Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Christian Social Thought

Who is John Rawls and why should you care?

This is a guest post for the Acton PowerBlog By Kevin Brown Imagine asking a diverse group of rich, poor, attractive, unattractive, intelligent, unintelligent, white, non-white, educated, and non-educated — what makes a society just.  Continue Reading...

Jaime Balmes: constitutional politics at the service of conciliation

This article is written by  Josep Mª Castellá Andreu and translated by Joshua Gregor. It was originally published by RedFloridaBlanca and is republished with permission. Nineteenth-century Spanish constitutionalism is usually interpreted as a pendulum swinging between liberal or progressive constitutions and moderate or conservative ones. Continue Reading...

YouTube powers Brazil’s conservative Catholic wave

Father Paulo Ricardo is a very sympathetic man. Always smiling, he is tall, thin, and balding. His austere appearance reminds us of priests portrayed in the films of the 1960s. Father Paulo could easily pretend to be Dom Camilo, the wise Italian priest created by Giovannino Guareschi and immortalized in the cinema by the brilliant French actor Fernandel. Continue Reading...

How we participate in God’s own work

“This is what I have observed to be good,” the Preacher says, “that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot” (Ecclesiastes 5:18 [NIV]). Continue Reading...

Lord Acton vs. the ‘New Socialists’ on Freedom

Corey Robin, professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, wrote an interesting and troubling piece last week in the New York Times titled, “The New Socialists: Why the pitch from Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders resonates in 2018.” Continue Reading...

Chafuen on ‘The vocation of the think tank’

Alejandro Chafuen – the Acton Institute’s Managing Director, International – received the prestigious 2018 “Premio Juan de Mariana” award from the Intituto Juan de Mariana earlier this year. Today at Acton’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website, we have posted the full text of his acceptance speech. Continue Reading...

New Issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (Vol. 21, No. 1)

The newest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has been published online and print copies are forthcoming. This issue is a theme issue on “The Role of Religion in a Free Society,” with guest editors Richard Epstein and Mario Rizzo of New York University School of Law, and Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School. Continue Reading...

Adam Smith and the morality of commercial society

Over at Arc Digital today I take a look at Adam Smith’s moral teachings, particularly in light of commercial society and Christian theology. This essay serves as a brief introduction to one of the Moral Markets projects I am working on, as well as a teaser for further exploration of the relationship between Christianity and classical political economy. Continue Reading...