Theology and Politics, Religion and Politics, TheoPol blog, Journalist, Author

Relative poverty

The indignity of gross inequality

Which view of economic inequality has greater merit? The one espoused by Adam Smith, the father figure of capitalism? Or the teaching that unfolds from the Bible’s pleadings for justice and righteousness?

It’s a trick question. In fact, these two perspectives are broadly the same. Smith, like the biblical writers, was opposed to gross income inequality. For both, how people are faring relative to others in society is not simply a question of envy. It’s a matter of human dignity and social well-being.

There’s another outlook on inequality that has many adherents. Let’s call it the We Got Stuff school of thought. …read more

The Blessings of Unfreedom

May 17, 2012 by William Bole 1 Comment

Yesterday, an estimated two thousand people filled the National Cathedral in Washington for a memorial service that celebrated the post-incarceration life of Charles W. Colson, the Watergate conspirator-turned-evangelical who died last month. Colson was part of an infamous group of men in the Nixon White House who could be charitably described as revolting. In 1974 he went to prison for Watergate-related crimes including the cover-up that toppled a president. Seven months later, he was “born again,” as he proclaimed at the time when let out—a changed man.

Many were skeptical of his jailhouse conversion, then and for years afterward. But Colson eventually proved them wrong as he dedicated the second half of his life to serving the spiritual needs of his fellow sinners in the slammer, through his organization, Prison Fellowship Ministries.

This basic story line and its variations are not unfamiliar. Many have gained remarkable insights into themselves and their world, peering out from behind bars. Some, like Colson, were incredibly guilty; some were ultimately vindicated; others were prisoners of conscience or of politics. Nelson Mandela, to name a revered one, was a violent revolutionary, overflowing with resentment (and not without cause), when thrown into the cramped prison cell that contained him for 27 years, courtesy of South Africa’s white minority regime. He came out a reconciler. Mandela’s honored guest at his 1994 presidential inauguration was his white jailer.

Some inmates have reached a level of consciousness where they could see themselves as radically free. They might even look upon the rest of us, on the outside, as existing in a kind of spiritual incarceration. Such was the illumination given to Al eksandr Solzhenitsyn during his eight years in the Russian gulags after World War II. ...read more

Master Teachers

Inside the Classrooms of Six Boston College Faculty

At 8:15 one Wednesday morning last January, most of the 40 students in G. Peter Wilson’s 8:30 Financial Accounting class were already present. Wilson waited a minute or two longer, surveyed the lecture room occupied mostly by freshmen in Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, and said: “Let’s do it.” All heads turned toward a bingo cage on a wooden bench at the front of the room. The professor gave the toy a spin and yanked out a numbered yellow ball—indicating the study group that would report on its research momentarily. Then he rolled a red dice. “And the lucky number is two,” he announced, signaling the student who would deliver the group’s brief presentation. In the back of the room a young man pumped his fist and exclaimed, “Yes!” … read more

Questioning Authority. Keeping the Faith

The Latest “Catholics in America” Survey

Among other findings, researchers reported that 45 percent of millennial Catholics are Hispanic. Given birth rates and continued flows of immigration from Latin America, “they may well become the first generation of American Catholics in which Hispanics are a majority,” said one presenter at a daylong conference.

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The Peace Front

Religious Groups Stake Out a Wider Role in Resolving Violent Conflicts

In struggles around the globe, religious communities are showing that they can bow in either direction: toward entrenchment and extremism or toward solidarity and compassion.

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Ten Lessons for Idea Hunters

Know your gig, don’t let the job define you, etc.

Type out the search words “ideas, innovation,” and Google will cough out no fewer than 329,000,000 possibilities for perusal. Narrow the search to “lessons about ideas, innovation,” and that number will drop to a mere 171,000,000. Let’s just say there are more lessons about business ideas than you’d ever want to scan, let alone consider and put into practice.

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