As persecution intensifies around the world, and as the incremental fight for religious liberty only begins here in America, Christians have an obligation to better understand the role of religious liberty and how it intersects with God’s design for political institutions. Unfortunately, as a recent video from John MacArthur demonstrates, the confusion is more widespreadthan I’d like to believe. “We can’t expect religious liberty to exist as some kind of divine right, as some gift from God,” he says. “…We...

Can we live the good life in the world of finance and banking? Acton’s research director, Samuel Gregg, explores that question in his latest book For God and Profit: How Banking and Finance Can Serve the Common Good. He was recently interviewed by the Social Trends Institute in order to discuss the motivation behind writing the book as well as expanding on the theme of his book. Some of the highlights: What’s the biggest challenge facing Christians and other people...

Samuel Gregg’s latest book, For God and Profit: How Banking and Finance Can Serve the Common Good argues that making a profit and living a good, moral life are not mutually exclusive endeavors. People are taking notice. In a new review of the book at Zenit, Fr. John Flynn agrees with Gregg. “[M]oney and finance,” he begins, “play an essential role in the well-being of persons and nations and they are not of themselves immoral.” He continues: Another handicap to...

Should you follow your passion, wherever it may take you? Should you do only what you love…or learn to love what you do? Mike Rowe, star of “Dirty Jobs” and the Acton Institute’s favorite blue-collar philosopher of work, shares the “dirty truth” about passion and vocation in PragerU’s mencement address. ...

We e guest writer Sam Webb to the PowerBlog with this review of If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Libertyby Eric Metaxas (Viking, 2016). Webb is an attorney in Houston and studies at Reformed Theological Seminary. He also serves as an Associate Research Fellow for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Eric Metaxas’ golden triangle of freedom By Sam Webb Book Review: If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of...

Samuel Gregg, Director of Research at the Acton Institute and author of For God And Profit: How Banking and Finance Can Serve the Common Good, joins host Drew Mariani on Relevant Radio’s The Drew Mariani Show to discuss the recent failed referendum in Switzerland that would have provided a guaranteed basic e to all citizens, and how that vote reflects the limitations of social democracy. You can listen to the full interview via the audio player below. ...

Christians have routinely accepted a range of false dichotomies when es to so-called “full-time ministry,” confining such work to the vocation of pastor or evangelist or missionary. The implications are clear: Those who enter or leave such vocations are thought to be “entering the work world” or “leaving the ministry,” whether it be for business or education or government. Tothe contrary, God has called all of us to minister to the lost across all vocations, and to do so “full-time.”...

There’s been a lot of discussion leading up to the planned Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete this month. As is typical of councils in the history of the Church, so far it’s a mess, and it hasn’t even happened yet. In what has been described as an act of self-marginalization by Bulgarian Orthodox scholar Smilen Markov, it looks like the Bulgarian Patriarchate has already backed out. Antioch has a laundry list of grievances. The OCA, which might not even technically be...

We have routinelypointed to Jeremiah 29 as an introductory primer for life in exile, prodding us toward faithful cultural witness and away from the typical temptations of fortification, domination, and modation. As Christians continue to struggle with what it means to be in but not of the world, Jeremiah reminds us to “seek the welfare of the city,” bearing distinct witness even as we serve our captors. We are to “pray to the Lord for it,” Jeremiahwrites, “because if it...

Following the recent Rome conference “Freedom with Justice: Rerum Novarum and the New Things of Our Time”, held in celebration of 125th anniversaryof Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical on private property, the Industrial Revolution and the spread of Marxist ideology, Acton’s Samuel Gregg was interviewed by Shalom World TV. VaticanjournalistAshley Noronha, who hosts the India-based religious news magazine Voice of the Vatican, asked Gregg what was the the connection between religious and economic freedom andhow traditional Catholic social teaching is responding...