Rev. Robert A. Sirico at Acton Lecture Series
Religion & Liberty Online

Rev. Sirico: Ordered liberty depends on virtue

In a new article for the Lakeland Ledger, Rev. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, explains why ordered liberty depends on virtue:

What I have learned in these intervening decades is that it’s not enough simply to be a “free” society. It’s equally important to strive toward being a “virtuous” society as well. The Irish statesman Edmund Burke summed this idea up in the phrase “ordered liberty,” a concept incorporated in that patriotic hymn that calls for America to “control thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

Freedom is necessary for virtue to be practiced. We don’t become virtuous by accident; we become virtuous by a free act of the will.

Read the rest at the Lakeland Ledger. Rev. Sirico will speak at Webber University in Babson Park on Feb. 1, 2017. The event is open to the public.

Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).