The most recent issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, vol. 17, no. 1, has been published online at our website (here). This issue features an array of scholarship on the foundations and fabric of free and virtuous societies, ranging from David VanDrunen’s examination of the market economy and Christian ethics, offering an unique synthesis between pro- and anticapitalist perspectives, to David Urban’s examination of liberty and virtuous self-government in the works of the seventeenth-century English poet John Milton....

Christians colleges aren’t usually known for being on the cutting-edge of technology. But The King’s College, an evangelical college located in New York City, is leading the way by ing the first accredited college in the United States to accept Bitcoin for tuition and other expenses: “The King’s College seeks to transform society by preparing students for careers in which they help to shape and eventually to lead strategic public and private institutions. Allowing Bitcoin to be used to pay...

Rev. Robert Sirico was recently on WSJ Live, talking to Simon Constable about Pope Francis and his shakeup of Vatican finances: ...

The West has made some remarkable steps forward culturally in the past several generations, as, for instance, in the areas of civil rights (the unborn being a notable exception), race relations, and cooperation among Christians of different traditions. We shouldn’t indulge a false nostalgia that overlooks this progress. That being said, you can visit almost any major city in the free world today and find evidence of cultural decay on a host of fronts: malls dripping with images of sensuality...

I had a chance to talk with Michelle Boorstein yesterday about David Brat and a bit of his work that I’ve been able to e familiar with over the past few days. She included some of ments in this piece for the Washington Post, “David Brat’s victory is part of broader rise of religion in economics.” I stressed that Brat’s research program, which in many ways emphasizes the relationship between Christianity and capitalism, has at least two basic features. First,...

It’s no secret that family dysfunction leads to many societal problems. Whether it’s addiction, abuse, financial issues, lack of educational support or simply distrustful or demeaning conditions, unhealthy family issues take their toll. One of the roots of human trafficking is unhealthy family situations. The Urban Institute, through funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, pleted prehensive study of human trafficking in seven U.S. cities. A law enforcement official from Washington, D.C. (one of the cities in the study) discusses...

There’s an old saying that corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency. bination makes state-level governments especially prone to the temptations of corruption. A new study in Public Administration Review, “The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending,” looks at the impact of government corruption on states’ expenditures. Defining corruption as the “misuse of public office for private gain,” the authors of the paper note that public and private corruption can have a...

While Michelle Obama grows vegetables in the White House garden, her husband’s administration grows every government program it can. At The Federalist, Sean Davis gives 12 reasons why Medicaid should not be expanded. Since Medicaid is a health care program, we should see some improvements in American’s health, right? Not so, and this is Davis’ first reason why we should not consider expanding this program. According to an extensive, randomized study of people who enrolled in Oregon’s 2008 Medicaid lottery,...

“We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.” -Hans Urs von Balthasar Last night, I...

There is an informative podcast on a new book titled The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom over at the Library of Law and Liberty. The author, Steven D. Smith, is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, University of San Diego and Co-Executive Director of the USD Institute for Law and Religion. Smith challenges the popular notion that American religious freedom was merely an enlightenment revolt from European Christendom and was meant to uplift a secular interpretation of the...