Flourishing as Whole People

Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network. The vision of the Economic Wisdom Project is summarized in twelve “elements” that provide starting points for thoughtful, biblically informed understanding of contemporary opportunities and challenges. For a handy guide to the twelve elements, download this one-page summary, taken from our EWP vision paper “A Christian Vision for Flourishing Communities”: Below is an excerpt from the paper “Twelve Elements of Economic…

The Five Causes of Poverty: Broken Systems

Reprinted from the Chalmers Center. Part four of a series. Adapted from A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, 119-124. In this series, our most recent post focused on addressing individual brokenness – the factors within a person, including personal choices and beliefs, that can contribute to material poverty. But as we’ve been saying throughout the series, there are both internal and external causes of relational…

The Cycle of Beloved Community

By Demi Prentiss, reprinted from Living God’s Mission. Generosity. Thankfulness. Faithfulness. Forgiveness. Each is an expression of the heart of God. When we choose to embody these words, we re-member God. Not simply recalling who God is and how God has touched us. We also re-present God to the people and places around us. We offer a spark of the…

False Stories of Work: Focus on Leisure

Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part one of a series. Over the next seven devotions, I want to deal with some false stories about work we might hear about, or even unconsciously absorb; and the better story for work that we read in the Bible or is commended through the Gospel. Then God said, “Let us make mankind…

Let’s Eliminate Waste, Fraud, and Abuse! More on Campaigning Vs. Governing

By John Hawthorne at Substack. Reprinted with permission. Subscribe to John’s newsletter here. Back in 1978, Howard Jarvis promoted a California initiative known as Proposition 13, a measure to cap property taxes. While there were arguments that this was needed to protect retirees living on a fixed income 1, it also had a strong anti-government sentiment. Three years later, Ronald…

Review: Work, Pray, Code

By David Gill, reprinted from The 313. Carolyn Chen is a sociologist (PhD, UC Berkeley) and Associate Professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Getting Saved in America (2008) and co-editor of Sustaining Faith Traditions (2012). Work, Pray, Code is the product of five years of research in California’s Silicon Valley. Chen visited and studied fifteen tech companies…

The Incarnation Didn’t Happen in a Synagogue

By David Williamson. We are very eager to exclaim “TGIF.” Some years ago, I came across a book by Bill Diehl, an executive in the steel industry: Thank God It’s Monday. The book itself is a good read, and it encouraged me to remember the story of a Pittsburgh business executive with a situation on Monday morning that needed God’s…

Ecclesiastes: Toil, Pain, Joy and Glory

By Tim Yearsley, reprinted from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labour under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink…

Entrepreneurship for Flourishing

Reprinted from the Oikonomia Network. The vision of the Economic Wisdom Project is summarized in twelve “elements” that provide starting points for thoughtful, biblically informed understanding of contemporary opportunities and challenges. For a handy guide to the twelve elements, download this one-page summary, taken from our EWP vision paper “A Christian Vision for Flourishing Communities”: Below is an excerpt from the paper “Twelve Elements of Economic…

The Five Causes of Poverty: Individual Brokenness

Reprinted from the Chalmers Center. Part three of a series. Adapted from A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, p. 125-134. We’ve been exploring the five causes of poverty in this series of posts, and it’s important to remember that any one of us can be impacted by all five causes – false stories, destructive practices, individual brokenness, systemic brokenness and demonic forces. These factors are…