Not so long ago I was listening to a chat show on the topic of the rights of children seeking the identities of their official sperm donor fathers and vice versa. I was struck by the commentary of one of the participants, who explained why those children have no such rights because the entire notion of affiliation to a biological father belongs to an outdated set of ethics that, blessedly, are no longer accepted or applied. He was correct in that no one has a legal 'right' to know who their father is. Heaven knows paternity is a secret a lot of women have taken to their graves throughout history and a great many men have certainly casually donated sperm, sometimes even while sober, and with it, their fatherhood over the years never to be heard from again. There is no mention of this sort of issue constitutionally so there is no 'right' allotted to people seeking this knowledge. But there is, or at least there was, a generally acknowledged moral standard in society that insisted men take responsibility for their donations, drunk, sober, married, or otherwise. If it no longer exists, and it very well might not, I missed the public debate that concluded the old rule need not apply. I remember my father drilling this apparently passe notion in to me when I was a teenager. Have sex, he said, and the girl will probably get pregnant which means you will then have to quit school, get a job, marry her and regret it for the rest of your something or other life. At the time, there appeared to be no other option because growing up in the 20th Century as I did, there was still this insistence that people should be responsible for their own actions. Nevertheless and accurate or otherwise, my father's words inspired the intended level of terror and had a considerable mitigating impact. I suppose the change began with the "if it feels good, do it" and "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" philosophy of the 1960s (it is remarkable how much of the political philosophies developed by the young men leading the hippy revolution tended to serve their needs). And then of course there was Murphy Brown, the TV show character played by Candice Bergen who decided she would parent a child on her own as an expression of her rugged feminist independence. Vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle became somewhat notorious and was generally mocked in mainstream media for criticizing this as an inappropriate role model during the 1992 election. The show's producers were inspired to fight back with a series celebrating the diversity of family structures. Maybe that's when the debate took place because, come to think of it, that's about the time more women began to give up on the idea of finding a husband and fast-forward straight to motherhood thanks to sperm banks. Certainly the banks served the mother's need to become a mother. And I suppose they helped a lot of young men pay their way through college or buy some beer. There is no question either that women who chose to become mothers through artificial insemination are generally wonderful mothers, perhaps even better than most. But they are not fathers. In 2002, Candice Bergen, the actor who played Murphy Brown, said she agreed with Quayle. Bergen called Quayle's notorious talk "a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable," adding that "nobody agreed with that more than I did." In France, a government study on marriage recognized that while adults have freedoms, children have rights and that the government should not "systematically give preference to adult aspirations over respect for [children's] rights." All of this can and no doubt will be debated for decades. But despite all the changes in mores, laws and biotechnology, the most compelling argument in favour of dual obligations of parents to their children comes from children themselves. One of the very first questions each of us asks as we emerge as sentient beings is this: "Mommy. Where did I come from?" And one of the earliest questions asked by children with mothers only is:"Mommy. Why don't I have a daddy?" Those are questions that need to have answers and they need to be the truth.

Senior Fellow Stanley Clarson-Thies publishes "The Faith-Based Initiative: Cause of Contention and the Solution to an Impasse?" in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Winter 2009 44:1, 70-85 in special issue: "Evangelical-Jewish Relations: Politics, Policy and Theology" with guest editor Nancy Isserman.

The National Post covers research by Deani Van Pelt, member of the research team for the Cardus Education and Culture project, challenging the myth that only traditionally wealthy parents choose private schools. Read the article here .

The Calgary Herald covers new forthcoming research from Cardus in the City of Calgary: Herald link The Centre City Plan, an ambitious vision for a revitalized downtown Calgary approved by city council in 2007, calls for higher-density housing, open spaces to savour and a robust commercial sector. But at least one organization wonders where is the city's soul in all this. Cardus, a public policy think-tank that studies "social architecture," brought together local business, government and faith leaders last week to renew its call for the inclusion of a worship space component in any downtown redevelopment. The group is hoping to raise $100,000 to conduct an inventory of existing downtown church capacity and study the relationship between faith groups and the collective values vital to a compassionate city. "Where else in a city like Calgary do you have places where blue collar meets white collar, where people from all walks of life interact on a regular basis but in churches?" said Michael Van Pelt, Cardus's president. "We need to take a serious look at the role of faith communities and integrate them into our city cores," he added. "It's not just a Calgary question, it's one that many cities are wrestling with." Van Pelt noted churches already play important social roles such as providing seniors care, the welcoming and integration of immigrants and fostering the arts. They also have large networks of volunteers which can be tapped if a natural disaster or civic emergency occurs. The Centre City Plan projects an influx of up to 40,000 more residents to downtown by 2035, one step in addressing urban sprawl. "A lot of people are going to be missing something in their lives if there aren't places to worship in these inner-city neighbourhoods," said Van Pelt. Calgary's downtown is home to the cathedrals of local Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Storied places of worship such as First Baptist, Knox United and Grace Presbyterian churches rub their historic shoulders with construction cranes, corporate towers and upscale condos. Peter Menzies, a senior fellow with Cardus, said with sky-high downtown land values, worship spaces don't need to be traditional, free-standing buildings anymore. They can be housed in multi-use venues where two or three faith groups can share worship space. Menzies noted Calgary's downtown worship sites are almost exclusively Christian, not reflective of the city's increasing religious diversity. "We have to look at ways to make provisions for Muslim or Sikh worshippers in the future downtown core, not just in the suburbs," said Menzies. Ward 12 Ald. Ric McIver said civic and spiritual leaders need to strengthen communication lines. "I like the premise of this study. There's no reason you have to ignore the spiritual component of a downtown core even though we're a big, complex city," said McIver. More information on the Cardus project is available from bharskamp@cardus.ca.

We are living through the biggest financial calamity since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The credit crisis that began in the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States in the summer of 2007 gathered strength for more than 12 months and, by the fall of 2008, had spread to almost every area of global debt markets. More than US$720 billion of bad debt was written off the balance sheets of financial institutions around the world in 2008. Experts today predict that the total write-off of loans across the developed world could reach as much as US$3 trillion. Powerful financial institutions have been humbled and many have either collapsed or had to be rescued by taxpayers. As the conduits of credit were quickly constricted by financial institutions, consumers and businesses both large and small quickly felt the squeeze. The previously rosy prospects for the world's economies deteriorated at astonishing speed, in a matter of weeks, showing just how interconnected the global economy is. This freezing of credit affected every country in the world. The symptoms were obvious: troubled financial institutions, falling real estate prices and slowing consumption and investment. Consider this evidence: in 2008 a staggering US$30.1 trillion in market value was wiped off the global stock markets. Approximately US$7 trillion was taken off the U.S. market alone, the worst drop in the U.S. stock markets since 1937. The response of governments around the world is unprecedented: mammoth bailouts of financial institutions, nationalizing of corporations, aggressive reductions in interest rates and unequalled increases in money supply. The major concern we should have with all this government involvement is the massive budget deficits that have emerged. We should all know that rolling debt from the consumer to the government is not a long-term solution. The last thing we need is bigger and larger governments around the world. How did we get here? What is the root of the problem? In a nutshell we got to this point as a result of three decades of baby boomers, those of us born between 1946 and 1964, living far beyond our means. This privileged generation that began with so much promise is now embroiled in a financial crisis due largely to irresponsible and materialistic lifestyles, most of it purchased on a line of credit. Sure, boomers were assisted by financial institutions willing to lend money without proper underwriting standards. And, yes, the regulatory oversight was exceptionally poor. But in the end, who signed up for all this debt? Who bought the larger and larger homes despite declining family sizes? Who turned over the car leases every 24 to 36 months on cars they could not afford to purchase? Who took the cruises and bought vacation properties based upon future earnings and stock market returns that were unsustainable? Who used the little equity they did have in their homes as a source of funds to buy more and more consumer products of little or no lasting value? One statistic alone drives this point home: in the United States during the past ten years, each $100 growth in total debt was supported by only a $19 growth in GDP (the total value of goods and services produced)! So what next? We need to look this problem straight on and respond by reducing our debt levels and strengthening our own personal balance sheets. The problem is this will be painful for us as individuals and for our economy despite the fact it is the right way forward. By pain, I mean that industrial production will continue to fall, retail sales will be weak, consumer confidence will remain low and the value of our homes will not be going up any time soon. In the end we will be better off when we right-size the economy but, in the interim, we are in for some tough medicine. Advice for investors What does this tough medicine mean for those of us with investments such as mutual funds, pensions and RRSP accounts? Many investors are asking: How do we get asset values to go back up? How do we get out of the grip of this nasty bear market (when the value of stocks is decreasing) and back into the arms of a bull market (when stocks are increasing in value)? The bottom line is we have much work ahead of us before we see a substantive bull market. Bull markets do not materialize out of thin air and they do not have to appear automatically after a downward move in the markets. Powerful bull markets are the result of strong pro-growth economic policies, stable to declining tax rates, minimal government intervention, principled capitalism, vibrant and growing populations, innovations, protection of private property and access to capital from real savings. Prudent investors should be very concerned that many of these important elements of a strong and prosperous economy are not clearly evident. Restoring lost trust and confidence in our institutions also requires something else that is not clearly evident: the moral authority to inculcate in younger generations the necessary virtues such as hard work and delayed gratification. Will the younger generations in our postmodern culture willingly adopt such values when their model generation, the baby boomers, spent most of their lives shirking such values, only recognizing the need for them late in life? Without a strong ethical and moral base (which for Christians is rooted in the truth of God's Word), we will not have the necessary foundation upon which to build a strong and enduring economy for our children. Aging populations Besides the morals and ethics of the people in our economy, the age and productivity of the population are also crucial. Unfortunately, we are also facing an aging crisis as well. In fact, the severe problem of the world's aging population is one of the most significant and misunderstood challenges facing global capital markets over the next two decades. This problem is not restricted to rich western countries. Contrary to the uninformed consensus, countries such as China and India will be the most affected by the economic results of huge drops in the number of children per family. Thus it's a mistake to look to them for our long-term growth. Statistics can help explain the problem. Over the past three decades, the average number of children born per woman has dropped from more than four to fewer than 1.5 on average throughout the largest economies in the world. Given that the sustainable level is 2.1 children per woman, we will soon be losing from 30 to 50 percent of our population with each passing generation. In Europe the average number of children per woman is hovering around 1.3 and in Canada we are currently at 1.7. Philip Longman's book The Empty Cradle (Basic Books, 2004) explains these issues in greater detail. The fact that this change will not cause an absolute drop in the number of people in the world for another 30 years does not mean we can continue to ignore the impact this will begin to have on the world's economy. Russia and Japan are already experiencing more deaths than births and this can be seen in their dismal economic numbers. Over the next 30 years this death spiral will begin to hit country after country within the developed world. Yet many economists refer to the drop in family size as a wonderfully positive trend providing a "demographic dividend." They point to how families with fewer children consume more goods today and can leverage themselves up quite nicely on a double income. Because of the way economists tabulate our GDP, it appears we are better off in the short run if we reduce the number of children per family. The problem is that the baby boomers, products of large families themselves, have not only reduced family size, they have also dramatically increased consumption of goods and services. In short, the demographic dividend has been spent and we have a pile of debt to show for it! Why is this so serious? The global fall in fertility is creating a new world that few individuals, companies or nations are prepared for. We are unprepared because modern economies, including modern welfare states, are basically founded on the assumption of population growth and the human capital it creates. Our global financial system has become capitalized for prosperity and growth alone. It is not prepared for a shrinking working population! Who will service all the debt that has been created, and is now being created, by governments around the world? What price will the boomers' children pay for our assets as the boomers retire? Who will pay for the escalating medical bills? Instead of using credit to pay for winter vacations in Florida or cosmetic surgery, we will need to save up for these expenses the old-fashioned way or forgo them altogether. And what about all those underfunded private and public pension plans around the world after the 2008 financial markets carnage? Let's face it: they will stay underfunded until they renege on many of their current promises and redefine their future obligations in light of the new reality and not the reality that existed 20 years ago. The reality is we are facing years of slowing global GDP growth, higher taxes, increased government intervention and fewer young people who are so integral to a vibrant economy. Discipline and leadership Now that the panic button has been pushed it's time for leaders to take an honest look at the problems. We face unprecedented challenges around the globe as we try to bring stability in the midst of a world swimming in debt and unsustainable promises. All of us need to realize that growth in capital is a long-term process underpinned by discipline, hard work and self-sacrifice. Christians in particular should be part of the solution because we can provide the necessary spiritual anchors in a postmodern culture plagued by short-term thinking. We need true leaders who will balance the needs of this generation with future generations and build a strong economy rooted in such enduring biblical principles as honesty, hard work and generosity. Leadership means standing on fixed principles and never wavering from these principles. We need leaders with character, vision, integrity, courage and understanding. We need leaders with the power to articulate solutions and a strong sense of Providence because they see themselves as part of a higher purpose and meaning that transcends the temporal. If the Christian community cannot step up to the leadership plate, who will? In practical terms this means we are to invest for the future, spending only what we have and avoiding the awful trap of consumerism and materialism even if this means fewer 'things' in the days ahead. We must also be those who remember that God is sovereign. Despite all the challenges we face, Jesus the Christ is on the throne and He is moving history forward to its appointed end.

Cardus President Michael Van Pelt, along with Senior Fellow Jonathan Wellum, were cited in the March 11 Hamilton Spectator on the interrelationship of the loss of faith and financial collapse. Read the Spectator piece today .

A friend recalled recently how, at an event in support of a small liberal arts university in Canada, one of the speakers wondered just how practical a liberal arts education might be in this day and age. "It makes for good dinner conversation," piped up one of his counterparts, soliciting a few chuckles from around the room, most likely from those inclined to "hard" and "practical" pursuits such as accounting and engineering. This has long been a debate that successfully applied a lot of pressure on universities in the past generation or so to retool their undergraduate requirements to de-emphasize the humanities in favour of more "practical" pursuits. Those of us who find beauty in the "hard" pursuits, but believe that the ability of a liberal arts education to mould character, logic and reason is also vital to a society's architecture have watched, troubled, as this trend unfolded. We now have a champion in none other than Paul Volcker, chairman of the United States Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. Speaking in Toronto earlier this month about the world's current economic crisis, he made it clear that there are elements beyond the numbers that, when the numbers people don't understand them, lead to trouble. "Finance doesn't work without some sense of trust and confidence and people meaning what they say," Volcker said, sounding ever so much like a philosopher and not the number-crunching hero credited with wrestling inflation to the ground in the 1980s. "There was so much opaqueness, so many complications and misunderstandings involved in very complex financial engineering by people who, in my opinion, did not know financial markets," Volcker said. "They knew mathematics. They thought financial markets obeyed mathematical laws. They have found out differently now." Markets, of course, are not solely about numbers nor are they comprised solely of mathematicians. Yes, many of the people who manage markets live their lives through the numbers and not through their grasp of philosophical understandings of emotion and belief. But even Adam Smith was careful to distinguish between acting in self interest, which he believed to be good, and greed, which he believed to always be bad. Theodore Malloch, chairman and CEO of the global strategy firm, Roosevelt Group, wrote recently in the American Spectator: "Those nations, peoples, and businesses that neglect the moral ecology of their own cultures, especially corporate cultures, and financial firms' cultures are most noteworthy, cannot enjoy the fruits of capitalism." The fact of the matter is that there are not enough, if any, people working in the world's financial and banking sectors who have the first idea where to begin the conversation on how to define the difference, as Smith put it, between acting in one's own self interest and acting through greed. There are some, such as fellow Cardus Senior Fellow and AIC Mutual Funds CEO Jonathan Wellum, who understand the moral and philosophical reasoning between economic and personal "short-termism" and long-term thinking and behaviour. But, let's face it, the humanities studies and the intellectual skills taught at modern liberal arts universities have been denigrated and downgraded for more than a generation now by people and cultures who see them as having no value other than to inspire "good dinner conversation." As a result, there is an enormous hole in the education of our business leaders -- one through which our economy has recently tumbled. Some of the exceptions such as Wellum--who in addition to his MBA from McMaster holds a Masters of Arts in theology from Trinity Seminary in Chicago --have training in the construction of both social and mathematical architecture. Volcker, notably, began his post secondary education with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton before adding an M. A. in political economy at Harvard. His is, in fact, the sort of education resume that would make people in today's business world wonder about its "practicality." Volcker's speech, as it appears online, was blunt to the point where he publicly expressed his disappointment in a "brilliant" grandson who was about to "waste his life" as a financial engineer. "He sent me a note: "Grandpa, don't blame it on us! We were just following the orders we were getting from our bosses." The only thing I could do was send him back an e-mail: "I will not accept the Nuremberg excuse." Hopefully, enough people reading this will begin to understand that a liberal arts education and philosophers, theologians and moral scholars are not superfluous to economies and markets. Quite the contrary: they are vital to it. Ray Pennings Is A Senior Fellow And Director Of Research For Cardus.

Spiritual Enterprise: Doing Virtuous Business by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch (Encounter Books, 2008), 300 pages, $22. Farmers know that there are no quick fixes. A failed crop is not re-grown by good intentions or wishful thinking. Nature has its rhythms and its painful inevitabilities. It's why farmers are prudent, hardworking, practical people. The soil keeps them honest. Farmers are extremely protective of their seed corn. Seed corn is their future; they need it for survival. No matter how hungry they get in the winter, if they eat their seed corn, they will surely starve by the next fall. When the seed corn is eaten, it marks the beginning of the end. American culture has eaten much of its spiritual seed corn. The crises on Wall Street and Main Street alike stem less from questionable lending policies and exotic derivatives, than the shift in perspective that made these decisions seem like a wise thing to do. The blame game has now begun. Congressional hearings have been launched and CNN adds nightly to its rogue gallery of those deemed most culpable. But this fiscal meltdown is a more widespread problem than many are willing to admit. Even the bailout simply moves the debt to a bigger credit card. We are systematically incapable of long-term thinking, and with it the choices and restraints that long-term investments demand. The attitude is, "Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?" But 'tomorrow' has arrived in the financial sector. Soon it will arrive for under-funded pension funds, Social Security, and Medicare. Foreign countries, sovereign wealth funds, and petrol-authoritarians will someday stop their fiscal largess. And on that day we will realize how much of the spiritual seed corn is gone. No doubt, a cottage industry of books will soon emerge discussing the causes and cures of the Fiscal Crisis of 2008. But it is particularly heartening to read an author who understood what was at stake well before the crisis made headlines. Theodore Malloch, chairman and CEO of The Roosevelt Group and founder of the Spiritual Enterprise Institute, has written a timely and largely hopeful book about companies who incorporate spiritual capital into their wider corporate vision. Building on Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam's study of social capital, Malloch develops the concept of spiritual capital. Spiritual capital is the external moral resources stemming from religious belief that give work meaning beyond itself. It is the source for the 'why' beyond the 'what.' He defines it as "the fund of beliefs, examples, and commitments that are transmitted from generation to generation through a religious tradition, and which attach people to the transcendental source of human happiness." It appears that few on Wall Street measure companies by their store of spiritual capital. Few corporate leaders remember that Adam Smith himself warned that The Wealth of Nations is dependent upon The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But in pursuing wealth without morals, we have come to the place where we are in short supply of both. If business is the real test of the moral life, as Malloch alleges, then modern business has been tried and found wanting. Wealth has become an end rather than a means to other transcendent ends, and as such has become its own gravedigger. The argument of this book has emphasized the way in which human achievement arises from and depends upon resources that are not mentioned in the standard inventory of material goods. . . . [M]aterial wealth is not the sole or the principal input into wealth creation; if it were, then the process of wealth creation could never begin. The primary input is human freedom, and the store of trust, faith, and hope that enables people to work together to produce what they collectively need. The importance of nurturing spiritual capital within enterprises is compounded in a global marketplace. China, Malloch argues, cannot succeed in its aspiration for economic global hegemony based on private property and private investment. Spiritual capital will be required. Spiritual capital is the invisible seed corn of free market enterprise. It must be continually renewed. Malloch warns, "The spiritual capital built up by previous generations can be honored and invested by others who do not have the faith to renew it, though at some point it surely must be renewed. This renewal of spiritual capital in the business sphere and its specific enterprises is what the faith-guided company achieves." Capitalism thrives not because of a supposed relationship to Protestantism, but to its relation to this religious state of mind. Though set against the news of unprecedented bankruptcies, massive bailouts, and turmoil in the markets, Malloch's book is finally hopeful, for he provides ample examples of companies who are integrating spiritual capital into their organizational culture. A particularly telling story is that of Rumi Verjee, an Ismaili Muslim who came to England as a refugee from East Africa, but found success at Domino's Pizza, founded by the outspoken Catholic Tom Monaghan. Verjee explains, "Although you can get on by being ruthless, by thinking of nothing but your own profit, and by rejoicing in other's loss, this is not the way to true success. Compassion is as important in a businessman as in any other human being. It is important not only for others' sake but also for your own." Clearly, headlines skew reality. There are a host of bright lights, companies who routinely celebrate hard and soft virtues in the workplace. In fact, the dark clouds of scandal only serve to further illuminate their distinctiveness. There is a better way: economic enterprise suffused with spiritual capital that serves the welfare of everyone it touches. And so this book serves as a timely reminder of what capitalism demands and, when husbanded wisely, what it promises to each succeeding generation. The fiscal crisis of 2008 is a generational indictment, and with it comes the loss of America's financial moral authority. Its solution begins with taking seriously the message of this book.

The Catholic Register did a round-up of faith inspired think tanks and advocacy groups on Friday, including the Cardus submission on the federal government. Click here to read the article at the Catholic Register's news site (external link).