Religion & Liberty Online Archives

History

February 25, 2022

Canon law, works of mercy, and human dignity

“All human societies face about the same problems,” claim David Friedman, Peter Leeson, and David Skarbek in their fascinating and peculiar book Legal Systems Very Different from Ours. “They deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2022

Today is Lord Acton’s 188th birthday. His philosophy should guide our next two centuries

Today, January 10, 2022, is Lord Acton’s 188th birthday. This difficult era of a global pandemic, a crisis in institutions, and civil unrest seems a strange time to look back on the life and legacy of a Victorian historian of ideas—but, as Lord Acton himself remarked, “if the Past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and surest emancipation.” Continue Reading...
January 22, 2021

The death and resurrection of ‘The 1776 Report’ (full report text)

While I was reading The 1776 Report, it disappeared. The publication commissioned to “enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States,” which found itself memory-holed by one of the initial executive orders President Joe Biden signed during his first day in office, expertly explains the American philosophy of liberty and applies it to the most threatening modern-day crises. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2021

Today is Lord Acton’s 187th birthday. His philosophy should guide our next two centuries

Sunday January 10, 2021, is Lord Acton’s 187th birthday. This difficult era of a global pandemic, a crisis in institutions, and civil unrest seem strange times indeed to look back on the life and legacy of a Victorian historian of ideas – but, as Lord Acton himself remarked, “if the Past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and surest emancipation.” Continue Reading...
December 24, 2020

Christmas replaces Utopia with the kingdom of Heaven

While researching another article, I was taken aback to read a political organization refer to its platform as a “new covenant.” The feeling of unease deepened with each plank of its revolutionary and highly divisive program to remake society de novo (about which, more later). Continue Reading...
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