What is a Baptist Political Economy?

How should Protestant Christians think about faith, work, and economics? To help answer that question, the Acton Institute commissioned a series of primers about political economy and the church from four faith traditions: Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Reformed (forthcoming). Continue Reading...

Secularizing Sam Adams

Jonathan Merritt reports on a decision made by the parent company that produces Samuel Adams beer, Boston Beer Company, to redact “by their Creator” from an Independence Day ad featuring the Declaration of Independence. Continue Reading...

Family, Flourishing, and the Cement of Society

The economic consequences of changing family structure are beginning to emerge, and as they do, it can be tempting to focus only on the more tangible, perceivable dangers. For example: “How many new babies are needed to keep Entitlements X, Y, and Z sweet and juicy for the rest of us?” Continue Reading...

Corruption Is Getting Worse: Transparency International

Transparency International has released its 2013 findings regarding global corruption and bribery. The implications of corruption and bribery are manifold: they decrease confidence in governments, make it difficult for the poor and disconnected to get out of poverty, and break down trust throughout society. Continue Reading...

Sobornost and Subsidiarity in Orthodox Christian Social Thought

Today at Ethika Politika I offer an assessment of the phenomenon of globalization from the perspective of Orthodox Christian anthropology. In particular, I focus on the concept of sobornost in the thought of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, writing, Solovyov’s account of the moral progress of humanity through globalization is rooted in the Russian idea of sobornost’, which Christopher Marsh and Daniel P. Continue Reading...

Common Core: Homogenizing Schools and Our Children

Politicians and public educators seem to constantly revert back to status quo arguments of further centralization as a way to reform education failures in the U.S. The most recent push for uniformity in the public school system is the Common Core, a set of national assessment standards and tests that has been adopted by 45 states and will be implemented possibly as soon as the 2014 school year.  Continue Reading...

Is Fair Trade Coffee Curing Poverty?

“Who could be against fairness?” Victor Claar asked this question at Acton University last month. He and Travis Hester gave a talk titled, “Fair Trade Versus Free Trade” with their focus on the coffee industry. Continue Reading...