Religion & Liberty Online Archives

History

July 11, 2018

Chafuen celebrates Catalan critic of socialism

Jaime Balmes was a young Catalan priest who died 170 years ago and is largely forgotten today. But Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, believes that Balmes deserves more attention for his economic ideas and his critiques of socialism.  Continue Reading...
June 19, 2018

The overdue good news Juneteenth

Although bad news travels fast, good news often takes the scenic route. That appears to have been especially true during the Civil War. Although Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became official on the first day of January 1863, word didn’t arrive in Texas until June 19, 1865. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2018

The (just) price of salt (and cancer drugs)

A recent episode of the very fine podcast EconTalk reminded me of one of the more remarkable episodes during my time here at the Acton Institute involving our internship program. The EconTalk episode is about the price of cancer drugs, and the various factors that go into the often astronomical prices of the latest cancer-fighting drugs. Continue Reading...
April 24, 2018

How not to think clearly on faith and economics

Mark Labberton, President of Fuller Seminary, recently addressed a meeting of Evangelical leaders held at Wheaton College and has released a reconstruction of his remarks. It is an interesting address which spends four paragraphs explicitly addressing questions of economics and economic policy. Continue Reading...
April 19, 2018

How to be an unapologetic patriot

Today is Patriots’ Day, an annual observance of the anniversary of when the American colonies first took up arms against the British Crown on April 19, 1775. Patriot’s Day has become a forgotten holiday, due in part to the fact we Americans have a peculiar relationship to the term “patriot.” Continue Reading...
April 18, 2018

Is economics an ideology?

Richard H. Spady, research professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, has recently published a piece at First Things entitled ‘Economics as Ideology’ in which he explores some contemporary trends among economists and their use of economics as a Procrustean bed to reshape society in its own image, A body of thought is “ideological” when it will­fully projects its own first principles on its subject matter and actively seeks, perhaps unconsciously, material changes to bring social realities into conformity with these first principles. Continue Reading...