Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Virtue

March 24, 2014

Lorde, Poverty, and Envy

At Reason Thaddeus Russell argues that Macklemore and Lorde embody a kind of progressive cultural critique of capitalism, captured in the attack on “conspicuous consumption” made famous by Thorstein Veblen. Russell traces the “progressive lineage” of this critique: “Their songs continue a long tradition, rooted in progressivism, of protests against the pleasures of the poor.” Continue Reading...
March 13, 2014

Why Liberty Isn’t Enough

“It’s important to talk about liberty, but not in isolation,” says Samuel Gregg, Research Director for the Acton Institute. “Our language should reflect the truth that reason, justice, equality, and virtue make freedom possible.” Continue Reading...
March 12, 2014

The Four Questions of Christian Education

One of the advantages of living in a free society is that parents have multiple options for how they can educate their children, including enrolling them in religious education. Christian education is unique in that teachers can integrate faith and learning in the classroom to unlock academic disciplines from mere materialistic or rational concerns to direct interdependence and collaboration with the providential work of the Triune God in his plan to redeem the entire cosmos. Continue Reading...
February 24, 2014

Justice Scalia: Good Government Needs Religion

Speaking on February 14 at a Chicago event celebrating George Washington’s Birthday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s headline remark was his insistence that Chicago-style pizza is “not pizza.” But Scalia focused heavily on the abysmal state of civic education, which not surprisingly, includes law students as well. Continue Reading...
February 21, 2014

A Lesson in Work Ethics from Mike Rowe

“The definition of a good job, the meaning of work,” says Mike Rowe, Acton’s favorite blue-collar philosopher of work, “[is] the willingness to see what a lot of people might call a bad job and only see an opportunity.” Continue Reading...
February 21, 2014

On Banning ‘Make A Difference’

One of my dreams is to meet the person responsible for introducing the charge to young adults to “go out there and make a difference.” Youth and young adults are pressured and challenged to go “make a difference” but making a difference has never been clearly defined or quantified anywhere. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2014

Dagger John in the History of Liberty

Today at Ethika Politika, I take issue with Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option,” a term inspired by the last paragraph of Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue. The basic idea is that, due to the Enlightenment, we have lost the social conditions — in particular a shared moral and religious narrative — that make virtuous living an intelligible and shared social standard. Continue Reading...