Religion & Liberty Online Archives

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December 13, 2019

Think like Lenin

Gary Saul Morson has excellent and enlightening piece at the New Criterion on Vladimir Lenin and what he calls Leninthink.  “Lenin did more than anyone else to shape the last hundred years. Continue Reading...
November 18, 2019

Applications now open: Mini-Grants on Free Market Economics

The Mini-Grants on Free Market Economics: Research & Teaching program continues for the upcoming 2020 academic year and the application is now live. This grant program is intended to enhance the effectiveness in the research and teaching of market economics for faculty at colleges, universities, and seminaries in the United States and Canada. Continue Reading...
September 30, 2019

6 ways to combat consumerism

The Gospel reading on Sunday was the story of Lazarus and the rich man. I often refer to this parable in discussions about poverty, because Augustine points out that it was not wealth that sent the rich man to hell, but his indifference. Continue Reading...
September 30, 2019

On mythical materialism

Secular materialists and atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris like to mock religious people for being superstitious and illogical: resorting to fanciful explanations of events by invoking the work of God or miracles. Continue Reading...
September 24, 2019

Wilfred McClay on friendship new and old

What is friendship? What does it mean to be or to have a friend? And why does Aristotle consider friendship a virtue and an important for political life? Wilfred McClay has a nice essay on friendship at the Hedgehog Review, where he reflects on the title of the song “My New, Old Friend.” Continue Reading...
September 13, 2019

Charles Dickens, poverty, and emotional arguments

Why is it that the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century is so often our go-to mental paradigm for poverty? CapX’s John Ashmore, for instance, recently wrote of those who “feel an argument about poverty is incomplete without claiming we’ve somehow gone back to the 19th century.” Continue Reading...
August 31, 2019

Robert Nisbet on Tradition and Revolt

It is a common theme in fairy tales and other stories that the loser of the struggle will tell the victor that their victory will come with a cost. We see a similar theme in the Bible with the prophets–perhaps most famously when Israel finally gets the king they wanted so they could be like the other nations.  Continue Reading...