Technology, Culture, and Christianity

The commercial success of the Matrix franchise is em- blematic of a pervasive cultural curiosity about the nature and future of the relationship between technology and humanity. In The Matrix: Reloaded, the savior-figure Neo has a conversation with Councillor Hamman, one of the leaders of the last human city Zion. Neo and Councillor Hamman travel to the engineering level of the city, where Hamman observes, “Almost no one comes down here, unless of course there’s a problem. That’s how it is with people.

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The Market, the Needy, and the Argument

Wealth, Poverty, & Human Destiny is a joint project— by the John Templeton Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute—whose stated purpose is to investigate “whether and to what extent the market economy helps the poor.” The book’s co-editors, Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute and David Schindler of the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C., were given the task of gathering together an array of scholars who would offer their reflections on this question in the light of Christian faith.

by Megan Maloney

Law, Naturally

In 1945 the initial formation of the United Nations promised a renaissance in “natural law.” Stating a “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person …” the preamble to the UN charter outlined what appeared to be a basic conception of natural law and human dignity reaffirmed by the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Even as the expansion of historical knowledge revealed an unfathomed diversity in global cultures and customs, the West's faith in a universal moral unity seemed firm.

by John Coleman

Spending Spiritually

Building Wealth from the Inside Out“ is Lee Jenkins' trademark phrase. Literally. Its meaning is unpacked in the pages of Jenkins' Taking Care of Business. Written by a man who is both a financial advisor and ordained Christian minister, Taking Care of Business is an eminently practical mix of Jenkins' financial expertise and biblically grounded faith, all intertwined with the wisdom and anecdotal color that comes from years of experience with both realms.

by Megan Maloney

Weaver's Southern Christendom

On March 27, 1998, Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, hosted a two-day symposium to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Professor Richard Weaver's seminal book, Ideas Have Consequences. From that small gathering of 100 people nine speakers were asked to submit papers. These submissions make up a rather remarkable book entitled: Steps Toward Restoration, The Consequences of Richard Weaver's Ideas.

by Robert C Cheeks

Hot Topics in Economics

Bulls, Bears & Golden Calves: Applying Christian Ethics in Economics by John E. Stapleford (Intervarsity Press) is both a reference for Christian thinking on specific economic topics and a helpful companion to the major economics texts of our day. The list of chapters reads like a recipe for staying up all night in group debate or private turmoil (depending on your inclination): environmental stewardship, legalized gambling, debt relief for less developed nations, population control, pornography, immigration.

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Marriage Woes

Marriage is in deep trouble in America, and indeed throughout most of the Western world. The numbers tell the story. By the mid-nineties, nearly one-fifth of all white children in the U.S. lived in single-parent families, almost always headed by mothers. Well over half of all black children now live in such mother-only families. These percentages represent a spectacular increase from just a few decades ago.

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Founding Faith

In On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding, Michael Novak amends the customary political history of the American founding to reinstate its religious underpinnings. Where most Americans do well in noting the Enlightenment elements of the American regime, they have been taught almost nothing about the religious—indeed, biblical—influence on the United States’ formation as a nation. Novak applies the corrective.

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The Splendor of Faith

It has been centuries since the Roman Catholic Church has elevated to the papacy a bishop who is both a deft shepherd and an intellectual giant; these two gifts rarely fill the Chair of Peter simultaneously. Avery Dulles, in his book The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of John Paul II, mentions but two: Leo the Great and Gregory the Great–placing Pope John Paul II in company with the few who have most worthily filled the shoes of the great fisherman.

by Michel Therrian

The Second One Thousand Years

A thousand years is a long time. Hence, Richard John Neuhaus has taken on a difficult task in formulating The Second One Thousand Years: Ten People Who Defined a Millennium.

by Michael R. Stevens

Citizen Kuyper: Born-Again American

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!'“ said Abraham Kuyper (1837—1920), a Dutch pastor-theologian by training and jack-of-many-trades by vocation. To say he practiced what he preached would be an understatement.

by Lucas E. Morel

More Money, More Ministry

Most of the sixteen essays in this volume originated at a consultation on “Evangelicals and Finance” in Naperville, Illinois, in early 1998. The purpose of the book is to take “a first step toward understanding how evangelicals have thought about, used, and raised money during the twentieth century.” The majority of its authors are historians and sociologists, so the perspectives are, for the most part, historical and social in nature.

by John R. Schneider