Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Acton Institute and founder and president of the St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute. He is author of The Kingdom of God and the Common Good: Orthodox Social Thought (Ancient Faith, 2025) and Foundations of a Free Society & Virtuous Society (Acton, 2017). With John Pinheiro, he is also coeditor of The Christian Roots of American Liberty (Acton, forthcoming in 2026), a sourcebook charting the prehistory of American founding principles through the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds.

Posts by Dylan Pahman

December 09, 2013

Sophia Institute 2013 Annual Conference

This past Friday, I attended the Sophia Institute annual conference. I am a fellow of Sophia and presented a short paper there on Orthodox Christian monastic enterprise. The theme of the conference this year was “Monasticism, Asceticism and Holiness in the Eastern Orthodox World.” Continue Reading...
December 03, 2013

Climate Change, the Green Patriarch, and the Disposition of Fear

Today at First Things’ On the Square feature, I question the tone and timing of Patriarch Batholomew’s recent message on climate change. While I do not object to him making a statement about the subject in conjunction with the opening of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, his initial reference, then silence, with regards to Typhoon Haiyan while other religious leaders offered their prayer, sympathy, and support to those affected, is disappointing. Continue Reading...
November 26, 2013

‘Catching Fire’ and the Call to Freedom

Last weekend the second film based on the immensely popular Hunger Games series of books, Catching Fire, opened in theaters. One interesting way to view the world of Panem, Suzanne Collins’ totalitarian society that serves as the setting for the drama, is as a synthesis of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Continue Reading...
November 21, 2013

Catharsis and ‘Catching Fire’

Today at Ethika Politika, Elyse Buffenbarger weighs in on violence and voyeurism in The Hunger Games: Flipping between reality television and footage of the war in Iraq, Susan Collins was inspired to pen The Hunger Games. Continue Reading...
November 11, 2013

The Secular Warrior and the Kingdom of God

The most recent issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (16.1) features an updated translation of “The Moral Organization of Humanity as a Whole,” the last chapter of the Russian Orthodox philosopher Vladimir Soloviev’s major work on moral philosophy The Justification of the Good. Continue Reading...
November 04, 2013

Kant and Christian Theology

Today at Ethika Politika, I explore the relevance of the work of Immanuel Kant for conservative Christians: Immanuel Kant does not always receive the fairest treatment among self-styled conservative theologians. Continue Reading...