Conference: “Free Markets with Solidarity and Sustainability: Facing the Challenge”

Ethical human agency is only possible with freedom. Freely turning to the good, which the Creator has given us, is the highest sign of human dignity. The proper exercise of freedom requires “specific conditions of an economic, social, juridic, political and cultural order”. (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n. 137) The free market is one of these institutions. The free market is the most efficient instrument to guarantee the distribution of goods and services in society. Beyond efficiency, however, markets need sound ethical and cultural foundations. Only free markets can be ethical markets, and only ethical markets can function in freedom. One of these primary and universally recognized ethical principles is charity.

Call for Papers: “The State of the Consecrated Life in Contemporary Canada”

Read more on ResearchLinks – 07.13.12…

This is a book review by Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse, president of the American Orthodox Institute. He blogs at AOI’s Observer. This review will appear in the forthcoming Spring 2012 Religion & Liberty. Sign up here for a free digital subscription to R&L.

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Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991. By Leon Aron (Yale University Press, June 2012). 496 pages

Review: The Second Russian Revolution (1987-1991)

Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse

“There are different ways to understand how revolutions work,” writes Leon Aron in his new book Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and the Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991 that chronicles the collapse of Soviet Communism during Glasnost from 1987-1991. The most dominant is structuralism, an approach that draws from Marxist thought and sees the state as the central actor in social revolutions. In the structuralist view revolutions are not made, they happen.

Aron explains that structuralism has some merit because of its chronological linearity. It can reveal the events that lead from point A to B to C; an important function because the historian’s first step is to grasp what actually happened. But structuralism also has a grave flaw: the materialist assumptions (“objective factors”) informing it are deaf to the “enormously subversive influence of ideas.” Read more on Review: The Second Russian Revolution (1987-1991)…

Acton Institute president and co-founder Rev. Robert Sirico is scheduled to make an appearance on Raymond Arroyo’s “The World Over” tonight on EWTN. The live program begins at 8:00 p.m. EST. Take a look here for complete EWTN programming. Unable to watch tonight? Keep an eye on The PowerBlog in coming days for video.

Read more on Rev. Sirico Upcoming on ‘The World Over’…

Yesterday I blogged about the unintended consequences of the federal government’s mandate that Stafford student loan interest rates would not double as scheduled on July 1. Organizations such as the Jubilee USA Network praised the government’s action as an act of Christian charity towards students who were oppressed and taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders. The phrase “predatory lenders” has been coined to describe entities that intentionally deceive borrowers into accepting loans they won’t be able to repay without going bankrupt. This is the accepted narrative, and is certainly what the Jubilee USA Network would like us to believe is true. However, this may not be the whole story.

Read more on Predatory … borrowers?…

Capitalism Is Not…
Isaac Morehouse, Values & Capitalism

Capitalism gets saddled with a lot of baggage that doesn’t properly belong to it. Some of this is the result of ignorance of basic economics, some of it a poor reading of history, but most of it is due to a bad definition of capitalism.

Read more on PowerLinks – 07.12.12…

Most church-goers are used to announcements asking them to silence their cell phones before services begin. In a twist, Archbishop Lori of Baltimore did just the opposite, urging a congregation to pull out their cell phones and use them during Mass.

Read more on Archbishop Lori Tells Congregation: Pull Out Your Cell Phones For Freedom…

Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor at University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan and regular blogger at The Gospel Coalition, featured Rev. Robert Sirico’s latest book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, on his blog. DeYoung praises Defending the Free Market for making a serious moral case for a free market system:

Read more on ‘Defending the Free Market’ on DeYoung’s ‘Book Briefs’…

Daniel Siedell, Director of Cultural and Theological Practice at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has a fine review of Steven Ozment’s The Serpent and the Lamb: Cranach, Luther, and the Making of the Reformation in the latest issue of Books & Culture.

Read more on The Reformational Calling of the Artist…

Acton Institute president and co-founder Rev. Robert Sirico is slated to appear on The Frank Pastore Show tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST. Based out of Los Angeles, the Frank Pastore Show explores “the intersection of faith and reason.” Sirico’s segment can be streamed online at the show’s website.

Read more on Rev. Robert Sirico on The Frank Pastore Show…

Young people everywhere are attracted to the idea of doing good as they consume products and services. Tom’s Shoes appear on the feet of students all over my campus. The shoes come with a promise that a pair will be distributed in the underdeveloped world each time a pair is purchased. The same is true of Warby Parker glasses. I own a pair, though I bought them for affordability and quality rather than because I wanted to see a pair distributed. Young people are also busy buying “fair trade” coffee, t-shirts, and other goods. The idea is that through our buying habits, we can achieve a greater good than the one that comes from a straightforward exchange of money for products and services.

This concern for those who are less well-off or who live at a disadvantage to ourselves is, of course, nothing new. Certainly, the desire to aid the poor, the widow, and the orphan is a core element of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In my own generation (and really a generation or two before me), Francis Schaeffer criticized Americans (comfortable Christians included) for their addiction to “personal peace and affluence” and their “noncompassionate use of wealth.”

The buying practices I have mentioned are aimed at curbing the tendency of well-off westerners to consume too casually and perhaps too enthusiastically. There is an attempt to encourage thoughtfulness about the way one acquires consumer items. Buy the shoe that results in a pair being delivered to a poor person in Africa at the same time. Purchase the goods that have been produced in a more humane fashion than the ones that belch forth from a sweatshop. Good ideas. Read more on The New Christian Consumerism…