The following clip is excerpted from Episode 6: The Economy of Wonder, part of the film series, For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles: “Beauty is the word that shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendor around the double constellation of the True and the Good and their inseparable relation to one another. Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient... Read more
By Joseph Sunde At 14 years old, Tim Harris dreamed of owning his own restaurant. He was born with Down syndrome, so his parents weren’t quite sure what to think. Yet soon after Tim began his first job as a host at Red Robin, it all started to make sense. “[Customers] were visibly happy to see him and Tim really developed a following,” says Keith Harris, Tim’s father. “People would come to the restaurant specifically when he was working. As we sat there,... Read more
By Joe Carter When Christians think of the majesty of God’s handiwork we tend to think of the visible aspects of nature. We agree with King David that, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). But there are intricate and beautiful aspects of God’s creative genius that we don’t often think about—or don’t think about as being created by God. Take, for instance, the price system. As economist Alex Tabarrok says in... Read more
By Anthony Bradley One of the benefits of a Christian theology of work is that it frees parents up to encourage their children to pursue various employment-related vocations that cultivate creation, rather than prod them to waste a life in the unfulfilling pursuit of the American Dream. Our obsession with the American Dream as a means of achieving a life of comfort and ease has distracted us from the fact that the world’s economy doesn’t need adults simply with college... Read more
The Acton Institute has published four tradition-specific primers on faith, work, and economics, including Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Reformed perspectives. Each offers a distinct contribution to the subject, and when taken together provides a rich and coherent framework for Christian stewardship. The books are part of a growing Oikonomia Series. This week, Acton and CLP will be giving away two complete sets of the series (that’s 4 books total for each winner!), including Chad Brand’s Flourishing Faith, David Wright’s How God Makes the World a Better Place, Charlie Self’s Flourishing... Read more
By Joseph Sunde The oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay has severely dwindled, amounting to less than 1% of historic levels, according to the NOAA. In turn, from a consumer’s perspective, Virginia oysters have been increasingly replaced by other varieties from around the globe. But if Rappahannock Oyster Co. has anything to say about it, the Bay oyster will once again reign supreme. The company’s mission? “To put the Chesapeake Bay oyster back on the map” and give consumers a chance to once again enjoy “what is arguably... Read more
By Jordan Ballor The theme of work recurs and reverberates throughout the Christian scriptures. We see it from the very beginning in Genesis 1, where human beings are created in God’s image and blessed with the call: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” The call to work appears again in a more specific form with the creation account of Adam and Eve, in which Adam is “placed in the Garden of Eden to work it and... Read more
By Evan Koons We’re wrapping up the Economy of Wonder with a trip to the FLOW Saloon and a chat with the local barkeep. It turns out there’s more to life than the good (and strong) drink for what ails you. (Originally published at the FLOW Blog) Read more
By Joe Carter Contrary to the trite assertion made every year by people who don’t know how to appreciate football, it is not really true that the commercials the best thing about the Super Bowl (at least not always). Sure, it seems that way because the television viewer is seeing commercials than actual game play (in an average game, the ratio of commercials to playing time is seven to one ). The reality, however, is that most of the commercials aren’t all... Read more
By Joseph Sunde I have plenty of hesitations about heeding various calls to “work-life balance,” mostly because they tend to dismiss or downplay the reality that “work” is often a lot less work than “life.” Parents of young children have a keen sense of all this, of course. Indeed, it’s the reason so many of us would prefer to retreat to the “workplace” when the dirty diapers and toddler tantrums begin to beckon. Thus, if we really hope to “balance” these things out... Read more
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