Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Natural Law

January 23, 2020

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s crass Marxist materialism

During a Martin Luther King Day discussion with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made clear that she is not just a democratic socialist but a Marxian one. Evie Fordham of Fox Business has written a helpful summary of the remarks, including Ocasio-Cortez’s concise explanation of the Marxist theory of the exploitation of labor: “No one ever makes a billion dollars. Continue Reading...
December 18, 2019

Turning points in Catholic social teaching

In a recent Acton Line podcast I began by asking Father Robert Sirico the very large question, what is Catholic social teaching and why is it important today? He answered that the Church has always had a social teaching but that when we usually discuss Catholic social teaching today we begin with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Continue Reading...
November 01, 2019

Lord Acton on true liberalism

Early last month there was a great debate over the question “What is Liberalism?” on the Free Thoughts Podcast. The debate was between Helena Rosenblatt, professor of history at City University of New York and Daniel Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University. Continue Reading...
August 16, 2019

Common grace and natural law

It has been a topic of much dispute in the last century or so of Protestant theology, but the status of natural law, and particularly its connection with the doctrine of common grace, continues to be of significance. Continue Reading...
June 26, 2019

What does politics have to do with virtue?

One of the highlights of my summers working at the Acton Institute is leading discussions with our interns over major ideas, thinkers, and issues. This afternoon we had a spirited and thought provoking discussion about conservative critiques of liberalism. Continue Reading...
June 11, 2019

Are children their parents’ property?

John Stossel says, “Yes,” at least according to a recent video at Reason. In the video, “Don’t Be Scared of Designer Babies,” Stossel interviews Georgetown University Professor Jason Brennan, who offers the following unhelpful and patronizing strawman of anyone who objects to the idea of using gene-editing technology to engineer one’s offspring however one wants: When you have any kind of intervention into the body that’s new, people think it’s icky. Continue Reading...