Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Posts by Joe Carter

May 18, 2018

Income inequality doesn’t affect living standards

When historians and economists look back at our era (starting around the time of the “Great Recession” in 2007) they’ll be hard-pressed to understand why so much of the policy debates centered around an issue of relatively minor importance that has existed since the beginning of humanity: income equality. Continue Reading...
May 17, 2018

How the Vatican misunderstands finance

Earlier today, the Vatican released Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, a statement on “ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system.” The document outlines sound general principles, says Acton research director Samuel Gregg, but also reflects the Church’s present struggle to comprehend modern finance: Over the past decade, various Vatican offices have produced several documents addressing the vexed topic of finance and banking. Continue Reading...
May 16, 2018

How property rights originated from Christian theology

Property rights originated from Christian theology, and have proven themselves empirically over the past couple hundred years, says economist Eric Falkenstein. “The liberal ideas that gave rise to the Enlightenment are generally thought (eg, Steven Pinker) to be a break from a religious thinking,” adds Falkenstein. Continue Reading...
Private Property Sign
May 15, 2018

How geography affects economic growth

Note: This is post #78 in a weekly video series on basic economics. You could fit most of the U.S., China, India, and a lot of Europe, into Africa. But if you compare Africa to Europe, Europe has two to three times the length of coastline that Africa. Continue Reading...
May 11, 2018

Dalio’s animated adventure in common grace-infused wisdom

Ray Dalio is a fascinating character. Founder of the “world’s richest and strangest hedge fund,” he’s been dubbed the “Steve Jobs of investing” and “Wall Street’s oddest duck.” He’s currently #26 on Forbes list of richest people in America and Time magazine once included him on their list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Continue Reading...
May 10, 2018

Liberalism needs natural law

The great British political thinker Edmund Burke regarded what some call “liberalism” today as incomprehensible, unworkable and unjust in the absence of widespread commitment to natural law. A similar argument can be made in our own time, says Acton research director Samuel Gregg: Without natural law foundations, for instance, how can we determine what is and isn’t a right other than appeals to raw power or utility, neither of which can provide a principled case for rights? Continue Reading...
May 09, 2018

How Kuyper can bring evangelicals and Catholics together

Have Catholics sacrificed the integrity of their faith tradition by allying with conservative evangelicals (like me)? Matthew Walther, a national correspondent at The Week, thinks so. Walther claims the alliance between Catholics and evangelical Protestants was born of supposedly shared values. Continue Reading...
May 08, 2018

The importance of institutions

Note: This is post #77 in a weekly video series on basic economics. When it comes to understanding economic growth, says Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution University, institutions are often critically important. Continue Reading...