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Dr. Ray Bakke wrote, “As our cities swell with immigrants, I’m reminded that Jesus was born in a borrowed barn in Asia and became an African refugee in Egypt, so the Christmas story is about an international migrant.”

This quote is from Bakke’s book, A Theology as Big as the City, published by InterVarsity Press.

To paraphrase:

The story of Jesus entering the world is about an Asian-born baby, born in a borrowed barn, who became an African refugee.

Justin Lahart / Wall Street Journal

Lawrence Summers has lost his affiliation with America’s leading economics organization, the latest consequence for the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president stemming from his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.

The National Bureau of Economic Research said an ad hoc committee reviewed Summers’s conduct and recommended the termination of his appointment as a research associate with the organization. 

“He is no longer an NBER affiliate,” wrote NBER president James Poterba in an email to The Wall Street Journal.

The NBER, founded in 1920, has grown into the world’s premier research organization for academic economists. Much of that was due to the efforts of the late Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, the former president of the NBER who was also Summers’s doctoral adviser. Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1984, and hired Summers on to his staff.

Becoming one of the NBER’s roughly 1,850 “affiliated scholars” is a mark of arrival for economists, and many recent Nobel economics laureates are included in their ranks. Through its conferences and other programs, the NBER functions as a central hub for mentoring and feedback in the profession. Associates can also post preliminary research reports as NBER working papers, and even though these have yet to go through peer review, they can be highly influential. Summers is listed as an author on 143 NBER working papers and other publications, many of which went on to be published in top economics journals.

Summers resigned from his teaching and leadership positions at Harvard last month, and in December was banned for life by the American Economic Association, following the release of documents showing a long and close relationship between Epstein and Summers. 

Summers didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Summers has said he regrets his association with Epstein. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said in November.

More: What Cleveland Clinic says about this: “Be sure to pair non-heme iron foods with vitamin C to increase the absorption of iron. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits (lemon, lime, orange, kiwi and grapefruit), strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli and spinach.”