactly where and under what conditions our clothing, our toys, or our electronic devices are produced, and since many of these might also be produced in conditions that are somewhat better than starvation in the fields, we are left mostly with a vague ennui and free-floating guilt. What’s worse for us is that increasingly we are even detached from the things we consume, so that marketers must produce simultaneously an “organized creation of dissatisfaction” and yet also invest the products we purchase with positive emotional associations. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are made in the mind,” as one marketer observed (45). What, then, are Christians to do? Cavanaugh, writing in the tradition of Antony of Egypt, Clement of Alexandria, and Thomas Aquinas, suggests that we return to the pursuit of God as our chief desire. To be the Body of Christ is to identify with the “least of these.” We must take practical steps to overcoming our detachment by giving to others in a way that supports a sustainable life for them. We must also make our homes places where food is prepared, musical instruments are played, and people are engaged in making things.

Chapter 3, “The Global and the Local,” is the most densely theological of the book, yet I suspect it is also the heart of Cavanaugh’s attempt to provide a Christian vision that runs counter to consumerism: “[C]ulture and economics are not autonomous spheres with no mutual effect. Economic relationships do not operate on value-neutral laws, but are rather carriers of specific convictions about the nature of the human person” (59). Globalization is a false catholicity; it purports to offer a universal world of multicultural communication and exchange, but it actually tends to flatten out local cultures into a world of McDonalds and Disneys, even as it also works to dismember communities into atomistic individuals. Here, he returns to his concern with the “hypermobility of capital” which can abandon its people easily, thus creating a situation that makes labor unions fairly impossible, as well as negotiations for better working environments, higher wages, and more ownership in the means of production. Cavanaugh is equally suspicious of the claims of religious pluralism and multiculturalism. Both doctrines, he believes, really perpetuate a post-modernist version of persons and reality that is still radically individualistic. We can consume surface-level, multi-cultural experiences without necessarily changing anything about ourselves and our patterns of First World consumption. The global village is a comforting fiction. In response to this, Cavanaugh looks to Jesus Christ as the “concrete universal: “Only in the Incarnation can an individual be universal and the universal be individual” (76), and only in the mission of Christ can we truly discover ourselves, for Christian discipleship teaches us to lay ourselves aside for others: “The true identity of each unique human person is thus founded on the overcoming of an illusory self-sufficiency” (83). This practice is deeply Trinitarian, for we enter into an exchange of mutual giving and receiving. But this Christian exchange is always realized in local places over time. Only then can we truly be and model what God intends for Creation.

William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed; Economics and Christian Desire: Review Part 1

Jekabs Bikis and I reviewed together Cavanaugh's Being Consumed. We've both agreed to post our reviews and our responses to each other here. Below is the first section of mine:

William T. Cavanaugh’s book is a slim volume on a broad topic. Just under a hundred pages, Being Consumed brings to our attention the impact of consumerism, commodification, and globalization on personhood, free markets, multinational corporations, marketing, shopping, tourism, self-identity, and human freedom. Yet despite such a wide range of concerns, Cavanaugh’s target is much more defined. As “a contribution to a kind of theological microeconomics,” he desires above all to help Christians “to discern and create economic practices, spaces, and transactions that are truly free” (viii). To do this, requires a theological critique of the spiritual and moral temptations of global capitalism. So rather than mount a macro-level reform of multinational markets, Cavanaugh is more concerned with how Christians might live differently at the local and particular level, and how by living in such a way they might further incarnate the eschatological promises that God has extended in the Lord’s Supper.

In chapter 1, “Freedom and Unfreedom,” Cavanaugh asserts that “true freedom requires an account of the end (telos) of human life and the destination of creation” (2), which for the Christian is to desire and participate in God. We need to keep this end in view because otherwise we cannot distinguish true and false desires. A model that judges the freedom of economic exchange as simply equal to the exchange itself is not truly free, for it has no standard by which to judge human flourishing. A model that values exchange in itself doesn’t care whether that exchange is about bread and beans or pornography and breast augmentation. Christians, on the other hand, are called to cultivate true desires, and we must do this in the face of marketing that seeks to create imprudent yearning in us and to addict us to the constant stimulation of those desires. We also have to work against large-scale organizations which ignore the needs of their employees. Charges Cavanaugh, we delude ourselves if we think that late capitalism is truly free for all its participants. Multinational corporations may choose to relocate their operations from one cheap source of labor to the next, quickly abandoning their workers, who after all, cannot easily move without disrupting their lives and communities. The ownership of property, Cavanuagh insists, is intended by God to serve the common good, not to pursue the maximization of profits at the expense of people. Christians then should work to create companies which keep this as one of their preeminent purposes.

Another one in the series - the fruit of capitalism

Another nice advantage of capitalism - products get better with time, leading to more convenience, less injuries, longer lives. It is a beautiful thing that we can use our God-given intellect to improve the world around us in practical ways!

I got the video from Marginal Revolution - one of my favorite blogs.

6 applicants per job opening

Interesting chart from New York Times via ritholtz.com

Number of job unemployed people rising, number of job openings falling - not a good combination.

Not the best time to be graduating if you are looking for a job.

Let us hope that the grip of the visible hand of rules and regulations is relaxed, so that the employers, the business owners can regain their confidence and resume business investment and hiring. Let us hope that starts happening soon!

Mystery quote of the day

The quote below was written several decades ago by someone who was responding to claims that usury and greed are the root causes of societal problems. Professor [X] had just accused the author of the quote below, that the usury should be absolutely rejected, citing the then-Soviet Union as a 'one sixth of the world's landmass' as a sort of beacon of hope where money is not allowed to rule. Read the quote if you have a minute - you will be very surprised to see who wrote it.

The difference between us is that the Professor [X] sees the ‘World’ purely in terms of those threats and those allurements which depend on money. I do not.

The most ‘worldly’ society I have ever lived in is that of schoolboys: most worldly in the cruelty and arrogance of the strong, the toadyism and mutual treachery of the weak, and the unqualified snobbery of both. Nothing was so base that most members of the school proletariat would not do it, or suffer it, to win the favour of the school aristocracy: hardly any injustice too bad for the aristocracy to practise. But the class system did not in the least depend on the amount of pocket money.

Who needs to care about money if most of the things he wants will be offered by cringing servility and the remainder can be taken by force?

This lesson has remained with me all my life. That is one of the reasons why I cannot share [X's] exaltation at the banishment of Mammon from ‘a sixth of our planet’s surface’ [i.e. from the Soviet Union]. I have already lived in a world from which Mammon was banished: it was the most wicked and miserable I have yet known. If Mammon were the only devil, it would be another matter. But where Mammon vacates the throne, how if Moloch takes his place?

As Aristotle said, ‘Men do not become tyrants in order to keep warm’. All men, of course, desire pleasure and safety. But all men also desire power and all men desire the mere sense of being ‘in the know’ or the ‘inner ring’, of not being ‘outsiders’: a passion insufficiently studied and the chief theme of my story. When the state of society is such that money is the passport to all these prizes, then of course money will be the prime temptation. But when the passport changes, the desires will remain.

Who wrote this? I recommend forming some opinion about the words before looking to see who wrote them; if you are like me you will be shocked to see that it is this person who takes such a non-antagonistic view toward money.

New images of the center of Milky Way galaxy, then some reflection

Beautiful, isn't it? (click picture to enlarge, click here to see the same image with explanatory labels)

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Here is a pretty good video explaining the Milky Way Galaxy.

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Here is a beautiful time lapse photo sequence of the Milky Way photographed from Spain:

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And here, just for good measure (pun), is a video that impresses me every time I see it - the size of earth in context:

"In the beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth" --Genesis 1:1

"O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me... You both precede and follow me... If I go up to heaven, you are there... To you the night shines as bright as day..." --from Psalm 139

Graphic of the day - US oil imports

From where do we import most of our oil?

Your first guess is probably wrong. Take a look at this map (click to expand):

(This June 2009 data comes from CoolInfoGraphics.)

The top oil suppliers to the US are (top supplier first):

1. Canada
2. Venezuela
3. Mexico
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Nigeria
6. Angola
7. Iraq
8. Russia

Is that in line with what you would have expected?

Strange syllabus policies :)

This is from an actual syllabus in our university:

1. Trimming of the nails should be done on a regular and consistent basis, preferably twice a week. This will keep the quick of the nail pushed back so that the nails do not ... .

2. The recommended nail length is 1/16" beyond the quick of the nail. Please note, however, that the nails should never be cut so short as to cause pain or discomfort!

3. Sculpted nails, glued-on nails and the like are not allowed. Artificial nails can get caught in the ... , so they are expressly forbidden.

4. The ... student has up to one week after receiving notice of this fingernail length policy to trim his or her nails according to the above guidelines. Profesional manicures are at the student's own expense.

5. Failure to trim the nails may cause a student to lose up to ten points per lesson grade.

Can you guess what type of a course would have this in the syllabus?

Prisoners' last words

What do people say right before being executed? The following are actual last words of people before they received lethal injections in Texas. This is from New York Times.

• Go ahead?
• Nothing I can say can change the past.
• I done lost my voice.
• I would like to say goodbye.
• My heart goes is going ba bump ba bump ba bump.
• Is the mike on?
• I don’t have anything to say. I am just sorry about what I did.
• I am nervous and it is hard to put my thoughts together. Sometimes you don’t know what to say.
• Man, there is a lot of people there.
• I have come here today to die, not make speeches.
• Where’s Mr. Marino’s mother? Did you get my letter?
• I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don’t have to.
• I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am.
• Could you please tell that lady right there — can I see her? She is not looking at me — I want you to understand something, hold no animosity toward me. I want you to understand. Please forgive me.
• I don’t think the world will be a better or safer place without me.
• I am sorry.
• I want to tell my mom that I love her.
• I caused her so much pain and my family and stuff. I hurt for the fact that they are going to be hurting.
• I am taking it like a man.
• Kick the tires and light the fire. I am going home.
• They may execute me but they can’t punish me because they can’t execute an innocent man.
• I couldn’t do a life sentence.
• I said I was going to tell a joke. Death has set me free. That’s the biggest joke.
• To my sweet Claudia, I love you.
• Cathy, you know I never meant to hurt you.
• I love you, Irene.
• Let my son know I love him.
• Tell everyone I got full on chicken and pork chops.
• I appreciate the hospitality that you guys have shown me and the respect, and the last meal was really good.
• The reason it took them so long is because they couldn’t find a vein. You know how I hate needles. ... Tell the guys on Death Row that I’m not wearing a diaper.
• Lord, I lift your name on high.
• From Allah we came and to Allah we shall return.
• For everybody incarcerated, keep your heads up.
• Death row is full of isolated hearts and suppressed minds.
• Mistakes are made, but with God all things are possible.
• I am responsible for them losing their mother, their father and their grandmother. I never meant for them to be taken. I am sorry for what I did.
• I can’t take it back.
• Lord Jesus forgive of my sins. Please forgive me for the sins that I can remember.
• All my life I have been locked up.
• Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my rights. Give me my life back.
• I am tired.
• I deserve this.
• A life for a life.
• It’s my hour. It’s my hour.
• I’m ready, Warden.

Does reading this change your stance on the death penalty?

Community and Heresy

DBU student Kyle Worley over at his blog is discussing biblical interpretation and community. A theme that I am obviously interested in, his reflections raise some important questions for our reflection:

1. Does individualism lead to heresy?

2. Does community safeguard orthodoxy?

Here's his address: http://yougottaserve.blogspot.com/2009/09/doing-theology-only-for-community.html

Is this the health care future we want?

The following is a translation of a September 15, 09 news story from Latvia where healthcare is largely nationalized.

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Today Leukemia patients gathered near the Parliament building, as they were asking to be awarded the funds for their medical provisions. The Health Minister Baiba Rozentale came out to speak with the protesters, and she explained to them that during the current [financial] situation it is not possible to award treatment funds to all. However, the President [of Latvia] Valdis Zatlers also came out to speak with the protestors later, telling them that leukemia is one of the diseases for which the state will always provide treatment funds for individuals.

Today leukemia patients and their supporters picketed near the Parliament building, asking the state to fid funds for treating their leukemia and lymphoma.

The picketers were at a loss because of the contradictory statements from two officials, saying that they don't know who to believe, the health minister Baiba Rozentale or President Valdis Zatlers.

Rozentale, as she was meeting with the picketers, stressed that health is an area in which the state cannot cut funding, however, she was skeptical that funding would actually be found; Zatlers on the other hand stated "There are those diseases for which the state will always provide treatment. Leukemia is one of those diseases."

Picketers asked the state to guarantee funding for the treatment of all leukemia and lymphoma victims, and also for victims of other forms of cancer, because such treatment is crucial for maintaining life, and it is critical for preventing the humiliating and life-threatening quotas on medicines, analyses, and the rest of the treatments.

"My daughter has to go to court to ensure that she will be able to get her medicines for treating leukemia," one protest participant Agra Jaunozolina explains. Her daughter needs 4800 Lati ($9000) for purchasing medicines, but the entity deciding whether she will get the medicines is the court. "And you never know in the court whether they will give her the medicines or not. So she goes on living from one court session to the next. Can you imagine - how stressful and humiliating it is at the moment when the Health Ministry asks you, 'Why do you think you need treatment more than others do?" But my daughter is not at fault for getting this disease. Why do we have to be humiliated? A person wants to live, after all."

"Mr. Zatlers said that the state has enough resources to resolve this issue, however the health minister said that this is not possible. Whom should I believe?", asked leukemia victim Irina Salova. "Behind each of their decisions there lies a life of a human being. Leukemia patients need medicines today and now, and they can't wait half a year until somebody somewhere makes a decision."

"Unfortunately nobody - no member of the government, no relative of theirs - is excluded from these types of diseases, so the society is asking now not to ignore the patients, thinking 'this will not affect us'. When the patients were healthy, they paid their taxes to the state, but now it turns out that the sickness is 'their own problem'. "

Organization of leukemia patients stresses that while the government keeps posturing with their supposedly strong position for cutting the budget, young women and even children are forced to go to court to fight for every next dose medicine for saving their lives. The neighboring countries offer dignified treatment to cancer patients even during crisis situations.

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Is this the health care future we want?

Were Father's Manors Best?

The following exchange took place between myself and two other DBU professors on Facebook. With both professors' permission, I'm posting it here. It began with a quotation by James K.A. Smith in my status line. What do you think, is capitalism incompatible with Christianity?

"Construing our relationship to the world as one of 'consumption' is to take a good, creational reality of dependence and the need for acquisition in a direction that runs against the grain of God's universe. In sum, consumption i...s a way of relating to the resources of the world that runs counter to shalom."--James K. A. Smith

Professor Hatcher: Absolutely. What is the opposite of shalom? That's what we have.

Doctor Collins: So, what does this say about capitalism?

Hatcher: Is capitalism the opposite of shalom? I don't see the hand of God in capitalism. Eden was agrarian.

Collins: It seems to me that capitalism is based on consumption, so whatever Smith says about consumption, I think should apply to capitalism, too. I agree with you Elaine. Whether capitalism is the opposite of shalom or not, it leads in that opposite direction.

Mitchell: Capitalism is such a big, magic word, that can be scary for some and miracle-working for others. I think there is much positive to be said about free markets, the production of goods, and the creativity that goes into investing capital. However, I'm fully in agreement that in the extreme consumerist version we live in, it's hard not to kiss the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

Hatcher: I can't even imagine how a godly, Christ-like capitalist system would operate.

Mitchell: However, I certainly don't think socialist systems have proved themselves capable of producing long-term prosperity for a people. They tend to devolve into either utopian projects and/or totalitarian collectives. What capitalism offers at its best is the ability to people to use their creativity and drive in work and production of goods. Is radical consumption the natural end of all capitalism or only the kind we've developed in the West?

Hatcher: I certainly don't consider socialist systems a viable solution! The end result is much worse than our "radical consumerism." Due to the fallen nature of humankind, radical consumption is probably the natural end of all capitalism. We just can't seem to do anything right on a large scale although individuals might practice a godly form of ... Read more capitalism on a local scale. But I don't know of any society where either capitalism or socialism has ended well for all. I say back to the land! Maybe manorialism with benevolent landlords?

Election Questions

Here are some election questions from Cari Montgomery. Cari is a student in one of my onlne courses:

1.) How much power do the American people really have during the political elections?

2.) How much power do each divisions of the political parties really have? And what can and will they do with it in the next four years to help the American economy?

Feel free to post your thoughts. I will comment shortly.

Christian Education and Personhood (John Paul II series)

This is the last entry culled from the encyclicals of John Paul II. The following is from Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the encyclical that attempted to give a more Christian course to Catholic university education. Much of what he has to say is true of Christian universities in general. Try replacing the word "Catholic" below with "Christian" and see how much you agree with and how much you can learn from:

4. It is the honour and responsibility of a Catholic University to consecrate itself without reserve to the cause of truth. This is its way of serving at one and the same time both the dignity of man and the good of the Church, which has "an intimate conviction that truth is (its) real ally ... and that knowledge and reason are sure ministers to faith." Without in any way neglecting the acquisition of useful knowledge, a Catholic University is distinguished by its free search for the whole truth about nature, man and God. The present age is in urgent need of this kind of disinterested service, namely of proclaiming the meaning of truth, that fundamental value without which freedom, justice and human dignity are extinguished. By means of a kind of universal humanism a Catholic University is completely dedicated to the research of all aspects of truth in their essential connection with the supreme Truth, who is God. It does this without fear but rather with enthusiasm, dedicating itself to every path of knowledge, aware of being preceded by him who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life", the Logos, whose Spirit of intelligence and love enables the human person with his or her own intelligence to find the ultimate reality of which he is the source and end and who alone is capable of giving fully that Wisdom without which the future of the world would be in danger.

6. Through the encounter which it establishes between the unfathomable richness of the salvific message of the Gospel and the variety and immensity of the fields of knowledge in which that richness is incarnated by it, a Catholic University enables the Church to institute an incomparably fertile dialogue with people of every culture. Man's life is given dignity by culture, and, while he finds his fullness in Christ, there can be no doubt that the Gospel which reaches and renews him in every dimension is also fruitful for the culture in which he lives.

7. In the world today, characterized by such rapid developments in science and technology, the tasks of a Catholic University assume an ever greater importance and urgency. Scientific and technological discoveries create an enormous economic and industrial growth, but they also inescapably require the correspondingly necessary search for meaning in order to guarantee that the new discoveries be used for the authentic good of individuals and of human society as a whole. If it is the responsibility of every University to search for such meaning, a Catholic University is called in a particular way to respond to this need: its Christian inspiration enables it to include the moral, spiritual and religious dimension in its research, and to evaluate the attainments of science and technology in the perspective of the totality of the human person.

In this context, Catholic Universities are called to a continuous renewal, both as "Universities" and as "Catholic". For, "What is at stake is the very meaning of scientific and technological research, of social life and of culture, but, on an even more profound level, what is at stake is the very meaning of the human person"(10). . . .

21. A Catholic University pursues its objectives through its formation of an authentic human community animated by the spirit of Christ. The source of its unity springs from a common dedication to the truth, a common vision of the dignity of the human person and, ultimately, the person and message of Christ which gives the Institution its distinctive character. As a result of this inspiration, the community is animated by a spirit of freedom and charity; it is characterized by mutual respect, sincere dialogue, and protection of the rights of individuals. It assists each of its members to achieve wholeness as human persons; in turn, everyone in the community helps in promoting unity, and each one, according to his or her role and capacity, contributes towards decisions which affect the community, and also towards maintaining and strengthening the distinctive Catholic character of the Institution. . . .

33. A specific priority is the need to examine and evaluate the predominant values and norms of modern society and culture in a Christian perspective, and the responsibility to try to communicate to society those ethical and religious principles which give full meaning to human life. In this way a University can contribute further to the development of a true Christian anthropology, founded on the person of Christ, which will bring the dynamism of the creation and redemption to bear on reality and on the correct solution to the problems of life.

By its very nature, a University develops culture through its research, helps to transmit the local culture to each succeeding generation through its teaching, and assists cultural activities through its educational services. It is open to all human experience and is ready to dialogue with and learn from any culture. A Catholic University shares in this, offering the rich experience of the Church's own culture. In addition, a Catholic University, aware that human culture is open to Revelation and transcendence, is also a primary and privileged place for a fruitful dialogue between the Gospel and culture.

44. Through this dialogue a Catholic University assists the Church, enabling it to come to a better knowledge of diverse cultures, discern their positive and negative aspects, to receive their authentically human contributions, and to develop means by which it can make the faith better understood by the men and women of a particular culture(36). While it is true that the Gospel cannot be identified with any particular culture and transcends all cultures, it is also true that "the Kingdom which the Gospel proclaims is lived by men and women who are profoundly linked to a culture, and the building up of the Kingdom cannot avoid borrowing the elements of human culture or cultures(37). "A faith that places itself on the margin of what is human, of what is therefore culture, would be a faith unfaithful to the fullness of what the Word of God manifests and reveals, a decapitated faith, worse still, a faith in the process of self-annihilation"(38).

45. A Catholic University must become more attentive to the cultures of the world of today, and to the various cultural traditions existing within the Church in a way that will promote a continuous and profitable dialogue between the Gospel and modern society. Among the criteria that characterize the values of a culture are above all, the meaning of the human person, his or her liberty, dignity, sense of responsibility, and openness to the transcendent. To a respect for persons is joined the preeminent value of the family, the primary unit of every human culture.

How much faith in our almsgiving and in our investments?

Interest piece, though I'm not entirely convinced by the analogy he draws between the faith that almsgiving requires of us (we trust that in giving to others that we are also giving to God) and the faith that markets and investment need.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/05/faith--finance-1243315689

Love to hear what others think.

Fun with charts - Well-being and stock market

The first graph is Gallup's Healthways Well-being index (this link explains how the index is calculated, page 2). It measures people's well-being in particular in how they evaluate their life, how they feel emotionally, how satisfied they are with their work environment, what their physical health is, and what is their level of healthy behavior and basic access.

The second chart is the stock market (Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P500) for the same time period.

Surprisingly similar, aren't they? What does that mean?

Free Markets and Human Persons (John Paul II series)

Here's some of the juicer passages from the 1991 encylical Centesimus Annus. John Paul II clearly condemns the collectivism and state-ownership practiced by communism, and he also clearly praises the free market for many things, particular monetary ("solvent") matters. Yet he also decries a business model that sees the maximization of profits as its own reason for existence. He warns against the potential idolatry in the consumption of goods, and insists that business must be guided by moral and ethical concerns that profit the community of persons. The conditions of the workplace matter to Christians, he says, because they matter to proper human flourishing everywhere:

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are "solvent", insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are "marketable", insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity. . . .

[I]t is right to speak of a struggle against an economic system, if the latter is understood as a method of upholding the absolute predominance of capital, the possession of the means of production and of the land, in contrast to the free and personal nature of human work. In the struggle against such a system, what is being proposed as an alternative is not the socialist system, which in fact turns out to be State capitalism, but rather a society of free work, of enterprise and of participation. Such a society is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the State, so as to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied.

The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well. When a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed and corresponding human needs have been duly satisfied. But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm's condition. It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people — who make up the firm's most valuable asset — to be humiliated and their dignity offended. Besides being morally inadmissible, this will eventually have negative repercussions on the firm's economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavouring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society. Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business. . . .

It is the task of the State to provide for the defense and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Just as in the time of primitive capitalism the State had the duty of defending the basic rights of workers, so now, with the new capitalism, the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual. . . .

Certainly the mechanisms of the market offer secure advantages: they help to utilize resources better; they promote the exchange of products; above all they give central place to the person's desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person. Nevertheless, these mechanisms carry the risk of an "idolatry" of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities.

Marxism criticized capitalist bourgeois societies, blaming them for the commercialization and alienation of human existence. This rebuke is of course based on a mistaken and inadequate idea of alienation, derived solely from the sphere of relationships of production and ownership, that is, giving them a materialistic foundation and moreover denying the legitimacy and positive value of market relationships even in their own sphere. Marxism thus ends up by affirming that only in a collective society can alienation be eliminated. However, the historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.

The historical experience of the West, for its part, shows that even if the Marxist analysis and its foundation of alienation are false, nevertheless alienation — and the loss of the authentic meaning of life — is a reality in Western societies too. This happens in consumerism, when people are ensnared in a web of false and superficial gratifications rather than being helped to experience their personhood in an authentic and concrete way. Alienation is found also in work, when it is organized so as to ensure maximum returns and profits with no concern whether the worker, through his own labour, grows or diminishes as a person, either through increased sharing in a genuinely supportive community or through increased isolation in a maze of relationships marked by destructive competitiveness and estrangement, in which he is considered only a means and not an end.

The concept of alienation needs to be led back to the Christian vision of reality, by recognizing in alienation a reversal of means and ends. When man does not recognize in himself and in others the value and grandeur of the human person, he effectively deprives himself of the possibility of benefitting from his humanity and of entering into that relationship of solidarity and communion with others for which God created him. Indeed, it is through the free gift of self that man truly finds himself. This gift is made possible by the human person's essential "capacity for transcendence". Man cannot give himself to a purely human plan for reality, to an abstract ideal or to a false utopia. As a person, he can give himself to another person or to other persons, and ultimately to God, who is the author of his being and who alone can fully accept his gift. A man is alienated if he refuses to transcend himself and to live the experience of selfgiving and of the formation of an authentic human community oriented towards his final destiny, which is God. A society is alienated if its forms of social organization, production and consumption make it more difficult to offer this gift of self and to establish this solidarity between people.

What the Numbers Tell Us

Probably the best way to track the effectiveness of the speech is via approval ratings and surveys that ask voters whether they approve of the Obama plan or the way he is handling health care reform.

Did we see any movement one way or the other when comparing the numbers for today versus the numbers for yesterday.

Rasmussen tracks presidential approval by comparing Obama's strongly approve ratings with his strongly disapprove numbers. According to the Rasmussen, 33% of all voters survey strongly approve of the president's job Performance while 41% disapprove. This means his overall rating for September 10Th is -8 which is unchanged from September 9Th.

Additionally, 44% of all voters surveyed approve of his health care reform package while 53% disapprove.

At this point, the speech appears to have made little impact with voters. Of course, Democratic members of Congress were a target group of the speech as well. The speech may have swayed them. Also, it is important to note that opinions may change as the media forms a consensus message of failure or success. This could take a few days to crystallize

Rasmussen

Some particular benefits of capitalism: It's the little things...

As I was mingling with my friends this morning, eating a doughnut, I couldn't help but be thankful to God for his provisions. Particularly I was looking at one delicious product of capitalism - the Krispy Kreme doughnut. How great it is that some people choose to get up before sun comes up, to drive to work before my alarm clock rings, and to offer their product to those who choose to buy it for a trifling sum.

Of course, today I did not have to buy the doughnut because of another blessing that God provided -a free breakfest for faculty and staff at the university, so I am even more thankful for God's provisions for the university as a whole.

Meet Joe Wilson!!

A quick thumbnail sketch of the man who heckled the president during the nationally televised speech.

The President has a Large Hill to Climb

This Associated Press poll indicates the distance President Obama must travel to pass comprehensive health care reform. We will see what these numbers look like during the early, post-speech phase of the news cycle.

Obama's Healthcare Hail Mary

The pundits proclaimed this as the make or break speech for President Obama and his health care plan. Of course, the media issues the same dire warning in July and August. The networks know a sense of urgency or impending doom means more viewers!!

While the jury is still out regarding this latest effort, the White House must grapplw over its inability to communicate a precise, easily digestible message to voters. Of course, this problem exists because they are still not certain as to what this bill Will ultimately look like and what it will accomplish. Current efforts are truly all over the place even though the public option still creates the most buzz.

Joint Ownership of the Means of Production? (John Paul II series)

This selection from Laborem exercers shows John Paul II embracing the "middle way" of distributism. he argues against socialist collectivist and state control of the means of production, as well as those forms of capitalism that would deby labor the right to ownership of the means to produce. He insists on the right to private property but not on the absolute right divorced form the higher good of the common good of a society of persons. My guess is there's something here to annoy everyone:

". . . the Church, diverges radically from the programme of collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism and put into pratice in various countries in the decades following the time of Leo XIII's Encyclical. At the same time it differs from the programme of capitalism practised by liberalism and by the political systems inspired by it. In the latter case, the difference consists in the way the right to ownership or property is understood. Christian tradition has never upheld this right as absolute and untouchable. On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

"Furthermore, in the Church's teaching, ownership has never been understood in a way that could constitute grounds for social conflict in labour. As mentioned above, property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve work. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production. Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the form of "capital" in opposition to "labour"-and even to practise exploitation of labour-is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession. They cannot be possessed against labour, they cannot even be possessed for possession's sake, because the only legitimate title to their possession- whether in the form of private ownership or in the form of public or collective ownership-is that they should serve labour, and thus, by serving labour, that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order, namely, the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them. . . .

". . . The principle of respect for work demands that this right should undergo a constructive revision, both in theory and in practice. If it is true that capital, as the whole of the means of production, is at the same time the product of the work of generations, it is equally true that capital is being unceasingly created through the work done with the help of all these means of production, and these means can be seen as a great workbench at which the present generation of workers is working day after day. Obviously we are dealing here with different kinds of work, not only so-called manual labour but also the many forms of intellectual work, including white-collar work and management.

"In the light of the above, the many proposals put forward by experts in Catholic social teaching and by the highest Magisterium of the Church take on special significance -- proposals for joint ownership of the means of work, sharing by the workers in the management and/or profits of businesses, so-called shareholding by labour, etc. Whether these various proposals can or cannot be applied concretely, it is clear that recognition of the proper position of labour and the worker in the production process demands various adaptations in the sphere of the right to ownership of the means of production. This is so not only in view of older situations but also, first and foremost, in view of the whole of the situation and the problems in the second half of the present century with regard to the so-called Third World and the various new independent countries that have arisen, especially in Africa but elsewhere as well, in place of the colonial territories of the past.

"Therefore, while the position of "rigid" capitalism must undergo continual revision, in order to be reformed from the point of view of human rights, both human rights in the widest sense and those linked with man's work, it must be stated that, from the same point of view, these many deeply desired reforms cannot be achieved by an a priori elimination of private ownership of the means of production. For it must be noted that merely taking these means of production (capital) out of the hands of their private owners is not enough to ensure their satisfactory socialization. . . .

". . . A way towards that goal could be found by associating labour with the ownership of capital, as far as possible, and by producing a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes; they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good, and they would be living communities both in form and in substance, in the sense that the members of each body would be looked upon and treated as persons and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body."

Graph of the day - Who should get medical treatment?

From an article in Lancet, here is one proposal of how to prioritize medical treatment to people according to patient's age.

The higher the red line the higher the likelihood that a person in that age group would be 'awarded' medical services.

The implication is that if a 5-year old, a 25-year old, and a 55-year old all line up for kidney dialysis and only one procedure is available, then the procedure will be awarded to the 25-year old, and not to the other two. The article (full text) is written by Rahm Emanuel's brother Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the White House health care policy advisor. I read about the article in The Economist.

What would be a Christian way to 'award' scarce health interventions? Would the decision to 'award' medical services to a person be based on that person's age, gender, health status, other characteristics?

There is no arguing that we do not live in a world of scarcity and disease, so the question about how to allocate scarce resources is an important one. The Christian view is very much consistent with holding that health care decisions should be made by individuals for themselves and for their family members, even (voluntarily) for the people in their community. When there is an unresolved health need in the neighborhood, church, or the community, then individuals should voluntarily band together voluntarily to help the sick.

If the individuals do not make their own health care decisions, but allow someone else to do it on their behalf, then the need to ration scarce care to others becomes inescapable, and every method of rationing scarce care to human beings brings with it major, devastating ethical problems.

Any commenters have a good idea for how rationing decisions (deciding who would get care and who would not) could be made ethically, or consistently with Christian principles?

Graph of the day - majors and salaries

Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary

Methodology Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.

Luckily, we know that education is about much more than salary. However, it is interesting to know the starting and mid-career salaries of various majors.

This is from http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp

Family, Work, and "Dominion" (John Paul II series)

This is section 10 of John Paul II's encyclical Laborem exercens. It raises a number of important questions about not only the nature of work, but also what Christians should believe about the nature of the family and community:

"Work constitutes a foundation for the formation of family life, which is a natural right and something that man is called to. These two spheres of values-one linked to work and the other consequent on the family nature of human life-must be properly united and must properly permeate each other. In a way, work is a condition for making it possible to found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man normally gains through work. Work and industriousness also influence the whole process of education in the family, for the very reason that everyone "becomes a human being" through, among other things, work, and becoming a human being is precisely the main purpose of the whole process of education. Obviously, two aspects of work in a sense come into play here: the one making family life and its upkeep possible, and the other making possible the achievement of the purposes of the family, especially education. Nevertheless, these two aspects of work are linked to one another and are mutually complementary in various points.

"It must be remembered and affirmed that the family constitutes one of the most important terms of reference for shaping the social and ethical order of human work. The teaching of the Church has always devoted special attention to this question, and in the present document we shall have to return to it. In fact, the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person.

"The third sphere of values that emerges from this point of view-that of the subject of work-concerns the great society to which man belongs on the basis of particular cultural and historical links. This society-even when it has not yet taken on the mature form of a nation-is not only the great "educator" of every man, even though an indirect one (because each individual absorbs within the family the contents and values that go to make up the culture of a given nation); it is also a great historical and social incarnation of the work of all generations. All of this brings it about that man combines his deepest human identity with membership of a nation, and intends his work also to increase the common good developed together with his compatriots, thus realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole human family, of all the people living in the world.

"These three spheres are always important for human work in its subjective dimension. And this dimension, that is to say, the concrete reality of the worker, takes precedence over the objective dimension. In the subjective dimension there is realized, first of all, that "dominion" over the world of nature to which man is called from the beginning according to the words of the Book of Genesis. The very process of "subduing the earth", that is to say work, is marked in the course of history, and especially in recent centuries, by an immense development of technological means. This is an advantageous and positive phenomenon, on condition that the objective dimension of work does not gain the upper hand over the subjective dimension, depriving man of his dignity and inalienable rights or reducing them."

1. Should we see work and family as intimately related? Why or why not?
2. Is human dignity tied to our work, to its place in our homelife, and its place in the larger community?
3. What role should technology play in the humanizing of work, especially as a part of family and community?
   

Graph of the day - the problem with future

The problem about making claims about the future is that the future hasn't happened yet.

See this chart above - the blue lines are the predictions of the White House economic team about unemployment rate with or without the stimulus (report from Jan 10, 2009). Darker blue shows the projected best case - a lower unemployment rate that is 'lower' precisely because of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The lighter blue line is the projected worst case unemployment rate without the stimulus. The problem is that the real numbers (the black dots) show that the actual rate is higher than even the White House's worst case scenario.

Are we to believe that the stimulus made unemployment worse, or that without the stimulus, the current 9.7% unemployment would have been even higher?

The chart is from Innocent Bystanders and I originally saw it at Greg Mankiw's blog.

Graph of the day - Unions less popular

According to a new poll from Gallup, the suport for labor unions in the US is continuing to erode.

How would you answer Gallup's simple question - do you approve or disaprove of labor unions? Do you think there are Christian reasons to approve or disaprove of labor unions?

Here is the Gallup report.

Here is where I saw the article.

Persons, Their Dignity, and Work (John Paul II series)

The encyclical Laborem exercens, written in 1981 while the Polish workers' movement Solidarity resisted its Communist government, speaks to the nature of work and the innate dignity of human beings:

"Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature. . . ." (intro.)

"In order to continue our analysis of work, an analysis linked with the word of the Bible telling man that he is to subdue the earth, we must concentrate our attention on work in the subjective sense, much more than we did on the objective significance, barely touching upon the vast range of problems known intimately and in detail to scholars in various fields and also, according to their specializations, to those who work. If the words of the Book of Genesis to which we refer in this analysis of ours speak of work in the objective sense in an indirect way, they also speak only indirectly of the subject of work; but what they say is very eloquent and is full of great significance.

"Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the "image of God" he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject to work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity.

"This does not mean that, from the objective point of view, human work cannot and must not be rated and qualified in any way. It only means that the primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject. This leads immediately to a very important conclusion of an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is "for man" and not man "for work". Through this conclusion one rightly comes to recognize the pre-eminence of the subjective meaning of work over the objective one. Given this way of understanding things, and presupposing that different sorts of work that people do can have greater or lesser objective value, let us try nevertheless to show that each sort is judged above all by the measure of the dignity of the subject of work, that is to say the person, the individual who carries it out. On the other hand: independently of the work that every man does, and presupposing that this work constitutes a purpose-at times a very demanding one-of his activity, this purpose does not possess a definitive meaning in itself. In fact, in the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of the work, whatever work it is that is done by man-even if the common scale of values rates it as the merest "service", as the most monotonous even the most alienating work. . . .

"[I]n the light of the analysis of the fundamental reality of the whole economic process-first and foremost of the production structure that work is-it should be recognized that the error of early capitalism can be repeated wherever man is in a way treated on the same level as the whole complex of the material means of production, as an instrument and not in accordance with the true dignity of his work-that is to say, where he is not treated as subject and maker, and for this very reason as the true purpose of the whole process of production.

"This explains why the analysis of human work in the light of the words concerning man's "dominion" over the earth goes to the very heart of the ethical and social question. This concept should also find a central place in the whole sphere of social and economic policy, both within individual countries and in the wider field of international and intercontinental relationships, particularly with reference to the tensions making themselves felt in the world not only between East and West but also between North and South." (section 6)

John Paul II ties work to the human vocation. For him, it is a biblical idea, one arising from the creation mandates of Genesis. Work must not, however, reduce human beings to their material existence alone. It must play a role in and recognize the nature of human beings--their personhood, their communal existence, their social and ethical existence, their need to make and create, to produce and partake. Human economic systems--socialist, communist, capitalist--that treat persons as objects, rather than as subjects, are to be condemned and brought to repentance.

Graph - Income and SAT scores

Interesting chart from Economix:

Although, as Greg Mankiw points out - correlation does not always imply causation.

Sentenced to death on the NHS

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

This one should give us all pause, no matter your views of nationalizing healthcare.

The Law and the Life of Persons (John Paul II series)

Here's a fascinating passage from Evangelium vitae, "The Gospel of Life" John Paul II's encylical on culture of life issues:

Life is indelibly marked by a truth of its own. By accepting God's gift, man is obliged to maintain life in this truth which is essential to it. To detach oneself from this truth is to condemn oneself to meaninglessness and unhappiness, and possibly to become a threat to the existence of others, since the barriers guaranteeing respect for life and the defence of life, in every circumstance, have been broken down.

The truth of life is revealed by God's commandment. The word of the Lord shows concretely the course which life must follow if it is to respect its own truth and to preserve its own dignity. The protection of life is not only ensured by the spe- cific commandment "You shall not kill" (Ex 20:13; Dt 5:17); the entire Law of the Lord serves to protect life, because it reveals that truth in which life finds its full meaning.

It is not surprising, therefore, that God's Covenant with his people is so closely linked to the perspective of life, also in its bodily dimension. In that Covenant, God's commandment is offered as the path of life: "I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of" (Dt 30:15-16). What is at stake is not only the land of Canaan and the existence of the people of Israel, but also the world of today and of the future, and the existence of all humanity. In fact, it is altogether impossible for life to remain authentic and complete once it is detached from the good; and the good, in its turn, is essentially bound to the commandments of the Lord, that is, to the "law of life" (Sir 17:11). The good to be done is not added to life as a burden which weighs on it, since the very purpose of life is that good and only by doing it can life be built up.

It is thus the Law as a whole which fully protects human life. This explains why it is so hard to remain faithful to the commandment "You shall not kill" when the other "words of life" (cf. Acts 7:38) with which this commandment is bound up are not observed. Detached from this wider framework, the commandment is destined to become nothing more than an obligation imposed from without, and very soon we begin to look for its limits and try to find mitigating factors and exceptions. Only when people are open to the fullness of the truth about God, man and history will the words "You shall not kill" shine forth once more as a good for man in himself and in his relations with others. In such a perspective we can grasp the full truth of the passage of the Book of Deuteronomy which Jesus repeats in reply to the first temptation: "Man does not live by bread alone, but ... by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3; cf. Mt 4:4).

It is by listening to the word of the Lord that we are able to live in dignity and justice. It is by observing the Law of God that we are able to bring forth fruits of life and happiness: "All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die" (Bar 4:1).

John Paul II puts together the revelation of God's law, the nature of the covenant community, and the respect for human life and dignity that should mark our view of human persons and their communities. Life is not authentic without this fundamental respect for personhood. Once we begin to qualify away human life, deeming some as less than fully human, we risk before long sacrificng our human nature and our basic morality entirely.

Should Evangelical Colleges Hire Roman Catholics?

I'm throwing out this question to see what kind of feedback I can generate on this topic. 25 years ago, the idea would have been all but unthinkable. But recently, with the reproachment between evangelicals and Catholics because of the culture wars (what one commentator called, "the ecumenism of the trenchs"), as well as such projects as ECT (Evangelicals and Catholics Together), the Joint Luthern-Catholic Statement on Justification, and numerous works of history and theology that explore the past divide and possibilities of future accord, it has become far more common for evangelical and conservative Catholic academics to see eye-to-eye on many things. (Plus, evangelical academics often teach at Catholic schools now. )

In a few years ago, Wheaton College chose not to renew Joshua Hochschild's contract when he converted to Rome, though he continued to self-identify as a "Catholic evangelical." Alan Jacobs, English professor at Wheaton, has an interesting piece on the issue in First Things, "To Be a Christian College."

Here, at DBU, we had our first Catholic Archbishop speak in chapel a few years ago, and we've quietly for some time now asked Catholic speakers to campus on various issues, but that is still far removed from even considering an adjunct or guest lecturer appointment.

What do you think? Is it even possible? What would be the pros and cons? if we ever did so, how shold we go about it? What might be the best approaches and/or cautions we need observe?

Visualization - One trillion dollars

What can one do with a Trillion Dollars?

*Buy a $3 latte every day for ... 900 million years

OR

*Fund the military of ... all NATO countries combined

OR

*Run the US Federal Government for ... about three months

See the 1 minute video for more fun ideas for how to spend a trillion USD.

I found the link at http://infosthetics.com/

On the impossibility of guaranteeing positive rights without negating negative rights

This is from an article I was reading about positive and negative rights:

The right to life certainly is a fundamental human right. It is a negative right since it only requires that others do not kill one. In this context, one should recall that about 169 million people have been killed by states or their governments in the 20th century. Communists and National Socialists established the most murderous regimes. Among the victims of communism, there are tens of millions of deaths from starvation after the coerced collectivization of agriculture in Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China. Although the 20th century suffered two world wars and other bloody wars, fewer people died on the battlefield or because of bombing campaigns than have been murdered or starved to death by their own governments. Whoever wants to protect human rights should therefore first of all focus on the necessity of protecting people from the state and its abuses of power.

...

As the balance of achievements and victims of communism demonstrates, the attempt to provide entitlements did not prevent tens of millions of deaths from starvation. Actually, the attempt to provide more than negative rights resulted in something less: the lack of respect of negative and positive rights. As I shall argue, this association between the attempt to guarantee entitlements by a monopoly of coercion and central planning is causally related to the repeated failure to protect even the right to life.

The rest of the article is here.

Chart of the Day - Government spending since 1870

Today's charts show US Government spending in three contexts. The first chart shows various countries' government spending as a share of GDP roughly over the last 130 years (don't try to trace countries, just note the trend; US highlighted in red):

The second chart shows the same info for fewer countries:

The third chart shows the US government spending without being smoothed out. Here we see the peaks during the two world wars, and other minor increases and decreases in the government spending:

What do you think? To me what stands out is the following:

• the world-wide sustained trend of increasing government spending is noteworthy even if unfortunate
• the current (2009) increase in the government spending compares well with the increase during the early part of the Great Depression. Then spending about doubled from about 10% of GDP to 20% of GDP. Now spending is again increasing about 10 percentage points from 35% to 45%.

If history is any guide - don't hold your breath for trend reversal.

I took the data for charts come from Tanzi's book "Public Spending in the 20th century" for the first two charts, and from usgovernmentspending.com for the second chart.

What do you think upon observing the charts?

Chart of the day - Dallas house prices

Here is a nice chart from economix (that's the New York Times econ blog; yes, I do occasionally read the NYTimes):

The blue indicates how much the Dallas house prices changed in a given month as compared to the same month in the previous year. So if last July the prices were on average $100,000 per house, and this July the prices were on average $110,000, then the blue line would show +10%, since the house prices increased by 10% in that one year period.

The gray area shows the same statistic not for Dallas, but the average for all the largest cities in the US.

So - Dallas' prices were 2.2% lower in June 09 than they were in June 08. Notice how prices in Dallas increased by much less than the national average in the boom years, but they also fell much less in the bust years. Maybe we can call our prices 'lukewarm'? :)

Also note the reversal of trend in Dallas and the nation early this year. Seems that the price drops are becomming smaller and smaller, perhaps we will soon see gains again?

Human Freedom and the Moral Law (John Paul II series)

John Paul II in this selection from Veritatis splendor argues that while humans have the freedom to use their reason to explore and understand the natural world and to seek out expressions of ethical action, this freedom is not intended for the radical autonomy preached by modernity. The conscience is not an idol unto itself. He warns that a loss of belief in definitive right and wrong is accompanied by a loss of belief in universal truth that can adjudicate between the claims of various individuals. Instead of a heteronomy, in which each person is a will unto himself or herself, one should recognize the existence of a participatory theonomy, in which persons enter into the law of God with their whole persons:

32. Certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values. This is the direction taken by doctrines which have lost the sense of the transcendent or which are explicitly atheist. The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origin in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and "being at peace with oneself", so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment.

As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.

These different notions are at the origin of currents of thought which posit a radical opposition between moral law and conscience, and between nature and freedom.

33. Side by side with its exaltation of freedom, yet oddly in contrast with it, modern culture radically questions the very existence of this freedom. A number of disciplines, grouped under the name of the "behavioural sciences", have rightly drawn attention to the many kinds of psychological and social conditioning which influence the exercise of human freedom. Knowledge of these conditionings and the study they have received represent important achievements which have found application in various areas, for example in pedagogy or the administration of justice. But some people, going beyond the conclusions which can be legitimately drawn from these observations, have come to question or even deny the very reality of human freedom.

The rightful autonomy of the practical reason means that man possesses in himself his own law, received from the Creator. Nevertheless, the autonomy of reason cannot mean that reason itself creates values and moral norms. Were this autonomy to imply a denial of the participation of the practical reason in the wisdom of the divine Creator and Lawgiver, or were it to suggest a freedom which creates moral norms, on the basis of historical contingencies or the diversity of societies and cultures, this sort of alleged autonomy would contradict the Church's teaching on the truth about man. It would be the death of true freedom: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17).

41. Man's genuine moral autonomy in no way means the rejection but rather the acceptance of the moral law, of God's command: "The Lord God gave this command to the man..." (Gen 2:16). Human freedom and God's law meet and are called to intersect, in the sense of man's free obedience to God and of God's completely gratuitous benevolence towards man. Hence obedience to God is not, as some would believe, a heteronomy, as if the moral life were subject to the will of something all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his freedom. If in fact a heteronomy of morality were to mean a denial of man's self-determination or the imposition of norms unrelated to his good, this would be in contradiction to the Revelation of the Covenant and of the redemptive Incarnation. Such a heteronomy would be nothing but a form of alienation, contrary to divine wisdom and to the dignity of the human person.

Others speak, and rightly so, of theonomy, or participated theonomy, since man's free obedience to God's law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God's wisdom and providence. By forbidding man to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", God makes it clear that man does not originally possess such "knowledge" as something properly his own, but only participates in it by the light of natural reason and of Divine Revelation, which manifest to him the requirements and the promptings of eternal wisdom. Law must therefore be considered an expression of divine wisdom: by submitting to the law, freedom submits to the truth of creation. Consequently one must acknowledge in the freedom of the human person the image and the nearness of God, who is present in all (cf. Eph 4:6). But one must likewise acknowledge the majesty of the God of the universe and revere the holiness of the law of God, who is infinitely transcendent: Deus semper maior.