Religion | Religious News - www.mreligion.com

Note: This is post #123 in a weekly video series on basic economics. “If you think through all of the variables that shape a country’s economy, it’s no wonder that monetary policy is difficult,” says economist Alex Tabarrok. “It should e as no surprise that the Federal Reserve doesn’t always get it right. In fact, sometimes the Fed’s actions have made the economy worse off.” In this video by Marginal Revolution University, Tabarrok shows what happens when the Fed promotes...

Life goes on in Deadwood

More than decade after the conclusion of the critically-acclaimed HBO series Deadwood, a finale has been released that brings the gold-rush era drama to a close. The Deadwood film premiered on HBO last week, and fans of the show will find much to remember and appreciate in this conclusion. Much remains familiar in Deadwood a decade later; the surviving characters are older, but the dynamics and cadences of their interactions remain. The series concluded with an epic clash between the...

What Christians should know about recessions

Note: This is the latest entry in the Acton blog series, “What Christians Should Know About Economics.” For other entries inthe series seethis post. What it means: The economy shifts from periods of increasing economic activity, known as economic expansions, to periods of decreasing economic activity, known as recessions. This is known as the business cycle and includes four phases: expansion, peak, contraction, and trough. An expansion is a period between a trough and a peak, and a recession is...

How ‘conservatives’ became the war party

The only thing that can e the stupidity of modern-day progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the 24 people contending for the 2020 presidential nomination of the Democratic Party is an understanding of the price—and the consequences — of the policies that they preach. Progressive policy is expensive, very expensive, and a wise person should be extremely reluctant to spend other people’s money on utopian schemes like the Green New Deal. But people are not wise, and that is why America...

Are rising education and healthcare costs our own fault?

Alex Tabarrok, professor of Economics at George Mason University and co-author of the Marginal Revolution blog, has co-authored a new book with Eric Helland exploring why prices have risen so sharply in healthcare and education. Helland and Tabarrok argue that most of these price increases are caused by the rising price of skilled labor in these fields, driven by what economists call the Baumol effect, The Baumol effect is easy to explain but difficult to grasp. In 1826, when Beethoven’s...

New study exposes career training cronyism

Last week the Mackinac Center — a think tank that focuses on public policy in Michigan — published a new study: “Workforce Development in Michigan.” The study, authored by Hope College economics professor, Acton research fellow, and Journal of Markets & Morality associate editor Sarah Estelle, examines the wide variety of skills-training and employment programs in the state. As the Mackinac Center put it in their press release, The government has been actively involved in job training since the 1960s,...

A new Member of European Parliament exposes Europe’s self-doubt

Last week’s elections for European Parliament swept a bountiful harvest of Euroskeptic thorns into the EU’s side. Among them are the Sweden Democrats; Trey Dimsdale has interviewed successful SD candidate Charlie Weimers for the Acton Line podcast, and Weimers contributes a book review of Kasja Norman’s stirring book Sweden’s Dark Soul: The Unraveling of a Utopia to Acton’s transatlantic website. The book’s evocative opening leads to probing questions of Sweden’s searing self-doubt. Weimers writes: Norman starts the book depicting hundreds...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

What to Remember When Your Life Feels Small

　　What to Remember When Your Life Feels Small 　　By Deidre Braley 　　Bible Reading 　　At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you...

Sep 7, 2026

Understanding the Unseen

　　Economics is about the unseen, in Frederic Bastiat’s famous framing. The unseen includes concepts such as opportunity cost and unintended consequences, and that’s the dimension in which economics adds value. 　　Journalists specialize in seeing things. Their job is to report, to observe, to notice. When they do that well, they add value. Because their professional training does not lend itself...

Sep 7, 2026

When Bitterness Creeps In

　　BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY:“When King David heard all this, he was furious. And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad;he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sisterTamar.” (2 Samuel 13: 21) 　　When Bitterness Creeps In 　　By Dena Johnson Martin 　　The bitterness welled up inside me, almost crushing me. I wanted to lash out, to...

Sep 7, 2026

Why Progressives Hate Israel

　　Hatred of Jews, Judaism, and Israel is hardly a new phenomenon. There is a reason the hatred of Jews is sometimes called the “oldest hatred.” 　　To the progressive, therefore, conservative or traditional hatred of Jews needs little explanation.A conservative is a supporter of tradition, and hatred of Jews has a long history. You do the math. From the perspective of...

Sep 7, 2026

How to Choose Joy on the Hard Days

　　Choosing Joy on the Hard Days 　　By: Maggie Meadows Cooper 　　Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!-...

Sep 7, 2026

Can All Religions Be True?

　　Can All Religions Be True? 　　“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” -John 14:6 　　A story is told about two men who lived in a small village and got into a terrible dispute that neither of them could resolve. So one night, the first man went to the...

Sep 7, 2026

A Lifetime of Love

　　Weekly Overview: 　　As children of God, we have been given a new home and a new hope. May your heart be set aflame by the joy and purpose of living out God’s command to live for heaven this week: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right...

Sep 7, 2026

Doubt? Or Unbelief?

　　Weekend, September 7, 2024 　　Doubt? Or Unbelief? 　　Then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and couldn’t speak, was brought to Jesus. He healed the man so that he could both speak and see. (Matthew 12:22 NLT) 　　Instead of praising God for an incredible miracle, the Pharisees attributed it to the devil. Jesus had just healed a demon-possessed man who had...

Sep 7, 2026

Tricks of the Trust

　　On Monday, September 30, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of Washington, DC’s federal district court ruled thatGoogle exercises an unlawful monopoly of the market for general search engines(GSEs). GSEs aresoftware applications that allow users of web browsers(like Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Edge, Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla’s Firefox) to hunt for information on the web by entering keywords on their digital devices. 　　Judge...

Sep 7, 2026

Classical Liberals Shouldn’t Fear Political Power

　　I thank Russell Greene for his rich, critical review of my recent book The Third Awokening (“Equal Rights, not Equity,” August 6). 　　Russell and I agree that woke cultural socialism, with its exclusive focus on achieving equal outcomes and psychological harm protection for minorities, reduces human flourishing in society. But a response pointing to where we agree is hardly going...

Sep 7, 2026