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The implosion of Donald Trump’s campaign is a reminder that at the end of the day, character matters more than professional success or mitments. At the beginning of the second presidential debate Donald apologized again for the ments recorded during a private discussion with Billy Bush in 2005 in which he boasted of romantically pursuing married women and groping others. In his apology, he referred to that discussion as regular “locker room talk.” In other words, Trump believes he is...

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature

When Bob Dylan wrote, “The Times They Are A Changin’,” I doubt he had the Swedish Academy in mind. Nevertheless, by awarding him the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature the Academy has made a bold statement for a change in the way songwriting is viewed as literature. Many people have plained that there were many more worthy potential recipients. But let’s face the facts: Bob Dylan won, and they lost. He likely didn’t even know he peting. (Reportedly, he was...

Entitlement and the Christian vision of work

Whether directly connected with our passions or not, God calls us first and foremost to do the next thing well, to his glory, with all of our might, says John Stonestreet. Short of this awareness, we risk “Christianizing” a sense of entitlement. Christians are guilty of inculcating false expectations to their young as well. For at least a couple of generations, Christian colleges and other educational institutions, with the noble intention municating the biblical concept of “calling” being more than...

Does the government do too much or too little?

“There are many things government can’t do—many good purposes it must renounce,” said Lord Acton. “It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.” Unfortunately for us, too few of our fellow Americans would agree with Lord Acton on that point. Many people think the government can feed, enrich, and teach us—and even convert us to the “right” (i.e., politically...

Video: Paul Bonicelli on Evangelicals and the 2016 Election

Acton Institute Director of Programs and Education Paul Bonicelli joined host Juliet Dragoson WZZM 13 News in Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday to discuss the choice facing evangelical voters in the ing 2016 presidential election. You can watch the interview below. ...

Principles for a Christian understanding of economics

Many Christians assume that the Bible has nothing at all to say about economics, says Albert Mohler. But a biblical worldview actually has a great deal to teach us about economic matters. Mohler notesthat while the Christian worldview does not demand or promote a particular economic system, there are several principles that should guide our thinking: 6. A Christian economic understanding rewards initiative, industry and investment. Initiative, industry and investment are three crucial words for the Christian’s economic and theological...

Leaked emails reveal Clinton camp mocked Catholics

Have you ever wondered what liberal political activists and politicians think of Catholics? Well, thanks to Wikileaks you can get a glimpse into their views. In a couple ofemails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account there are exchanges in which conservative Catholics are mocked. The first is the amusing titled“Catholic Spring.”Sandy Newman of Voices for Progress tells Podesta that she thinks there needs to be a “Catholic Spring” akin to the “Arab Spring”, the series of protest against...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

Toward a New Liberty

The 1991 papal encyclical Centesimus Annus has been described as prompting a springtime in Christian social teaching because it makes it easier to see freedom, specifically economic freedom, as a moral mandate. The sad truth is that the two traditions e together in Centesimus Annus–religious orthodoxy and classical liberal social theory–have appeared to be at odds with each other for the better part of three centuries. Although the classical liberal tradition sprang out of a Christian humanism rooted in...

Sep 5, 2026

Tugging the Entrepreneur Homeward

During the holiday season, business people are routinely excoriated for being greedy and not doing enough for society. In the model of Scrooge before his conversion, they are said to be selfish when they should be looking out for others. Yet in my pastoral experience, I have found this to be untrue. For several years, I have conducted seminars for entrepreneurs, some of whom run America’s panies, to help them reconcile their faith with their business life. And what...

Sep 5, 2026

Liberal Arts Education in a Free Society

“Pompey now having ordered all things … took his journey homewards…. When he came to Mitylene, he gave the city their freedom … and was present at the contest, there periodically held, of poets…. He was extremely pleased with the theatre itself, and had a model of it taken, intending to erect one in Rome on the same design, but larger and more magnificent. When he came to Rhodes, he attended the lectures of all the philosophers there…. At...

Sep 5, 2026

The Ultimate Economic Resource

Friends of liberty lost a staunch ally earlier this year when Julian Simon passed away on February 8, just shy of his sixty-fifth birthday. He was infamous for his principled and fact-driven defense of the free society and its ability to unleash the creative force of the human person. In contradistinction to the neo-Malthusians and anti-natalists who monopolized the conversation about population growth and resource use, Simon pointed out that, according to the data, the condition of the human...

Sep 5, 2026

The Church and the Market

At a conference given in Vienna in 1985, Friedrich von Hayek stated that the moral systems and institutions as “Guardians of Tradition” had a decisive influence in the formation of the “extended order” which is characterized by the market. In his last book, The Fatal Conceit, he wrote an important sentence full of controversy: The survival of our civilization “may rest on the question of how people conceive the relation between the moral traditions and a personal God.” I...

Sep 5, 2026

Three New Testament Roots of Economic Liberty

We do not often think that Jesus Christ and the New Testament justifies capitalism. To the extent that capitalism means greed and self-indulgence, I should think not! Greed and self-indulgence are root human sins and will be manifested in any economic system But if you think of capitalism as economic liberty, then there are several New Testament passages that argue in favor of it. I want to explore three passages that bring out foundational issues regarding the nature of...

Sep 5, 2026

Of Markets and Morality

The great mantra of this prevailing culture of self-absorption is tolerance: If only everyone, everywhere, and under all circumstances could only be tolerant, we are assured, what a wonderful and peaceful world it would be. This kind of illiberal faith, this chic toleration, is so intolerant as to assert the truth claims of orthodox Judaism and Christianity. The problem with this arrogance (which always fails to see its own arrogance) is that it presumes that the Jewish and Christian...

Sep 5, 2026

Liberty and the Good Life

U-Turns may be prohibited on interstate highways, but it became the standard traffic pattern in the Republican Congress elected in 1996. Republicans did not contest President Clinton’s plan to balance the budget. They just wanted to do it earlier. They did not object to Clinton’s tax cuts. They just wanted more of them. Republicans want to help families educate their children. But not as expensively or intrusively as do the Democrats. The new Republican drift is an inheritance from...

Sep 5, 2026

The Bishops' Big Economic Tent

To the joy of Catholics who support capitalist institutions, the U.S. Bishops have at long last applied the principle of ecumenism to economic issues. The vehicle is a short ten-point “Catholic Framework for Economic Life,” passed unanimously at this year’s meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. es ten years after “Economic Justice for All” the Bishops’ controversial pastoral letter that disappointed so many businesspeople. The new document departs from years of confusion, in which the Bishops appeared...

Sep 5, 2026

Biblical Foundations of Limited Government

The proper role of government, the central concern of political theory, has long been a controversial issue within Christendom. Disputes continue today. From right to left, clerics claim that God stands on their side. There is, it seems, no simple Christian view of the state. And for good reason: Holy Scripture and church tradition give us guidelines and principles, but no detailed blueprint as to godly government. On most individual issues we are left with the apostle James’ injunction...

Sep 5, 2026