In the latest edition of an otherwise scholarly theological journal, a writer, who only ever writes about one subject, attacked the free market as usual. He wrote: “Neither can economics be satisfied with leaving human beings to the mercy of markets with their supposed ‘laws.’. . .” While there is certainly no space to take on his whole article, this part might just be the most serious error in it. This particular writer, and those trained in his school, which...

In a Zenit article titled “What is Good Journalism?,” author Marta Lugo interviews journalist and author Gabriel Galdón. He is professor of journalism and information ethics at Madrid’s CEU St. Paul University, and the director of the Observatory for the Study of Religious Information. By “objectivist” here, I take him to mean what American journalism professors teach as journalistic objectivity, i.e., reporting without political bias or any other slant that colors the information. One of the problems of journalism’s objectivist...

Coming next spring is a major academic event at the intersection of theology and economics, the 25th anniversary conference of the Association of Christian Economists. Hosted by Baylor University and organized by Journal of Markets & Morality advisory board member John Pisciotta, the conference promises to deliver many sessions of interest. Birth of mentator Rodney Stark and Acton Lecture Series speaker Arthur Brooks will be among those giving plenary addresses. Posted at present is the call for papers, and registration...

Today Acton Media released a new video short titled, “What is Freedom?” In this short, experts William B. Allen and Samuel Gregg discuss the nature and implications of true freedom. The clip is first in a series of shorts designed to supplement Acton Media’s latest documentary, The Birth of Freedom. Comprised of footage that didn’t make it into the documentary, these clips provide additional insight into key issues and as such, could be considered the film’s “extended scenes”. Acton Media...

Trooth in education iz teh key 2 LOLearning. According to Spiked (HT): Ken Smith, a criminologist at Bucks New University, England, argues that we should chill out and accept the mon spelling mistakes as ‘variant spellings’. ‘University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students monly misspell’, he argued recently in the Times Higher Education Supplement. Here’s the original piece, “Just spell it like it is.” My peeves include “loose” instead of “lose.” How wrong. ...

August 28 at Denver’s Mile High Stadium, the son of a black African delivered a rousing acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination. It occurred 45 years to the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial and told America “I have a dream.” Even Americans unconvinced that the Democratic nominee is the right choice for America should take heart from the fact that half a century after King struggled against vicious, institutionalized racism,...

Laura Ingraham, the popular talk radio host, will be in Grand Rapids for an event sponsored by the Acton Institute on September 17. Please make plans to join us for this exciting event. Currently there are still tickets available and you can purchase them online through the Acton Institute here. The event will take place at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, where Ingraham will speak, followed by a question and answer session. Also, there will be a book signing of...

Anders Chydenius (1729-1803) The answer of the Nordic philosopher and priest Anders Chydenius (1729-1803) applies equally well to his younger contemporary Malthus as to 21st-century neo-Malthusian paganism: Would the Great Master, who adorns the valley with flowers and covers the cliff itself with grass and mosses, exhibit such a great mistake in man, his masterpiece, that man should not be able to enrich the globe with as many inhabitants as it can support? That would be a mean thought even...

The eighth week of the CRC’s Sea to Sea bike tour has pleted. The eighth and penultimate leg of the journey took the bikers from Grand Rapids to St. Catharines, Ontario, a total distance of 410 miles. By the end of this leg the entire tour will have covered 3,451 miles. The CRC is a bi-national church, and while the denominational headquarters are located in Grand Rapids, a significant portion of the church’s membership is Canadian. This is something that...

Distributism may be a foreign term to many, but it is a movement of some importance in the history of Catholic social and economic thought. Popularized especially in early twentieth-century England by the prolific writers G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, distributism has enjoyed mini-resurgences from time to time on both sides of the Atlantic. That it still packs some punch here in the U.S. is demonstrated, for example, by the recent creation of IHS Press. (IHS is not exclusively a...