Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Christian Social Thought

August 26, 2014

Oikonomia: New Blog at Patheos’ Faith and Work Channel

The Acton Institute has just launched Oikonomia, a new blog at Patheos’ Faith and Work Channel, which will provide resources specific to the intersection of faith, work, and economics. Other partners at the channel include The High Calling, Steve Garber’s Visions of Vocation, and Theology of Work Project, among others. Continue Reading...
August 26, 2014

Pray and Labor?

“The Church fathers, East and West, have a long tradition that affirms the value of human labor,” writes Acton’s Dylan Pahman at Humane Pursuits. “And their reflections on the subject contain depths of insight still relevant for those of us who live in “the world” today, such as how to find meaning in whatever work one may do.” Continue Reading...
August 25, 2014

When the Church Was the Center

This summer I made a visit to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and on a tour of churches, I heard a fascinating explanation of how society functioned when the church was the place where the poor had their material needs met, not the government. Continue Reading...
August 22, 2014

Would Christian Militias Help In Iraq and Syria?

Just as armed citizens have been protecting themselves and their property in Ferguson, Mo., small groups of Christians are forming in militia-style units in areas of Syria and Iraq. While most Christians believe they are allowed to protect themselves and others using force if necessary, it is a religion of peace. Continue Reading...
August 22, 2014

Ideological Tribalism: How Evangelicals Go About Social Ethics

I recently had an exchange with a Duke Divinity School student regarding many of things I’ve written at the Acton Institute over the past 12 years. The student said this about me: When it comes to speaking comfort to power and castigating the most vulnerable in our society, there is perhaps no public theological voice more eager than that of Anthony Bradley’s. Continue Reading...
August 21, 2014

What Are the Conditions for Human Flourishing?

“A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian… I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.” Continue Reading...
August 20, 2014

Every Market Form in a Single Chart

Reading through the German economist Walter Eucken’s work The Foundation of Economics (1951), I came across one of the most helpful charts for economic analysis I have yet to find. In it, Eucken gives every possible form of market in a single table: Eucken adds four qualifications that are important to keep in mind: “These forms of market are actual forms which have been or are to be found in actual economic life (often blended with one another, and existing alongside the forms of a centrally directed economy). Continue Reading...
August 20, 2014

ISIS and Christian Just War Teaching

Christians from a broad range of traditions — from Chaldean Catholics to Southern Baptists — are uniting in a call for military action against a common enemy: ISIS. As Mark Tooley notes, the persecution of religious believers by the Islamic extremists has “reanimated talk about Christian Just War teaching.” Continue Reading...
August 19, 2014

Why We Get Stewardship Wrong

Christians frequently talk about “stewardship,” but what do we mean when we use that term? And more importantly, what should we mean by it? At The Gospel Coalition, Stephen J. Grabill, director of programs and international for the Acton Institute, discusses what it means to have a holistic understanding of stewardship and what it means to “make the kingdom of God visible and tangible to the world”: Although Christians across denominational lines often use stewardship language to describe our calling to live out God’s mission in the world, what we mean theologically by “stewardship” varies greatly across religious traditions. Continue Reading...