Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, where he serves as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He earned his MTS in historical theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as an editor, Dylan has authored several peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, essays, and one book: Foundations of a Free & Virtuous Society (Acton Institute, 2017). He has also lectured on a wide variety of topics, including Orthodox Christian social thought, the history of Christian monastic enterprise, the Reformed statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper, and academic publishing, among others.

Posts by Dylan Pahman

Friendship, Markets, and Reciprocal Gifts

In his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the inadequacy of a social imaginary that includes only the market and the state: The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society. Continue Reading...

Santa Claus vs. Artemis: A Christmas Story

As we deck the halls with boughs of holly this year, read the story of Christ’s Nativity, sing hymns and carols, exchange gifts, and light our homes in increasingly irrational competition verging on mutually assured destruction with our neighbors, we must not lose sight of the real “reason for the season”: Santa’s victory over the pagan goddess Artemis. Continue Reading...

Thank God for Virtue

Each night, when it’s my turn to tuck in my littlest kids—Erin (5) and Callaghan (3) … and sometimes Aidan (6)—we say the same traditional prayers together: the “Our Father,” the “Axion Estin,” and the Creed. Continue Reading...

Student Loans and the Sin of Usury

A new school year has just begun, and students and their parents are faced once again with the high cost of higher education. The Supreme Court ruled President Biden’s executive order on student loan forgiveness unconstitutional. Continue Reading...

This Fathers’ Day, Remember that Property Is Holy

The French Revolution of 1848, which began on February 22 in Paris, led to the fall of the July Monarchy in France, the founding of the Second Republic, a wave of democratic revolutions across Europe, a revival of European liberalism, and the spread of various forms of socialism. Continue Reading...

The Christian’s Hard Affluence and Easy Hardship

From sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton’s worries over “moral therapeutic deism” in their 2005 book, to the Pew Research Center’s documentation of the growing trend of religious “nones” (people who claim no religious affiliation), to common claims that we now live in a “post-Christian” culture, the idea that religion and modern affluence cannot coexist has deep roots. Continue Reading...

Your job is not your vocation

It is sometimes claimed—wrongly—that until the Reformation, the only vocations known to Christian teaching were monastic and/or clerical. One might be called to a monastery or called to the priesthood, but ordinary work, family life, secular singleness—these are the things of the world one may be called out from, not something God called one to. Continue Reading...

Put on the seamless garment of paschal love

Before beginning his earthly ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ, “led up by the Spirit” (Matt. 4:1), wandered in the desert for 40 days, fasting, praying, and finally being tempted by the devil with the enticement of food, force, and fortune. Continue Reading...