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The publishing industry has a new popular theme: books related to the “threat to American democracy.” Turns out that, according to books like, “The False White Gospel,” “Confronting Christofascism,” “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy,” and “American Idolatry,” the common theme is: there is a danger to the destruction of American democracy and it is, horror of horrors, American conservative Christians, evangelicals. We are the extremists that the world needs to be warned about. Well, American democracy is in fact in danger, but let's talk about where the real problems are. Eric Teetsel, “Killing the filibuster to kill the unborn,” September 26, 2024. Miles Smith, “'Unburdened' by the Constitution,” August 28, 2024. Daniel Darling, “The extremists you warned us about,” August 20, 2024. Jordan J. Ballor, “The Supreme Court isn't broken,” August 15, 2024.
In his prescient novel, 1984, George Orwell argued that the control of language is a means by which governments and other totalitarian agencies control the narrative, the agenda, the way we control people. It is interesting that in 2024, language is becoming the battlefield for control in our culture. What does the bible have to say about this? R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “The Antisemitism Awareness Act is a big problem,” May 6, 2024. _________________, “Breaking news—the media class is liberal,” April 17, 2024. Jordan J. Ballor, “False prophets and politicians,” March 25, 2024. Joseph Backholm, “An era of euphemism and lies,” March 22, 2024.
In the last decade we've seen a dramatic change in the dominant worldview in American cultural life. As a result of that change, we've seen increased attacks on Christians as people who are intolerant, who use hate language, and are unloving. This is particularly present when we talk about the LGBTQ agenda, same-sex marriage, transgenderism, abortion, any of the issues related to the sexual revolution in American history. So, what's really going on here? Josh Schumacher, “Justice Department recommends no jail time for church attacker,”https://wng.org/sift/justice-department-recommends-no-jail-time-for-church-attacker-1681504095, April 14, 2023. Lynn Vincent, “Storm warning: Official persecution of American Christians has shown its leading edge,” https://wng.org/articles/storm-warning-1679456108, April 8, 2023. Jordan J. Ballor, “The God of the Bible is not ‘queer,'” https://wng.org/opinions/the-god-of-the-bible-is-not-queer-1667474556, November 3, 2022.
The keynote presentation given at the Fall 2022 Carolinas Regional Convivium entitled "Natural Law and Protestant Social Thought" by Dr. Jordan J. Ballor. Jordan J. Ballor directs the research agenda of the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy (CRCD), which includes oversight of research publications as well as pursuit of his own scholarship, popular speaking, and writing. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has doctorates in Reformation history from the University of Zurich and in moral theology from Calvin Theological Seminary.
The world now has 8 billion people. Wow. But not everyone is happy about it. Should we be upset with the environmentalists that so many people require so many resources? What is to be done? Join Pastor Michael as he discusses this on #TruthCurrents. Jordan J. Ballor, “Eight billion reasons to celebrate,” https://wng.org/opinions/eight-billion-reasons-to-celebrate-1674087343, January 19, 2023. Thomas Catenacci, “'The Supply Chain does not Exist': Green Energy Industry is in for a Rude Awakening,” https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/01/renewable-energy-industry-prices-supply-chain-joe-biden/, May 1, 2022. Steve Milloy, “Biden's America-Wrecking Climate Agenda,” https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/03/12/bidens_america-wrecking_climate_agenda_147323.html, March 12, 2022. Mark P. Mills, “41 Inconvenient Truths on the ‘New Energy Economy',” https://fee.org/articles/41-inconvenient-truths-on-the-new-energy-economy/, July 7, 2019.
Check out Rules for Reformers: https://canonpress.com/products/rules-for-reformers/
Check out Rules for Reformers: https://canonpress.com/products/rules-for-reformers/
Common Grace is both a theological doctrine within the reformed tradition and the title of a truly monumental book discussing the doctrine by the theologian and statesmen Abraham Kuyper. It is grace from God that is common to all of mankind distinct from both the special grace by which God redeems, sanctifies, and glorifies his people as well as the gift of creation itself.Kuyper puts it this way, “Common grace issues from God, and from God come all the means that we humans must apply to oppose sin and its consequences in curse and misery.”But it is God himself who leads us to find the means and instructs us how to use them. And it is precisely the latter that is forgotten. The human inventor of the electric light and electric motor is extolled, but God, who led Edison to discover it, is passed over.Today, Acton’s Dan Hugger talks with Jordan Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing at the Acton Institute and General Editor of the twelve volume Abraham Kuyper: Collected Works in Public Theology, about Kuyper’s exploration of the doctrine in his monumental work Common Grace. The third and final volume of this work, jointly published by Lexham Press and the Acton Institute, has recently been published in English translation.Jordan J. Ballor, PhD at Acton Institute See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This episode features a conversation with Jordan Ballor, a senior research fellow at the Acton Institute. We take a deep dive into the ways that theologians and economists tend to disagree. Our starting point is an essay that Ballor wrote about the different interpretations of the word “scarcity.” We talk at length about the different starting assumptions that scholars work with, the differences in language, the difficulty of separating facts from value judgments, and more. This conversation is a bit specialized, but it is really important for understanding the foundational differences between economic thinking and theological thinking. Hopefully, this will serve as an accessible introduction to some of the thornier issues. Jordan Ballor is a historian and a theologian, with a deep knowledge of reformation theologians, but his writing has covered many topics, including a fair bit of writing about economics and collaboration with economists. For the last few years, he has also been a postdoctoral fellow with the Moral Markets project, which we talk about a bit near the end of the show. He is the author of three books, numerous articles and essays, and editor of a series of English translations of Abraham Kuyper's work. Here are some links to work that we reference in this episode: Interdisciplinary Dialogue and Scarcity in Economic Terminology, by Jordan Ballor, Journal of Markets and Morality (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/1491) Theology and Economics: A Match Made in Heaven? By Jordan Ballor, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Jordan J. Ballor's work on Academia.edu (https://vu-nl.academia.edu/JordanBallor) The Moral Markets Project (https://www.moralmarkets.org/) A Value Judgement on Value Judgements Wilhelm Röpke. 1941. (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/1120) Reckoning with Markets by James Halteman and Edd Noell, Oxford University Press, 2012. Abraham Kuyper on “para-equality” in: Christ and Material Needs (1895) [this will also appear in the final volume of the Kuyper series, On Charity and Justice] (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/74) Jesus and the Economics of Scarcity by Grazina Bielousova, The Political Theology Network. (https://politicaltheology.com/jesus-and-the-economics-of-scarcity/) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/faithfuleconomy/support
Dr. Jordan J. Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing for the Acton Institute, joins us to speak about Abraham Kuyper’s public theology. Dr. Ballor is a general editor of Abraham Kuyper’s Collected Works on Public Theology published by Lexham Press. Kuyper was something of a polymath/renaissance man. Along with being an influential theologian […]
Dr. Jordan J. Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing for the Acton Institute, joins us to speak about Abraham Kuyper’s public theology. Dr. Ballor is a general editor of Abraham Kuyper’s Collected Works on Public Theology published by Lexham Press. Kuyper was something of a polymath/renaissance man. Along with being an influential theologian […]
Dr. Jordan J. Ballor, senior research fellow and director of publishing for the Acton Institute, joins us to speak about Abraham Kuyper's public theology. Dr. Ballor is a general editor of Abraham Kuyper's Collected Works on Public Theology published by Lexham Press. Kuyper was something of a polymath/renaissance man. Along with being an influential theologian and also a journalist, he served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905. He established the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which upon its foundation became the second largest Reformed denomination in the country behind the state-supported Dutch Reformed Church. Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; PhD, Calvin Theological Seminary) is a senior research fellow and director of publishing at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty. He is also a postdoctoral researcher in theology and economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as part of the "What Good Markets Are Good For" project. https://vimeo.com/383799674