In his Editor's Watch, James Skillen reflects on the Center's 30th anniversary this year. Founded in 1977, the organization opened its Washington office in 1982. With thankfulness for 30 years, the organization continues to focus on the work at hand and on plans for the future.
Skillen argues that the Iraqi Study Group's report, President Bush's current policy adjustments, and those calling for a draw-down of American troops all continue to think in terms of “war.” The problem in Iraq, however, is not America's failure to win a military victory but the lack of a sound government. The U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein but did not put good government in its place, as was its obligation.
The European Christian Political Movement held its second Congress in Brussels on December 6-7, 2006, and the Center's James Skillen and Stanley Carlson-Thies were invited to speak. Here are excerpts from the congress document, “A Christian-Social Contribution to Europe,” and from Skillen's address.
This is the fifth in our series of commentaries on the Center's Guidelines for Government and Citizenship, this one on welfare policy. The editor draws attention to a new book by Lew Daly, God and the Welfare State, which applauds the work of Abraham Kuyper and notes the contribution of the Center for Public Justice to American welfare reform.
The editor introduces a 30-minute documentary titled Outlawed, on extraordinary rendition, torture, and disappearances. It is well worth seeing. The DVD focuses on two stories of Muslims captured, tortured, and secretly detained by the United States.
A fine book by Kenneth Grasso and Robert Hunt, titled Catholicism and Religious Freedom, brings together valuable essays on the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae-on religious freedom. The book's primary concern is with the unfinished agenda articulated in that document and the lack of attention paid to it by American Catholics.
Krishna Napit, a Nepali with wide experience in his country's development efforts, assesses the prospects for reform after the government and Maoist guerrillas agreed last November 21 to draw up a new constitution. Robert Wolfgramm, editor of the Fiji Daily Post, and Bruce Wearne shed light on problems leading to, and flowing from, the coup in Fiji in early December.
Xavier Pickett, who directs a group called Reformed Blacks of America, expresses appreciation for the book The Covenant with Black America, edited by Tavis Smiley. But Pickett says the book does not go far enough in asking how real communities are to be built and what kind of covenant is necessary to bind them together.
