Category: Publications

On of Chuck Colson’s heroes was Abraham Kuyper, and when we set out to publish a translation of Kuyper’s three volumes on the topic of common grace, Chuck was happy to support the project.

Here’s what he said about the first selection from the larger translation project, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art:

Abraham Kuyper was a profound theologian, an encyclopedic thinker, and a deeply spiritual man who believed that it is the believer’s task ‘to know God in all his works.’ In a day when secular science is seeking to establish hegemony over all knowing, and when postmodern art is threatening to bring an end to art, Kuyper’s solid, Biblical insights can help to restore perspective and sanity to these two critical areas of creation.

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Yesterday in First Things’ daily “On the Square” column, Matthew Cantirino highlighted Sergius Bulgakov’s theology of relics, recently translated by Boris Jakim.

Cantirino writes,

Even today, it must be admitted, the subject of relics is an often-overlooked one in theology, and especially in popular apologetics. To the minds of many the topic remains a curio—a mild embarrassment better left to old ladies’ devotionals, or the pages of Chaucer. Yet, for Bulgakov, this awkward intrusion of the physical is precisely what religion needs in modernity…. As he sees it, all relics take part in (and, in some sense, become) aspects [of] the greatest of all “relics,” the bread of the Eucharist. And it is for this reason, he notes, that altars include… relics at their core. Like the Eucharist, saints’ relics “are not corpses; rather, they are bodies of resurrection; and saints do not die.”

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Since your wallets are probably a bit lighter due to Tax Day here in the United States, Acton wants to help out by giving you a free e-book: Globalization, Poverty and International Development. Just follow the link, Globalization, to get our monograph from Lord Brian Griffiths delivered free to your Kindle or e-reader. This offer is available beginning at 3 a.m. EST, 4/17/12 until 3 a.m. EST, 4/19/12.

 

2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. For the Winter 2012 Religion & Liberty issue, now available online, we interviewed Reformation scholar Herman Selderhuis. Refo500, under the direction of Selderhuis, wants to help people understand the meaning and lasting significance of the Reformation. Selderhuis and Refo500 are already playing an essential role in promoting the anniversary and Acton is honored to be a part of that endeavor as well.

For myself, Reformation study was critical to my own spiritual formation. Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand is just one book that has had a lasting impact in my life.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Witness by Whittaker Chambers. We have a superb article by Richard Reinsch on the deep influence of Witness and its relevance today. Reinsch authored the exceptional Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary in 2010. I reviewed the book in a past issue of R&L.

James Franko contributed an essay from a classically liberal perspective on “A Case for Limiting Caesar.” I’ve contributed a review of Mark Tooley’s new book Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century.

The “In the Liberal Tradition” figure is Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson, of course, would do much to shape the notion of rights in the American colonies.

Let me also say something about the expansion of Rev. Robert Sirico’s column for this issue. We have excerpted a passage from his new book Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. It will be available from Regnery in May of this year. Anybody who is an admirer or feels they can learn something from Rev. Sirico will cherish this publication. It really serves to remind us all just how much the Acton Institute and its mission makes sense.

There is more in this issue. Check out the editor’s notes for all the details.

I found this video on NPR’s ‘Planet Money’  intriguing.  A young woman reflects on the cost of her wedding dress, which she’s obviously worn once.  She recognizes that there is enormous emotional attachment to this garment, but there is something going on in terms of how much she spent; she just can’t quite put her finger on it.  She eventually finds out that she probably over-paid by about $1200.

She believes she has been ripped off.

There are a few problems with this.  First, no one needs an expensive wedding dress.  Yes, we ladies like to dress up and look good – no more so than on our wedding day.  But need?  Nope.  The decision to spend a bunch of money on a white lacey dress has more to do with desire and certain cultural and personal expectations than necessity.

Second, the young lady complains about ‘asymmetric information’; that is, she went into the dress-buying experience at the mercy of those selling the dresses.  They all knew far more about labor, material, cost, etc. than she did, and she was just along for the ride.  If they said the dress cost $2000, so it must be.

But clearly, she wasn’t at their mercy.  AFTER she bought the dress, she went to a wholesale material buyer and a tailor, and got the low-down.  Why didn’t she educate herself BEFORE buying the dress?

In Money, Greed and God, author Jay W. Richards says this:

 “Free exchanges, by their very nature, will be viewed as winning exchanges by all parties involved.  Otherwise the free parties wouldn’t be involved in the exchange….A free market is best for distributing goods, services and information, whether they are trucks, trumpets, or trashy novels.  But the system doesn’t determine what choices people will make.

In other words, in a free market, one is free to be a bad consumer and/or a bad business person.  But poorly informed or unethical personal choices are not the fault of the market.  As Richards points out, “We shouldn’t expect the economy, free or otherwise, to instill virtue in people.”

Did this young lady pay too much for her dress?  It appears so.  She certainly looked attractive at her wedding, and the photos of this day, she is sure, will be lovingly preserved for generations.  But emotions can make for immoderate desires, poor financial decisions – and really expensive lessons for consumers.

Visit the Acton Book Shoppe and purchase Money, Greed, and God.

I love the scene in the movie, A Beautiful Mind, where it portrays John Nash finding his truly original idea. He isn’t in a library, classroom or lab. No, he is out with his friends in a bar, trying to figure out how to get a group of women to pay attention to him and his buddies. Out of that problem, he discovered a principle that could be applied to situations of much more significance and went on to continue thinking and contributing to mathematics and economics. To him, it probably felt like a normal day, but then the idea came.
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The Journal of Markets & Morality is planning a theme issue for the Spring of 2013: “Integral Human Development,” i.e. the synthesis of human freedom and responsibility necessary for the material and spiritual enrichment of human life. According to Pope Benedict XVI,

Integral human development presupposes the responsible freedom of the individual and of peoples: no structure can guarantee this development over and above human responsibility. (Caritas in Veritate 17)

There is a delicate balance between the material and the spiritual, the institutional and the individual, liberty and responsibility undergirding this concept.

This tension can be felt in a similar sentiment from the Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights:

A society should establish mechanisms restoring harmony between human dignity and freedom. In social life, the concept of human rights and morality can and must serve this purpose. At the same time these two notions are bound up at least by the fact that morality, that is, the ideas of sin and virtue, always precede law, which has actually arisen from these ideas. That is why any erosion of morality will ultimately lead to the erosion of legality. (3.1)

And, again, among Protestants The Cape Town Commitment confesses a failure “to regard work in itself as biblically and intrinsically significant, as we have failed to bring the whole of life under the Lordship of Christ.” Indeed, in addition to the theoretical difficulty in articulating a coherent, Christian model for integral human development, there is the equally daunting task of practical implementation.

Read the full Call for Publications here.

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Submission guidelines, subscription information, and digital archives are available at: www.marketsandmorality.com

For an example of the sort of submission we are looking for, see Manfred Spieker, “Development of the Whole Man and of All Men: Guidelines of the Catholic Church for Societal Development,” Journal of Markets & Morality 13.2. (Click on title to view PDF.)

The Journal of Markets & Morality is a peer-reviewed academic journal published twice a year–in the Spring and Fall. The journal promotes intellectual exploration of the relationship between economics and morality from both social science and theological perspectives. It seeks to bring together theologians, philosophers, economists, and other scholars for dialogue concerning the morality of the marketplace.