In an article headlined Obama: God backs jobs plan, AFP is reporting:

The president rebuked the House of Representatives for passing a bill reaffirming the US motto “In God We Trust” rather than getting to work on his stalled $447 billion jobs program.

“That’s not putting people back to work. I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work,” the president said.

Hmmm. Think he went to far in that?

Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney denied that Obama had perhaps gone too far by dragging the Almighty into a fierce political spat.

Well, okay then.

“I believe that the phrase from the Bible is ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves,’” Carney said.

Um,...READ MORE

As we saw previously, many commentators—including George Weigel, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, and Mark Brumley—were quick to point out that the “note” released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on world finance should not be understood as a magisterial act which the faithful were bound to accept with religious submission of intellect and will. At least not as a whole (it did, however, contain quotations from prior documents of a magisterial nature).

From what the average person could tell from the way the document was reported by some in the mainstream media, though, the document was fully back by the teaching authority of the pope himself.

Other than the fact that the press usually...READ MORE

There was a lot of buzz leading up to the the note on world financial matters released by the Holy See on Monday.

One of the first references I saw to it was in a story with a headline something like “Major Vatican Document to Be Released Monday.” I clicked on the story and saw that the document in question was to be released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. My eyebrows immediately went up, and I began pondering the sense in which the term “major” was being used.

I suspect that the person who wrote the headline was using the term in its ordinary sense, which would signify a document of great importance relative to others issued by the Holy See, on some kind of absolute or...READ MORE

I have a lot of respect for Chuck Colson. I have ever since I was an Evangelical and learned of his work with Prison Fellowship. I listened to his radio appearances, read his writings, and admired his sincere conversion to Christ following the events of Watergate.

To my mind, he’s a good guy.

But I flat out disagree with a recent opinion piece he wrote.

Here’s what he has to say:

Presidential Religion: Enough, Already!

A few days ago I was on the air with Los Angeles’s outstanding drive-time host, Frank Pastore - a keen worldview thinker. Frank told me his phone lines have been burning up over the comments made by a prominent evangelical pastor who said that presidential candidate Mitt...READ MORE

That’s what could happen on a legal theory articulated by the Obama administration—and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court were quick to pick up on the fact.

The case at hand involves a Lutheran minister, but the principles potentially apply to the issue of women’s ordination in the Catholic Church.

Specifically, the case involves a woman who served in a teaching capacity that her Lutheran body considers ministerial. Problems arose with her position because she suffers from narcolepsy, and she threatened to file a complaint with the state under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was then let go because the Lutheran body she works for holds that an in-house dispute resolution...READ MORE