Read a Sept. 24, 2008, Catholic News Service story about an article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, citing failed governmental policies in Washington as the cause of the meltdown and calling for a more transparent system with better regulation to make the economy more equitable.

Read a Sept. 25, 2008, essay at First Things titled “Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon” by the Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute. Sirico argues that “the most productive economic system ever known” — that of the United States — “also happens to be the one that is most respectful of human rights and dignity, […]

Read the transcript of a Sept. 26, 2008, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly segment, “America’s Economic Crisis,” in which host Bob Abernethy speaks with the Rev. James Martin and Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners magazine, about “the moral and ethical implications of America’s economic crisis, especially its impact on the poor and working class.”

Read a Sept. 29, 2008, Christianity Today story titled “Christian Financial World Sees Silver Lining in Banking Mess.” It details how some Christian banks and credit unions — though not all — have staved off insolvency.

Read a July 25, 2007 , Christian Science Monitor article about research on the health benefits of giving.

Read a Jan. 28, 2013, commentary from The Washington Post about the positive contributions of faith-based initiatives.

Read a March 13, 2009, essay on faith-based initiatives in Commonweal magazine by Lew Daly, a senior fellow and director of the Fellows Program at Demos, a public-policy organization in New York City. Daly is the author of God’s Economy: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Caring State, published in fall 2009.

Read a March 1, 2009, commentary by Mark Silk of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Trinity College. The essay, posted at the Spiritual Politics blog, disputes Susan Jacoby’s assertions about Obama’s faith-based initiative.

Read a Feb. 28, 2009, op-ed in The New York Times about Obama’s faith-based initiative by Susan Jacoby. Jacoby is a well-known secularist and champion of the separation of church and state.