On Fridays, we bring you the best of our blog and the best of the web. This week’s roundup includes Christian hipsters, the genealogy of a pencil, our continued pursuit of cultural engagement and more.
1. Christian Hipsters Say Capitalism Is So Over: Elise Amyx wonders how long it will be before hipsters change their tune and suddenly declare, “Obamanomics is so over.”
Evangelical hipster culture implies that Christians should oppose capitalism and adopt pro-regulation, pro-environmentalism, pro-universal health care political positions to truly live a Christ-like life. But in true, ironic hipster fashion, they are simultaneously biting the hand that feeds them.2. The Competitive Enterprise Institute captures the beautiful complexity and wonder we experience everyday living in a functioning free enterprise system. Joy Pullmann responds here. 3. Are We All Europeans Now?: Samuel Gregg praises some uniquely American qualities that may stop us from following the same path as Western European countries.
The strength and persistence of private entrepreneurship continues to substantially differentiate America’s economic culture from that of Europe. America remains ahead — and, in some areas, continues to pull ahead — of most of Europe when it comes to private innovation.4. After the Election, the Fight for Culture Continues: Joseph Sunde encourages continued political advocacy, but also reminds us of the important role we play in cultural engagement no matter who sits in the Oval Office.
Roberts reminds us that as believers in individual liberty, we are, in turn, believers in a human project that transcends our politics—a civil society that develops from the bottom up, neither beginning nor ending on any given election day and depending on neither any given political ruler nor any particular policy agenda.5. Econ 101: Value, Values, and Valuation: Graham Scharf explains the role of value in economics and reveals how Christ radically alters our traditional value structure.
Our work is a visible display of God’s work in restoring our disfigured humanity to dignity, renewing our wise stewardship of the earth, reconciling us to one another, and supremely reconciling us to God. Among those who assume that “the consumer is always right” and that economic utility is the measure of value, we embody a new reality.
