Jordan Ballor Acton Institute Research Fellow and Executive Editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality Jordan J. Ballor was a guest on Austin Hill in the Morningin late January on the Faith Radio Network to discuss the morality of resource extraction and use. Should Christians support efforts to drill for more oil and the use of new techniques to draw more of these resources from the Earth, or should they push for a new approach to energy creation and...

When the Founding Fathers were drafting the U.S. Constitution, they didn’t initially consider adding a Bill of Rights to protect citizens because it was deemed unnecessary. It was only afterthe Constitution’s supporters realized such a bill was essential to getting approved by the states that they proposed enumerating such rights in twelve amendments. (Ten amendments were ratified; two others, dealing with the number of representatives and with pensation of senators and representatives, were not.) The Bill of Rights was included...

When Christians think of the majesty of God’s handiwork we tend to think of the visible aspects of nature. We agree with King David that, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). But there are intricate and beautiful aspects of God’s creative geniusthat we don’t often think about—or don’t think about as being created by God. Take, for instance, the price system. As economist Alex Tabarrok says in the video...

A NASA image released in February 2014 shows a night view of the Korean Peninsula. Apart from a spot of light in Pyongyang, North Korea is mostly cloaked in darkness, with China (top left) and South Korea (bottom right) on either side. -Reuters North Korea finally decided ment on the most famous image of the nation. Almost exactly one year ago, NASA released several photos of the earth at night, showing many brightly lit nations and a shockingly dark North...

On February 7th, Christopher Booker of Britain’s The Telegraphcaused a stir with his column entitled “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever.” Booker remarked: When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual...

CLP Academic has now releasedA Treatise on Money, a newly translated selection from Luis de Molina’s larger work,On Justice and Right (De iustitia et iure). The release is part of the growing series from Acton:Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law. Molina (1535–1600) was one of the most eminent theologians of the Jesuit order in the sixteenth century. Known widely for developing a theory of human freedom of action (and in turn, a new religious doctrine now known as...

“Christianity undergirded the development of Western liberalism (in the old, good sense of the word),” says Rich Lowry. In fact, without Christianity there would probably not be anything like what we conceive as true liberty: The indispensable role of Christianity in the creation of individual rights and ultimately of secularism itself is the subject of the revelatory new intellectual historyInventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop. Here’s hoping that President Obama gives it a quick skim before he next takes the...

Where can people turn when technology eliminates their jobs? Greg Forster argues the answer is the “church.” Forster offers five things the church can be for those whose jobs are eliminated or endangered by technological change: The church can be a place where people find their true identity. The church can be a place where people find healing. The church can be a place where people find wisdom and vision. The church can be a place of cultural entrepreneurship. The...

By the end of January, most of us have given up on our New Year’s resolutions. These are goals we enthusiastically set during the silent nights of self-reflection that Christmas affords us. We contemplate our Savior’s magnificent and humble life in contrast with our own feeble and self-seeking, sinful existence. We intensely desire personal renewal to e holier and nobler persons; yet, alas, we lack the will to actualize our true human potential. Many blame the failure mit on laziness...

In the latest additiontoMike Rowe’s growing catalogof pointed Facebook responses, the former Dirty Jobs host tackles a question on the minimum wage, answering a man named “Darrell Paul,” who asks: The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and hour. A lot of people think it should be raised to $10.10. Seattle now pays $15 an hour, and the The Freedom Socialist Party is demanding a $20 living wage for every working person. What do you think about the minimum wage? How...