Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.

Posts by Jordan J. Ballor

October 10, 2016

Is taxation theft?

Last week, before the most recent news about Donald Trump and the current US presidential campaign burst onto the scene, Think Christian ran a short reflection of mine on the question of taxation. Continue Reading...
October 05, 2016

‘Riches do not bring freedom’

The contrast between the treatments by David Bentley Hart and Dylan Pahman of the question of the intrinsic evil of “great personal wealth” this week pretty well established, I think, that in itself wealth is among the things neither forbidden nor absolutely required. Continue Reading...
October 03, 2016

Love is the Truth

This ad perhaps captures Deirdre McCloskey’s observation that “love runs consumption” better than anything I have yet seen. Coca Cola – What Goes Around comes Around from THE APA on Vimeo. Continue Reading...
September 30, 2016

‘You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion’

“You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion; they would not stir a step without you.” John Wesley (1703–1791) was talking about the slave trade and was impugning the buyers and owners of slaves as equally culpable as those who captured and sold them, those who “would not stir a step” without buyers for their wares. Continue Reading...
September 14, 2016

The soul of the polis

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Piety and Politics: The Church’s Social Responsibility,” I take up the Kuyperian distinction between the church conceived as organism and as institute and point out some ways in which such ideas can help us navigate the dangerous waters of social and political engagement. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2016

Berman on Law and Economics

In his magisterial Law and Revolution, Berman includes these incisive observations in his conclusion: Law is as much a part of the mode of production of a society as farmland or machinery; the farmland or machinery is nothing unless it operates, and law is an integral part of its operation. Continue Reading...
August 18, 2016

The Burkean tradition in Britain and America

Writing two decades ago, Gertrude Himmelfarb observed: In Britain, as in America, more and more conservatives are returning to an older Burkean tradition, which appreciates the material advantages of a free-market economy (Edmund Burke himself was a disciple of Adam Smith), but also recognizes that such an economy does not automatically produce the moral social goods that they value—that it may even subvert those goods. Continue Reading...
August 17, 2016

The true face of ‘capitalism’

Frank Borman, then-chairman of the Eastern Airlines, said that “capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.” That’s one way to take Peter Heslam’s reflection on the closing of BHS in the UK, “Business with a Human Face.” Continue Reading...
August 10, 2016

Trump: ‘They have to work, too’

Today at The Stream I provide some analysis of Donald Trump’s speech earlier this week at the Detroit Economic Club. As I conclude, “The trouble for Trump’s promised future lies in the impossibility of reclaiming a bygone era.” Continue Reading...