Religion & Liberty Online Archives

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January 06, 2012

Faith and Food Trucks

In last week’s Acton Commentary, “Food Fights and Free Enterprise,” I take a look at the food truck phenomenon in US cities, sometimes called a “craze.” In the companion blog post, “Food Trucks and First Steps,” I refer to Milton Friedman’s observation that there is a difference between being pro-market and pro-business. Continue Reading...
January 04, 2012

Samuel Gregg: Santorum, Tocqueville, and the Economy

On the National Catholic Register, Kathryn Jean Lopez takes a look at the strong finish by Rick Santorum in the Iowa Caucuses. She writes that the candidate’s dead heat finish with Mitt Romney marks “the emergence of a different kind of Catholic candidate in American politics, one who refuses to give up the fight on social justice — substantively and rhetorically — in practice and linguistics.” Continue Reading...
January 04, 2012

#Occupy: The New New Pentecost?

Over at the Sojourners blog, Harry C. Kiely boldly considers whether the Occupy movement can be considered “the New Pentecost.” However, there are a myriad of problems with his comparison. First and most importantly, from a Christian point of view, there already has been a “New Pentecost.” Continue Reading...
January 04, 2012

Theonomists, Reconstructionists, and Dominionists, Oh My!

At the Daily Beast yesterday, Michelle Goldman Goldberg muses on the movement of “the ultra-right evangelicals who once supported Bachmann” over to Ron Paul. This is in part because these “ultra-right evangelicals” are really “the country’s most committed theocrats,” whose support for Paul “is deep and longstanding, something that’s poorly understood among those who simply see him as a libertarian.” Continue Reading...
January 03, 2012

The Church as Social Laboratory

I opened my recent Patheos piece on Christians and the “Occupy” protests by noting the proclivity for some leaders to seek cultural relevance by uncritically embracing political movements and trends. This shows that it is a common temptation to allow worldly perspectives and ideologies to determine the shape of our faith rather than the other way around. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2012

Libertarianism + Christianity = ?

Reflecting on the GOP presidential campaigns and the Iowa caucus, Joseph Knippenberg has voiced serious concern on the First Things blog regarding the compatibility of Ron Paul’s libertarianism with traditional Christian social and political thought. Continue Reading...
December 30, 2011

The Civil War in Religion & Liberty

2011 kicked off the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. At the beginning of 2011, I began seeing articles and news clippings to commemorate the anniversary. While not a professional historian, I took classes on the conflict at Ole Miss and visited memorials and battlefields on my own time. Continue Reading...
December 30, 2011

America’s Real Inequality Problem

David Deavel’s review of Mitch Pearlstein’s From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation has been picked up by First Things and Mere Comments. Continue Reading...
December 30, 2011

Secularism and Tyranny

In part 1 of “Secular Theocracy: The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny,” David Theroux of the Independent Institute outlines a history of secularism, tracing the complex relationship between religion and the spheres of society, particularly church and government. Continue Reading...