(Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is editorial director and a research fellow at the Acton Institute, where he also serves as the book reviews editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He is co–general editor of the second series of CLP Academic’s Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law. He has written and lectured on topics in the fields of Reformed and Presbyterian theology, history, and social thought, and he is coeditor of Abraham Kuyper’s On the Church (Lexham Press, 2016), editor of Franciscus Junius’ The Mosaic Polity (CLP Academic, 2015), and author of The Son of God Beyond the Flesh (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
Legal historian Wim Decock of the KU Leuven recently published a study of the economic thought of the Flemish Jesuit Leonardus Lessius (1554–1623). Last week the National Catholic Register posted an interview with Decock about his book and Lessius’s contribution to economics. Continue Reading...
What if someone told you “politicians sacrifice long-term economic performance for individual, political gain”? Many people would yawn (or sigh) and say this is obvious, or perhaps they would say it’s obvious with respect to the politicians in that other political party (the one that opposes their own). Continue Reading...
Over at the University Bookman, W. Bradford Littlejohn reviews Niels Hemmingsen’s On the Law of Nature: A Demonstrative Method, recently published by CLP Academic. Littlejohn describes this surprising sixteenth century treatise as “a concise one-stop shop summary of Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemology, philosophy of action, and natural law theory.” Continue Reading...
We are in the midst of a surge of academic interest in the historical relationship between religion and business in America. Notable recent studies include those by Timothy Gloege, Darren Grem, Sarah Ruth Hammond, and Amanda Porterfield. Continue Reading...
There is no shortage of Christian books about work and vocation. Indeed, there are entire movements centered on faith and work, or faith at work. These movements are now old enough that their history has become a subject of academic study. Continue Reading...
The concepts of toleration espoused by theologians in the officially religious states of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries deserve closer examination. So argue Tobias Dienst and Christoph Strohm in their introduction to Martinus Becanus’s 1607 treatise, On the Duty to Keep Faith with Heretics. Continue Reading...
Should we tolerate commerce? Should people be allowed to conduct business, buy and sell, make a profit, and even make their livings doing so? The question appears in, of all places, the monumental Theological Commonplaces of the Lutheran scholastic theologian, Johann Gerhard (1582–1637). Continue Reading...
Yesterday, Boeing announced a software update for the 737 MAX-8, the airliner that was grounded after two crashes and rising concerns about a possible flaw in the plane’s maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS). Continue Reading...
The recent revelations of a nationwide college admissions and testing bribery scheme have met with a variety of reactions. There have been conversations about fairness and privilege in admissions practices. There have been expressions of lack of surprise, cynicism, or “that’s just how the world works.” Continue Reading...
Mike Weirsky, an unemployed New Jersey man, just won $273 million in the Mega Millions lottery. According to one headline he “has a Good Samaritan to thank.” Weirsky left his tickets at the store where he bought them, but someone found them and gave them to the cashier. Continue Reading...