“Scandinavian economies are some of the most market-oriented on the planet” says economist Scott Sumner, who adds “Denmark is the most market-oriented country on earth.”

This peculiar claim is even more curious considering that it is based on the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom. On the Heritage Index, which ranks countries based on ten components of economic freedom, the United States comes in at #10, lumped in with the “mostly free” countries. All of the Scandinavian countries are lower on the list: Denmark (#11), the Netherlands (#15), Finland (#17), Sweden (#21), Iceland (#27), and Norway (#40).

Each of these countries are considered “less free” on Heritage’s Index than such nations as the U.S., Canada, and Chile, mostly because they have high levels of wealth redistribution. But Sumners thinks that the “size of government and degree of market freedom” are “two completely separate issues.”

The inimitable Bryan Caplan explains why Sumners is wrong and why size of government and economic freedom are inextricably connected:
Read more on Redistribution and the Sacred Right of Property…

The Christian Exodus From Egypt
Samuel Tadros, Wall Street Journal

For Copts, a persecuting dictator was preferable to the Islamist mob.

Sell All That You Have
R.C. Sproul, Jr. Ligonier Ministries

Read more on PowerLinks – 10.15.12…

The Obama Administration’s requirement for many religious institutions to provide contraception may be a relatively new policy. But as Notre Dame political scientist Patrick Deneen explains, the “origin of the mandate lies in an impulse that can be dated back to the beginnings of the modern era and the rise of the state.”

Read more on The Campaign for Leviathan…

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement regarding remarks made by Vice-President Biden during last night’s debate.

According to the debate transcript from the Washington Post, Biden stated,

Read more on U.S. Catholic Bishops Correct Biden’s Debate Inaccuracies…

From a purely political standpoint last night’s Vice Presidential Debate was probably a victory for both candidates. Vice President Joe Biden fired up his base with his aggressive and somewhat dismissive behavior towards Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan of course did nothing to hurt Romney and showed he is prepared to be president in an emergency.

Read more on Scoring the Vice Presidential Debate…

There’s more to voting than tallying up the number of yays and nays. Although you’d never guess it by the numbingly perfunctory attitude taken toward voting by most Americans—especially in this late hour—who see it either as the highest duty of a good citizen, or as an inconvenient inevitability.

What makes voting worth it, anyway? Is it the possibility of shaping our nation’s future? The opportunity to express our deepest-held principles? Or is it worth it precisely because not doing it would be a civic or moral failure that we wish to avoid?

A recent conversation at Ethika Politika draws some of these questions together. Responding broadly to my characterization of Alasdair MacIntyre’s now somewhat popular case for non-voting, Acton’s own Dylan Pahman offers a perspective that emphasizes real-life consequences stemming from our attitude toward civic choices. Pahman takes as a philosophical basis for this approach William James’s idea of genuine options, suggesting that voting meets all the criteria, and that to not vote is, strictly speaking, not a real option.

As the defensor MacIntyri, here—at least for the sake of argument—I submit that Pahman’s analysis, while logically consistent, introduces a false assumption about the nature of morals vis-à-vis public life. In other words, I think that favoring a “duty to consider the consequences” need not take precedence over—and certainly needn’t extinguish—one’s “focus upon the personal, moral value of voting.” What are personal morals, after all, if not deeply connected to reality?

Read more on A Vote Worth Casting: What Makes Voting Valuable?…

School Choice Marches Forward
Jonathan Butcher, EcucationNext

2011 a year of new laws and new lawsuits

Bartholomew I: Witnessing Together To The Message Of Salvation
Vatican Information Service

During the course of this morning’s ceremony in St. Peter’s Square for the opening of the Year of Faith, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I pronounced an address, extracts of which are given below.

Read more on PowerLinks – 10.12.12…

Panel: “Why Morality-Free Economic Theory Doesn’t Work”

“Why Morality-Free Economic Theory Does Not Work: A Natural Law Perspective in the Wake of the Recent Financial Crisis.” The recent worldwide financial crisis has revealed a serious flaw in current thinking about markets and morals. Contemporary legal theorists and political economists commonly assume that markets can (and even should) provide morally neutral zones for the exchange of goods among free persons, constrained by nothing other than the laws of contract and the imperatives of self-interest. Professor Bruni’s lecture will challenge this dominant assumption, and will offer an alternative, ‘natural law’ perspective on the interrelatedness of markets, morals, and human sociality.

Read more on ResearchLinks – 10.12.12…

Ahead of tonight’s vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Hunter Baker (a Baptist political scholar) and I (a Reformed moral theologian), offer up some thoughts as “Protestants in Praise of Catholic Social Teaching” in a special edition of Acton Commentary.

Read more on Up for Debate: Catholic Social Teaching and Political Discourse…

On Tuesday, the Acton Institute co-sponsored, along with Regent University’s College of Arts & Sciences and School of Divinity, To Fail or To Flourish: Does My Life and Work Really Matter? The purpose of the event was to initiate a conversation on campus on the topic of human flourishing involving students, faculty, staff and administration.

The day started with a session by Dr. Corné Bekker entitled, “Does the Bible Say Anything About Flourishing?” Dr. Bekker leads the Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership Ecclesial Leadership major, teaches in the doctoral programs of the School of Business and Leadership, and is actively involved in research on the use of Biblical hermeneutics and spirituality to explore leadership.
Dr. Bekker examined the question, “What does it mean to be fully alive?” He cited St. Iranaeus’ quote (“the glory of God is man fully alive”) and explained how it is often misquoted and/or misused, oftentimes in the context of flourishing. David Kelsey, in “On Human Flourishing,” says, “Christian theology has a large stake in making it clear that its affirmations about God and God’s ways of relating to human beings underwrite human beings’ flourishing.” Flourishing is not simply being happy or feeling fully alive. Human flourishing must start with Christ Himself. Kevin Cronin in his book Kenosis: Emptying Self and the Path of Christian Service describes three relationships important to flourishing: God and self, others and self, self and self. Dr. Bekker described these three relationships in the remainder of his lecture.
Read more on ‘To Fail or To Flourish: Does My Life and Work Really Matter?’…