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Wouldn’t It Be Loverly: Audrey Hepburn, Nail Salons And How To Help Women

As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, nail salons across the country are under scrutiny for abusive labor tactics and human trafficking. New York City has taken a hard look at this issue (thank goodness!) and is considering implementing some not-so-well-thought-out policies. Included in this are: Gov. Andrew Cuomo invoking “emergency measures,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) citing federal legislation on product safety she’s introduced and of course New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio presiding over a...

Audio: Elise Hilton On The Economics Of Global Human Trafficking

Acton Communication Specialist Elise Graveline Hilton has been working hard for quite some time to shed light on the huge—but often hidden—problem of human trafficking. Most recently, she made an appearance on the RealClear Radio Hour podcast with host Bill Frezza to discuss the economics of trafficking both in the United States and around the world. This is another great opportunity to learn the signs of human trafficking so that you can be a part of the solution to this...

The Value Of School Choice In 4 Easy Pictures

It’s nice when we can take a contentious issue and get right to the heart of it in a few steps. Thanks to The Daily Signal for these graphics on school choice: ...

Why Family-Friendly Employment Requirements Aren’t Always Family-Friendly

Three of the most basic principles of economics are that people are price-sensitive, risk-averse, and that they respond to incentives. If you raise the price of a good or service people will, in general, tend to buy less (price-sensitive). If you give a person a choice between a certain e (“I’ll pay you $50 for nothing”) or a higher payoff on an uncertain e (“I’ll pay you $100 or nothing based on a coin-flip”), they’ll generally take the less risky...

Video: Rev. Sirico on What to Expect from Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment

Oceans of ink have already been spilled in the media coverage of Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the environment — and it hasn’t even been released yet. In this reflection, Rev. Robert A. Sirico draws on Catholic social teaching to provide a helpful framework for understanding environmental stewardship. While we wait to find out what’s actually in the new encyclical, expected to be published in June, Acton’s president and co-founder sees a consistent thread of thinking on environmental stewardship that...

Religious Activists Hype More Failed Shareholder Measures

The religious shareholders of As You Sow and Calvert Investments are heralding last month’s shareholder vote on greenhouse gas reduction targets as an out-and-out victory. Ummmm … not so fast. Although the press release on the AYS website trumpets: “Shareholders Vote for Greenhouse Gas Reductions at Midwest Utilities,” the facts tell a much different story. Yes, some shareholders did indeed vote in favor of the AYS/CI resolution, but not nearly enough to pass it: Citing climate change impacts and financial...

5 Facts About The Cuban Economy

Now that the U.S. has re-established diplomatic relations with Pearl of the Antilles, interest in Cuba is rising. While there are no crystal balls about Cuba’s future, here are a few things we do know about the island-nation’s economy, thanks to Pew Research. 1. Cuba was doing business with the U.S. even before the embargo was lifted. A partial repeal of the embargo allowed for this, and Cuba really needed food, medical supplies and medicine. 2. Cuba’s economic growth has...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

William F. Buckley

“The best defense against surpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” William F. Buckley, Jr., grew up in an era that was embracing the ascendancy of government expansion under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Buckley’s heroic battle against modern liberalism was so pronounced and effective because of the seriousness of his ideas and the intellectual weight they carried. His 1951 book God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom, which highlighted the efforts of professors to indoctrinate...

Sep 17, 2026

Why did the Acton Institute produce "The Birth Of Freedom?"

We produced “The Birth of Freedom” to keep alive the knowledge of the role religion has played historically in the “birth,” growth and securing of freedom. While this historic reality would have been at one time monly held understanding, today it is not. We want to suggest something else through this film, namely that freedom cannot long prosper outside of morality—that not only did the Judeo-Christian tradition bring liberty to fruition, it must remain vibrant to sustain it. This...

Sep 17, 2026

Ethics and the job market

The job market e under pressure of late as the economic shake-up continues. We are reminded that the world of the past, in which workers held one job their entire lives and slowly ascended the corporate ladder until retiring plete security, no longer exists. This is probably a good thing to the extent that it represents a new economic vibrancy. In the world of economics, another name plete security is economic stagnation. Still, changing jobs can introduce great challenges...

Sep 17, 2026

Editor's note

This issue of Religion & Liberty offers perhaps a more international perspective than past issues, and that is beneficial since we live in a very globalized society today. We are fortunate to offer an interview with Mustafa Akyol, who spoke at last summer's Acton University. Akyol, a critic of Islamic extremism and Turkish secularism, is also a defender of free markets and the positive role Islam can play in a democratic society with a greater interest in economic freedom....

Sep 17, 2026

Cardinal Bertone's "The Ethics of the Common Good in the Social Doctrine of the Church"

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's Secretary of State and effectively the second most important official in the Catholic Church, takes a close look at economic globalization and the social nature of markets in a book published in September, in Italian and Russian, by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Bertone’s book, “The Ethics of the Common Good in the Social Doctrine of the Church” (L'etica del Bene Comune nella Dottrina Sociale della Chiesa) is also notable for its ecumenical character; it...

Sep 17, 2026

Turkey: Islam's bridge to religious and economic liberty?

You say there's a growing sector in Turkish society that is engaged with the market economy and that's a healthy trend. Do you see that trend continuing in Turkey? There is in this economy a capitalist development, and this is important. In the past, generally speaking, the religious people were more of the peasant class and they were mostly in agriculture--not in modern industrial production. Generally speaking, the bourgeois, the people who were the capitalists, who were owners of...

Sep 17, 2026

"Brand loyalty" in the American religious marketplace

Earlier this year, the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life released the first installment of a truly impressive study based upon a massive survey of more than 35,000 Americans. Its portrait of the American religious landscape attracted a great deal of media attention, typically focusing on three or four principal themes. If you were to read only the press accounts, here's what you would know: While Americans are still overwhelmingly -- at least nominally -- Christian (78.4 percent...

Sep 17, 2026

The scandal of evangelical politics

In The Scandal of Evangelical Politics, Ronald J. Sider attempts to construct a methodology for evangelical Christians to participate faithfully in the political process. His construct is a backlash—to a degree—of the political monopolization of the religious right and its influence in politics. The book is a response to past evangelical involvement, which Sider sees as largely being a failure and highly contradictory. And while his methodology does not necessarily contradict any political goals of Christian conservatives, and is...

Sep 17, 2026

Double-edged sword: The power of the Word - Romans 8:38-39

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. One of the great truths and victories of Christianity is that it removes for all time the divine-human alienation. In many religions it’s the people who make...

Sep 17, 2026

Deeds not words: The good works reader

In a time of blockbuster television specials about the discovery of “lost” gospels, Jesus seminars, and a steady stream of theological fads designed to make celebrities out of seminary professors, the thought piling a collection of patristic writings on the practice of good works seems slightly out of the mainstream, if not countercultural. But that is exactly what Thomas C. Oden has done with The Good Works Reader, a book that succeeds as an introduction, a guide, and a...

Sep 17, 2026