A Deeper Reason for Our Christmas Greed

In his book Things Unseen: Living with Eternity in Your Heart, Mark Buchanan points out how we all continually live for the "Next Thing"—the ...

Doing Battle with the "Eve Factor"

Joe Stowell writes in “Jesus Nation”:

Several years ago, [my wife] and I moved out of Chicago to the western suburbs to be near our grandkids. ...

Man Desires the Trust of His Homeless Friend

Author and Pastor Matt Woodley writes in a blog post titled "The Happy Homeless Man”:

A little while ago I wandered into the wrong hospital ...

Mattress with One Million Dollars Tossed in Garbage

Jesus warned against piling up money on earth, because money comes and goes. A sad reminder of the vulnerability of money came with the June 2009 news ...

St. Francis's Extreme Embrace of Poverty

Among his many virtues, [St. Francis of Assisi] is known for his passionate embrace of poverty. Not only did he forbid his emerging Order to own property, ...

True Poverty

To help Americans understand poverty in its truest sense, Robert L. Heilbroner, a prominent U.S. economist, itemized the luxuries most U.S. citizens would ...

Importing the Idol of Consumerism

David Livermore writes in Serving with Eyes Wide Open:

My friend Ashish came from Northern India to visit me in Chicago. We were eating at Gino's Pizzeria ...

"Affluenza": Swollen Expectations

Affluenza is an hour-long PBS documentary about consumerism and its harmful effects on the family, the community, and the environment.

The clip begins ...

Changed Tax Rule Forces Honesty

In their book Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner explain how a simple change to U. S. tax rules in 1987 exposed the depth of the public's ...

Affluenza: The Disease of Affluent Cultures

Some say that affluenza season is almost upon us. Others say affluenza is already an epidemic. All agree, however, that affluenza symptoms are undeniably ...