Virtue

October 21, 2016

The paradox of flourishing: Where authority and vulnerability meet

In our discussions about politics, society, and culture, the vocabulary of “human flourishing” has become increasingly popular, moving dangerously close to the status of blurry buzzword. Yet at its best, the term captures the connective tissue between the material and the transcendent, the immediate and the eternal, pointing toward a holistic prosperity that accounts for the full complexity of the human person. Continue Reading...

October 14, 2016

Trump is the lewd American male

The implosion of Donald Trump’s campaign is a reminder that at the end of the day, character matters more than professional success or political commitments. At the beginning of the second presidential debate Donald apologized again for the lewd comments recorded during a private discussion with Billy Bush in 2005 in which he boasted of romantically pursuing married women and groping others. Continue Reading...

October 05, 2016

The fruit of toil

In an Acton Commentary two years ago, I wrote about the significance of toil: In the midst of the now-common Christian affirmation of all forms of work as God-given vocations, the image of Sisyphus, vainly pushing his boulder up a hill in Hades, only to watch it roll back down again, might serve to remind us of the reality of toil, the other side of the coin. Continue Reading...

October 04, 2016

Against technocracy: Greg Forster on reviving the fight for educational freedom

“Our problem [with education] today is not to enforce conformity; it is rather that we are threatened with an excess of conformity. Our problem is to foster diversity.” –Milton Friedman, Capitalism & Freedom The education reform movement has set forth a range of strategies to combat the leviathan of public education. Continue Reading...

September 28, 2016

Candidates must address school-to-prison pipeline

Given the overpopulation of American jails and prisons, it would stand to reason that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump be pressed to explain how they would dismantle the unfortunate relationship between low-performing schools and the criminal justice system. Continue Reading...

September 26, 2016

What WALL-E and Wilhelm Röpke teach us about work and economics

Humans have a tendency to daydream about a day or a place where work is no more, whether it be a retirement home on a golf course or a utopian society filled with leisure and merriment. Continue Reading...

September 20, 2016

The gospel as pearl and leaven

In its 2,000-year history, the church has actively integrated evangelism and social action in powerful and transformative ways. Yet for many of today’s Christians, we feel as though we must choose between a life of ministry and cultural engagement, that our vocational paths are inevitably torn between “saving souls” and “serving justice.” Continue Reading...

September 19, 2016

Why being able to trust strangers leads to prosperity

My mother would be mortified by my behavior. Since before I could walk she warned me about “stranger danger”: Don’t get into a car with strangers; don’t accept candy from strangers; don’t’ go into a strangers house, etc. Continue Reading...

August 24, 2016

‘A higher freedom’: David Brooks on restoring the moral imagination

We continue to see the expansion of freedom and the economic prosperity around the world. And yet, despite having enjoyed such freedom and its fruits for centuries, the West is stuck in a crisis of moral imagination. Continue Reading...

August 17, 2016

Grace renews nature (even in politics)

“We see immediately that grace is inseparably connected with nature, that grace and nature belong together.” –Abraham Kuyper In their new book, One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics, Bruce Ashford and Chris Pappalardo offer a robust vision of Christian political engagement, one that neither retreats from the world nor accommodates to its ideological whims. Continue Reading...

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