Before the COVID-19 crisis began, America was already facing a severe loneliness epidemic – marked by decades-long increases in suicide and chronic loneliness and declines in marriage munity attachment. Now, amid flurries of sweeping lockdowns, the struggle has e harder still, pushing any remnants of munity deeper into the confines of social media. We are facing a “social recession,” argues the Manhattan Institute’s Michael Hendrix, driven by a mix of stress over public health, economic anxiety, and the isolating effects...

Traditional religion is increasingly being replaced by a series of “new atheisms,” leading many to search for spiritual meaning elsewhere, particularly in the workplace. As a result, modern workers are more likely to view their economic activity through spiritual vocabulary, using terms like “calling” and “vocation.” Yet without the right transcendent source and ethical arc, such a development can simply lead us to new fads of self-actualization and faux self-empowerment. As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson recently argued, “everybody worships something,”...

A court has found Hong Kong dissident Jimmy Lai not guilty of intimidation. But that does not mean he, or Hong Kong, can rest easy – especially as he faces the prospect of life in prison without any public support from the most important institution in his life: the Vatican. As global political and thought leaders denounce Beijing’s encroachments, Pope Francis remains uncharacteristically silent. Lai, the self-made billionaire publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, could have been sentenced to five...

Given the recent wave of populism and protectionism sweeping across the American Right, we see increased criticism of free markets among conservatives plete with lengthy debates about the purpose of the nation-state, the role of the market in civil society, and whether classical liberalism has any enduring value in an age of technological disruption and globalization. Meanwhile, the Left continues its critiques as it always has, leading to a peculiar alliance against capitalism among otherwise ideological foes. Each side is...

Economic freedom is strongly tied to human flourishing, longevity, and even rates of survival, according to a new study. The Fraser Institute released its 2020 “Economic Freedom of the World” report on Thursday and, once again, the Canadian think tank found a strong correlation between free-market economics, prosperity, and overall levels of public health and well-being. Academic researchers have rated 162 nations based on five criteria: Area 1: Size of Government—As spending and taxation by government, and the size of...

In his new book, The Socialist Temptation, author Iain Murray examines the resurgence of socialist ideology in America and across the world. Seemingly discredited just thirty years ago by the failures of the Soviet Union and Communist block Eastern Europe, socialism has seen a revival of support and popularity in the West. Murray sets out to explain why the socialist temptation endures even after it’s own massive failures, the inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in...

Some 1.2 billion students around the world experienced school closures and an inevitable move to online learning or homeschooling toward the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Graduations and end-of-year celebrations were canceled due to COVID restrictions on public assemblies. This may have been good way to limit the contagion, but did it bring unintended consequences? Was all the creative destruction of traditional education more harmful than it was helpful? Now with the coronavirus lingering longer than most people thought...

China’s draconian “national security law” has not just stifled the free speech of pro-democracy politicians, teachers, and journalists, it has now shut down a prayer campaign called by Roman Catholic hierarchy. Catholic bishops in Hong Kong canceled publication of a prayer for fear of offending officials in the Chinese Communist Party. This summer, the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences asked its members to pray for the increasingly oppressive situation in Hong Kong. China’s violation of the “one country, two systems”...

Charles Malik, the Lebanese diplomat and one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was intimately involved in the crises of his own day, from the challenge of munism to the internal challenges and problems of the West itself.For Malik all of our challenges take the form of crises which, at their deepest levels, reflect Christ’s judgement. His profoundly theological vision of global crisis, one in which crises are ongoing in the lives of individual believers as...

State lotteries may seem like a good thing. They raise money for government programs like public schools. People contribute their money voluntarily (unlike most forms of taxation), which removes the moral weight involved in forcing people to hand over their money. They are fun games for the participants and can be life-changing for the winners. These reasons lead many people to support – or at least tolerate – state lotteries. But the lottery deserves neither our support nor our toleration,...