Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Colson: Politics, Economics and Morality
Colson: Politics, Economics and Morality
Oct 18, 2026 3:29 PM

From Chuck Colson’s column on Christian Post. Read the entire article here.

If the Great Recession of 2008 has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t detach economic prosperity from moral issues. Greed, imprudent spending by individuals and by government, debt, all of these things brought our economy to where we are today. As I’ve said many times on BreakPoint, our economic collapse is the result of our moral and ethical collapse.

We don’t teach our kids that there are such things as right or wrong, and we wonder why they grow up to cheat and steal.

And the social costs of disintegrating traditional families in terms of crime, divorce, juvenile delinquency, are truly staggering.

You don’t think supporting traditional families — and marriage — matters? Well, then you’ve never been inside a prison, like I have. You haven’t met the thousands of young men and women I have who have told you about their missing fathers or their drugged-out moms.

No society that rejects the moral good can possibly stay solvent. The price tag for moral corruption, as we have learned, is simply too high.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The economics of Bedford Falls (Part 1 of 3)
Upon it’s initial release in 1946, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life was something of a financial flop,failing to reach the break-even point of $6.3 million. Although it was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, it wasn’t until subsequent decades that it became recognized as one of the greatest Christmas films ever made.* The movie is long overdue for another reappraisal, for it’s also one of the best films ever created about economics and financial services. In a...
What would a renewed Europe look like?
Theresa May began this week by meeting with her Brexit cabinet to determine whether to embrace a “soft Brexit” (with maximum access to mon market and a heavy regulatory regime imposed by Brussels) or a “hard Brexit” (triggering EU protectionist policies but freeing the UK to pursue economic dynamism). But thinking about the European Union should be more fundamental, re-examining its drive to build a secular utopia through ever-more-burdensome supranational government. In a new essay for Acton’s Religion & Liberty...
On the real meaning of Christmas
“Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall,” says Rev. Robert A. Sirico in this week’s Acton Commentary, “but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.” In 1776, there were fewer than one billion people on Earth. A vast majority of them were poor, and living under tyrannies. Just over two centuries later, there are more than seven billion human beings. Rapid medical discoveries and inventions have helped to double the average lifespan, vastly reduce infant mortality,...
A cryptocurrency? Tech stock? Bubble? What exactly has Bitcoin become?
Four years ago I wrote a series of posts on what Christians should know about bitcoin. At the time a single bitcoin was worth $266, and I wasn’t sure it’d be around for five more years. This week a single bitcoin was trading for $17,800 and it looks like it’ll be around long past my five-year mark. But the rapid and inexplicable rise in price of bitcoins has caused some people to wonder what’s going on—and even e confused what...
The awesomely boring future of driverless cars
As fears loom about a future filled with robot overlords, innovation continues to accelerate at breakneck pace. When es to self-driving cars, for example, panies are making significant strides with the technology, even as the masses continue to fret over a handful of related accidents and the potential for human abuses. With Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica now plishing Level 4 autonomy, just how afraid should we be? Is a world of autonomous cars destined for apocalyptic catastrophe or dystopian indolence? According...
Reimagining work in the coalfields
The American coal industry is facing serious challenges. In states like West Virginia, the effects have been particularly painful, causing munities to struggle under a projected 23% decline in related jobs and leading vast numbers of residents to leave the state altogether. This is the story of Bluefield, a West Virginia coal-mining town facing decades-long economic decline, with the population of the surrounding county dwindling from 100,000 in the 1980s to less than 20,000 today. Thankfully, for the churches and...
5 Facts about the Bill of Rights
Today is Bill of Rights Day, memoration first established byPresident Franklin D. Rooseveltto cherish the ‘immeasurable privileges which the charter guaranteed’ and to rededicate its principles and practice.” Here are five facts you should know about the Bill of Rights: 1. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, George Mason of Virginia said that he “wished the plan had been prefaced by a Bill of Rights,” because it would “give great quiet” to the people. A motion was made that mittee...
Explainer: Christmas 2017 by the Numbers
As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas produces many things—joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $74.70– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees in 2015. $98.70– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on fake Christmas trees in 2015. 34,500,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year. 10,000,000 – Number of fake Christmas trees sold each year....
Study: Anti-profit beliefs cause people to neglect the societal benefits of profit
From Pope Francis to Occupy Wall Street, there has been a notable trend recently of considering all forms of business profits to be harmful to society. Business profits—the money that remains when a business’s revenues exceed expenses—are condemned as, at best, a driver of inequality, and, at worst, an inherently unjust form of theft. This view not only persists, but seems to be growing during a period when the benefits of the profit-driven economic system should be obvious to all...
Is the ‘Bitcoin bubble’ immoral?
What is behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin’s phenomenal rise in values, from $800 last year to $17,000 today? Is this a bubble or a durable value, and what are the ethical implications behind using a currency that may aid such causes as organized crime and North Korea’s nuclear program? What is Bitcoin, anyway? Philip Booth answers these questions in a new essay for Acton’sReligion & Liberty Transatlantic website. In a fascinating look at the new frontier of currency, Booth examines whether...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved