Your writer has been telling readers for some time now that so-called “religious” shareholder activism is more political than spiritual. I’ve also pointed out time and again that the priests, nuns, clergy, and religious affiliated with such shareholder groups as As You Sow are opposed to corporate donations to political activities only when it suits them. This last point was clarified recently by events in Arizona. First Affirmative Investments and Calvert Investments joined AYS in an attempt to force Arizona...

Starting a business is a risky undertaking. You need money, a product or service people want and away to deliver that product or service that keeps some of that money in your pocket. For social entrepreneurs, the stakes are even higher: their goal is to do something good while making money. Tom Szaky of TerraCycle is quite clear: “I want to make a lot money doing good.” And he just may do it. TerraCycle has been based in the U.S....

Today, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called for supporting just wage public policies. While the religious leaders genuinely concern for the poor, they display a deep lack of understanding of basic economic principles, namely the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand directly determines the price (wages) of labor. A price higher than the market price leads not to higher wages, but higher unemployment. Read this article for a more detailed discussion of the ill-effects of...

We’ve seen lots mentary on the lopsided outrage over the inhumane death of Cecil the Lion — how the incidenthas inspired far higher levels of fervor and indignation than the brutal systemic barbarism of the #PPSellsBabyParts controversy orthe tragically unjust murder of Samuel Dubose. At first, I was inclined to shrug offthis claim, thinking, “You can feel pointed grief about one while still feeling empathyabout the other.” Or, “the facts of the Cecil case are perhaps clearer to more people.”...

Pope Francis hasn’t been shy about showing his disdain for capitalism and. During his recent trip to Latin America, for example, the pontiff said the the unfettered capitalism is “the dung of the devil.” Like many others, plained that the pope is presenting a distorted, plete, and naive view of capitalism. But to his credit, Francis has vowed to consider these reactions before his trip the U.S. this September. “I heard that there were some criticisms from the United States....

Bill McKibben’s New York Review of Books essay on Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, has prompted two previous posts by your author (here and here). Working through the review has helped identify McKibben’s affinity for liberation theology and his outlandish claim that Pope Francis shares this affinity. In the The Wall Street Journal, Lord Lawson, former Great Britain Secretary of State for Energy, Chancellor of the Exchequer and current chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, reviews Ronald Bailey’s most...

Earlier this month, the eminent historian Owen Chadwick passed away. Chadwick’s immense scholarly plishments includedActon and History, his study of our namesake here at the Acton Institute. John Morrill wrote a wonderful reflection for The Guardian on Chadwick’s life, character, and plishments at the time. From the article: His last two books were A History of the Popes 1830-1914 (1998) and The Early Reformation on the Continent (2002). Throughout his career, he also published brilliant short essays, normally developed from...

Aristotle has often been described as the philosopher mon sense. Similarly, Milton Friedman, who would have been 103 years old today, could be described as the economist mon sense. Friedman’s writings are often so clear and straightforward (unusual for modern economists) that when reading him you often find yourself wondering how anyone could disagree. Even the uber-liberal Paul Krugman, admits that Friedman was “One of the most important economic thinkers of all time…” In honor of his birthday, here are...

On Tuesday, I dealt with approximately the first third of Bill McKibben’s New York Review of Books’ essay on Pope Francis’ Laudato Si encyclical. Today, I review the middle third, which includes McKibben’s alarming defense of liberation theology and his claim that this discredited ideology is embraced by Pope Francis. McKibben continues to read into Laudato Si things that simply aren’t there. For example, he depicts panies as inherently rapacious pared to native peoples. Even more striking, in this regard,...

There are three possible futures for American Evangelicalism. These diverse destinies depend upon the moral, social and theological convictions of munities and leaders of the different streams. They also represent patterns found in three centuries of American Evangelical history. These futures will also determine whether or not munities flourish economically and socially. American Evangelicalism has never been a uniform subculture. The term “Evangelical” denotes adherents of historic Christian faith within a Protestant ethos. Remembering the Past Synthesizing the insights of...