Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, recently appeared on the Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Law and Liberty podcast to discuss his new book, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future:
Read more on Samuel Gregg on the Library of Law and Liberty Podcast…
Earlier this month the Acton Institute moved to its new home in downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. David Urban of The Rapidian has an update on the transition:
The 38,000 square foot building features a multi-functional, high-tech conference center and auditorium that can hold events for more than 200 people, a media center, several libraries, and office space for the institute’s staff. The institute will occupy the basement and first floor of the building.
As Joe noted last week, over at Think Christian, H. David Schuringa highlights the primacy of the church’s ministry to prisoners and their families. He points to efforts both great and small:
At The American Spectator, Jackson Adams reviews Samuel Gregg’s new book, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future:
“Europe” is a concept Europeans are still getting used to. It should not, therefore, be surprising that it took a book written primarily for Americans to determine the sort of morass into which Western European social democracies have stepped.
Earlier this week at the Heritage Foundation, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg argued that if our elected leaders don’t find the courage to reform the economy and government spending soon, the U.S. could find itself in the same terrible economic situation as many European countries do today.
Today Pope Benedict XVI issued a statement that he was renouncing his ministry as the Bishop of Rome, effectively abdicating as of February 28, 2012. The Acton Institute has created a resource page that will provide news and analysis of this historic event, and the election of a new pope.
Read more on Resource Page on Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation…
Shock waves went through Rome at about noon today and the rest of the Catholic, make that the entire, world, as news came that Pope Benedict XVI will resign as Pope on February 28.
The newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has been published. The issue is available in digital format online and should be arriving in print in the next few weeks for subscribers. This issue continues to offer academic engagement with the morality of the marketplace and with faith and the free society, including articles on economic engagement with Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, biblical teaching on wealth and poverty, schools as social enterprises, the Reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd’s economic theory, and much more.
As we have done in the past, Jordan Ballor’s editorial is open access, even to non-subscribers. In “Between Greedy Individualism Editorial and Benevolent Collectivism” he examines the enduring impact of Michael Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, writing,
At the time of its publication, Novak’s work must have been like a window thrust wide open in a dank room, introducing a breath of fresh air and the sanitizing rays of sunlight. Against ideologies that posit state power as a neutral or even benevolent force arising of necessity against the rapaciousness of the market, Novak observed instead that it was democratic capitalism that arose first as a system designed to check the invasiveness of state tyranny. The “founders of democratic capitalism,” wrote Novak, “wished to build a center of power to rival the power of the state.” Indeed, “they did not fear unrestrained economic power as much as they feared political tyranny.” Still more would they fear the union of economic and political power that we find all too often today in corrupt and cronyist regimes.
You can read his full editorial here. Read more on New Issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (15.2)…
The Acton Institute recently partnered with the Christian History Institute to produce the latest issue of Christian History magazine. The issue (which you can download as a free PDF) examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.
Check out these feature articles:
Read more on Christians in the New Industrial Economy…
