The Making Men Moral conference at Union University is over, but there are some takeaways. This was a unique engagement of many natural law thinkers such as the Catholics Robert George and Francis Beckwith with Southern Baptists like Russell Moore and Greg Thornbury.

Read more on Evangelicals and Catholics Together?…

Free trade seems to get all the blame when things go wrong and none of the credit when things go right. It’s the Rodney Dangerfield of global economics: it gets no respect. Certainly in this worldwide economic downturn globalism is going to take its bumps and bruises. And as trouble abroad comes to roost at home (and vice versa) more then ever the lesson is going to be how truly interdependent we all are.

Read more on PBR: Retreat, not Surrender…

Somewhere in the United States today, government officials are writing a plan that will profoundly affect other people’s lives, incomes, and property. Though it may be written with the best intentions, the plan will go horribly wrong. The costs will be far higher than anticipated, the benefits will prove far smaller, and various unintended consequences will turn out to be worse than even the plan’s critics predicted.

Read more on The Perils of Planning…

Again reporting from the Making Men Moral conference at Union University . . .

The evening panel featured Robert George, Jean Bethke-Elshtain, David Novak, and Harry Poe. Their primary subject was the life of Richard John Neuhaus. Lots of great material, but Robert George spoke very movingly of Neuhaus’ career.

Read more on Dispatches from the Academy 3: Neuhaus’ Choice…

Still reporting from the Making Men Moral Conference in honor of Robert George at Union University . . .

I’ve had the chance to hear some great lines offered up by conservative academics. Here are a couple:

Read more on Dispatches from the Academy 2: Great Lines, Great Minds…

In the wake of Joseph Lawler’s piece on George Mason economists evaluating conservative magazines’ affinity for liberty on the basis of their treatment of sex, gambling, and drugs, Princeton’s Robert George is the perfect antidote. He could have reminded the measurers of liberty that those who favor laissez faire with regard to vice are often much less friendly to consensual acts of capitalism between adults. It’s a point he made in his seminal book Making Men Moral.

Read more on Dispatches from the Academy: Making Men Moral…

The latest in the Birth of Freedom Video Shorts Series, this new video from Acton Media asks the question, “Was Abraham Lincoln a reluctant abolitionist?” William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University gives the answer, discussing Lincoln’s views on human rights and equality.

Read more on New Short Video from Acton Media…

“The Obama administration is looking to draw sharper lines on church-state interaction and to eliminate the ability of faith-based groups to hire only those who believe as they do,” warns Hunter Baker. Maybe one way to protect the mission of faith-based social service groups, and avoid a Culture Wars clash with the new administration, is to examine what we mean by “secular.”

Read more on Acton Commentary: Charitable Choice and Secular Goods…

Today, Fernando Coronel, a law student at the Catholic University of Guayaquil, Ecuador, looks at Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s new restrictions on trade and the deeper problems he is creating through an alliance with other Latin American leaders advancing “21st Century Socialism.” Coronel observes that “the Correas of the world don’t really trust their fellow human beings to make the correct decisions when they are investing or spending their money.”

Read more on Acton Commentary: Ecuador’s closed door policy…

In the next issue of Religion & Liberty, we are featuring an interview with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Sanford has made national headlines for his principled opposition to all bailout and stimulus legislation coming out of Washington.

Read more on Taking a Stand: R&L Interviews Gov. Mark Sanford…