Religion & Liberty Online Archives

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January 14, 2010

Rethinking Social Justice

Some years ago, I was engaged in a conversation at a religious communicators convention with a liberal/progressive activist who was having trouble understanding how the market could actually be a force for good. Continue Reading...
December 29, 2009

Gladstone’s 200th Birthday

The Mackinac Center notes that today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of British parliamentarian and statesman William Gladstone, and links to a 2003 article from the center’s president, Lawrence W. Continue Reading...
December 22, 2009

Not So Liberating: The Twilight of Liberation Theology

NRO’s Corner published my article on Pope Benedict’s recent remarks to Brazilian bishops on liberation theology: It went almost unnoticed, but on December 5, Benedict XVI articulated one of the most stinging rebukes of a particular theological school ever made by a pope. Continue Reading...
November 25, 2009

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

A blessed Thanksgiving to PowerBlog readers. [New York, 3 October 1789] By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation. Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Continue Reading...
November 25, 2009

Socialism Flu Shots for Christmas

Got the socialism blues? Worried that a friend or maybe a teenage son or daughter may contract a nasty case of it? Marvin Olasky at World magazine recommends former Acton research fellow Jay Richards’ 2009 HarperOne book, Money Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem: Among the myths Richards demolishes: The Nirvana Myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its real alternatives), the Piety Myth (focusing on good intentions rather than results), and the Materialist and Zero-Sum Game Myths (believing that wealth is not created but simply transferred). Continue Reading...
November 19, 2009

The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture

I linked Daniel Crandall’s fine commentary on the paucity of films devoted to the Gulag in this week’s Acton News & Commentary (sign up here). But do to an, ahem, editing error the link did not send readers to The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture on OrthodoxyToday.org. Continue Reading...
October 30, 2009

Earned Success = Happiness

David Bahnsen reflects on last night’s annual dinner: (Acton’s) co-founder, Father Sirico, is a friend and patriot. He is a scholar in Catholic social thought, and perhaps as good of an orator as I have ever heard. Continue Reading...
October 30, 2009

What is a Christian to think about health care?

Brad Green, who teaches theology at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., published a commentary on health care in The Jackson Sun. Green, an alum of Acton’s Toward a Free and Virtuous Society program, is also a co-founder of Augustine School in Jackson. Continue Reading...