James Poulos

March 08, 2017

Radio Free Acton: James Poulos on the art of being free

On this edition of Radio Free Acton, we welcome back John Wilsey – Assistant Professor of History and Christian Apologetics and Associate Director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary – and hand over the reins of the podcast to him as he talks with author and social theorist James Poulos about his new book, The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves. Continue Reading...

October 11, 2016

Mars needs religion!

… Or does religion need Mars? So argues social commentator James Poulos at Foreign Affairs: What’s clear is that Earth no longer invites us to contemplate, much less renew, our deepest spiritual needs. Continue Reading...

June 05, 2013

Radicaltarianism: Toward an Economics of Possibility and Grace

Over at Rough Trade, the always intriguing James Poulos celebrates the increased attention now being given to the “relationship between economic and religious life,” pointing to the Acton Institute’s very own Samuel Gregg to kick things off. Continue Reading...

March 22, 2013

What Economics Can’t Explain

Tyler Cowen has an interesting column in last Sunday’s New York Times, arguing that despite run-of-the-mill objections to “cold” and “heartless” economic analysis, economics is, as a science, “egalitarian at its core”: Economic analysis is itself value-free, but in practice it encourages a cosmopolitan interest in natural equality. Continue Reading...

March 09, 2012

Malthus and the Contraceptive Mandate

“The power of population,” wrote the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus in 1798, “is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” In other words, unless population growth is checked by moral restraint (refraining from having babies) or disaster (disease, famine, war) widespread poverty and degradation inevitably result. Continue Reading...