Writing in The Guardian, historian Peter Frankopan looks at how the Byzantine Empire, which had “the distinction of being one of the very few realms to survive for more than a millennium,” might offer clues to a way out of the current Eurozone crisis. Frankopan, author of The First Crusade: The Call from the East, notes that “like the EU, the Byzantine empire was a multilingual, monwealth that spread across different climates and varied local economies, ranging from bustling cities...

Last month I wrote about the Romeike family, a German family of homeschoolers that was given the choice to abandon their religious convictions or lose custody of their children. Although the family is seeking asylum in the U.S., President Obama’s Justice Department has argued that the family should be denied refugee status based on their contention that governments may legitimately use its authority to force parents to send their kids to government-sanctioned schools. Nick Gillespie of Reason.tv talked to Mike...

In their book, American Society: How It Really Works, authors Erik Wright and Joel Rogers make the case that when we talk about social injustice most Americans think in terms of some sort of material inequality that might be considered unfair and possibly remedied if our social institutions were different. There are multiple problems with this reduction but it is fair to say that this is a dominant conceptual framework in our culture today. As a result, one of the...

Taking a look at these videos will give you a pretty good idea of what the Duck Commander’s mission is. You’ll see how the popular A&E series Duck Dynasty, focusing on the lives of the Duck Commander products, embodies a vision of business as mission on a variety of levels. As Phil puts it, “we all are preachers.” Here’s Phil Robertson, the Duck Commander, describing his journey to faith in Jesus Christ: Here’s the Duck Commander on the origins of...

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) recently appeared on the MSNBC round-table discussion show Morning Joe and was asked by Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin to give his personal take on the reality of a world where Obamacare is the law of the land. Here’s what transpired: JOHNSON: Well, it’s obviously the law of the land right now. Obviously, I’m concerned about it. I think that the cost estimate of Obamacare is grossly understated. I think far more Americans are going to...

The conclave to elect a new pope began today in Rome. Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti from the Financial Times describe the first day: Cardinals sequestered in the Sistine chapel held their first vote to choose the 266th pope to lead the Roman Catholic church but black smoke emerging from their burnt ballot papers on Tuesday night signalled no one had secured the two-thirds majority needed for election. The search for a successor to Benedict XVI, who last month became...

AEI’s Values & Capitalism recently posted an interview with Dr. Charlie Self, professor at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and senior advisor for the Acton Institute. In the last few weeks, I’ve posted several excerpts from Self’s new book, Flourishing Churches and Communities: A Pentecostal Primer on Faith, Work, and Economics for Spirit-Empowered Discipleship,which he discusses at length in the interview. When asked what a Pentecostal worldview adds to the “larger Christian conversation about faith, work and economics,” Self responded...

“Is there a religious way to pump gas, sell groceries, or advertise for a craft store?” In a new paper, “God and the Profits: Is There Religious Liberty for Money-Makers?,” Mark Rienzi asks the question.(HT) Rienzi, an assistant professor at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, writes in direct response to the federal government’s HHS contraception mandate, focusing on the religious liberty challenges faced by panies. As Rienzi argues, imposing such penalties requires “singling out...

Michael Severance, operations manager of Acton’s Rome office, is asking the question on everyone’s mind, “Who will be pope #266?” In The Catholic World Report, Severance makes note of the “amateur assessments” first: By now we have heard every hypothesis from scores of budget-pinching and rookie mass media stumbling on Piazza San Pietro’s uneven cobblestones. They multitask as correspondent-producer-fixers and are armed with the latest generation of smartphones, tablets, and other species of espresso-stained electronic gadgets that replace expensive backroom...

The conclave to elect the new pope is scheduled to begin tomorrow afternoon after the public Missa pro Eligendo Pontifice (Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff) which is scheduled at 10am Rome time. It was at this mass in 2005 after the death of John Paul II that the then Cardinal Ratizinger famously spoke of the “dictatorship of relativism.” At 4:30 pm Rome time, the cardinals wearing full choir dress will enter the Sistine Chapel singing the hymn...