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Art Carden

It Is Finished: Pastoral Prayer From Resurrection Sunday

In my role as an elder at Immanuel Church, I usually offer a pastoral prayer at Sunday worship. Lest one think the story finished on Good Friday, here's the pastoral prayer from this past Sunday: Holy God and good father, you have turned our mourning into dancing. We

It is Finished: Jesus Christ’s Death and Burial for Blasphemers, Persecutors, and Insolent Opponents

I delivered the Good Friday message at Immanuel Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Friday, April 19, 2025. The text, which draws on 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and John 19, is below. The sky went dark, and the temple veil tore. It was noon on a Friday in a backwater of

Shifting Tariff Discourse: Suddenly, Higher Prices Are Good

Years ago, Eliezer Yudkowsky paraphrased Frank Herbert's Dune: "Politics is the mind-killer." The idea is on full display in the ongoing discussions of tariffs, the cratering stock market, and the rising probability of a recession. We were promised Donald Trump would Make America Great Again with

Tariff Musings

Economists have been beating the drum for free trade for at least two and a half centuries, at least since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. People refuse to learn, or they just don't care. The new tariffs--calculated incoherently from meaningless data--will bring a big price tag.

Your Job Means More Than You Think: Rethinking Job Descriptions

When people think about meaningful jobs that make a difference, they usually don’t think about janitors, auto mechanics, baristas, fast food workers, middle managers, and secretaries. However, when you think about these jobs, they mean a lot more than you might think. You might be familiar with people inflating

I Listen to Things: Led Zeppelin Covers & Remakes

As a rule, I don't listen to music with lyrics while I'm working--but rules are made to be broken. Sometimes I just need some inspiration, and Amazon, Apple, YouTube, and other streaming services offer a cornucopia. Unlimited economic progress is one of the themes in Strangers

Should We Cheer A Sinking Ship?

You pick up the Wall Street Journal and read a headline announcing that the U.S. is headed for another record trade deficit. Remembering that GDP is the sum of Consumption, Investment, Government Purchases, and Net Exports, you fret because the equation Y = C + I + G + (X-IM) (where X is

#FreeBookFriday: David Friedman on Price Theory and Radical Capitalism

David D. Friedman, son of 1976 Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, describes himself as someone who teaches economics in a law school despite never having taken a course in either. Despite this, he has made important contributions to the theories of anarchy and capitalism. Furthermore, he has graciously made some of

Why Go To College?

Why go to college? Three reasons: For a Credential. For a lot of students, college is about making friends and memories for a few years before getting out with a credential everyone sees as a ticket to the middle class--but not because you learned anything useful. As Bryan Caplan explains,

#FreeBookFriday: Last Set of Gratis "Mere Economics" Sources

Robert L. Schuettinger and Eamonn F. Butler, Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation. Milton M. Shapiro, Foundations of the Market Price System. Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Francis Wayland, The Elements of Political Economy. Philip H. Wicksteed, The Commonsense of Political Economy. And