Discussions on just wages usually begin with statements like, “How can anyone live on $5.15 an hour and still raise a family? The minimum wage needs to be changed.” Or, “How can we justify selling shirts in our stores for $25 or $30 apiece when they were sewn in Latin American for 50 cents or less?” From there, the conversation often proceeds to blaming global businesses and capitalism for exploiting workers. Others blame misguided government initiatives. Everyone seems to...

e to the new Religion & Liberty! We have the same serious content we have always had, but with a fresh, livelier new look. For many of you, R&L will arrive electronically, permitting us to reach more people at less cost – good economic stewardship! R&L also has a new editor: me. After years of faithful service, Stephen Wolma has left the editorship to continue his preparations for ministerial service. We thank him for his work and wish him...

Where did Pope John Paul II stand on economic issues? The same place he stood on all other issues involving the well-being of the human person. He favored the rights and dignity of all people, freedom to work and to create, and an environment of security that permits the flourishing of faith. He had faith in freedom and no love for the grand secular state. Thus did this pope understand that human dignity implies non-socialist political and economic structures,...

It is a rare thing for an economist to write a bestselling book, but Steven Levitt is a rather rare economist. Winner of the Clark Medal for the best American economist under 40, Levitt does not practice economics as most of his colleagues at the University of Chicago do. Indeed, he is something of maverick, as is made clear by the subtitle of his bestseller, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Levitt does not seek...

The Acton Institute is, at heart, a cultural enterprise. We are not concerned so much with politics or economics or sociology or philosophy as we are with the whole package – the effect they have on our culture. Our concern is with the health of society as a whole:the free and virtuous society. In this autumn issue of Religion & Liberty, that concern is made very clear as we examine a tremendous influence on our culture: the entertainment industry....

A recent slide in movie attendance suggests a film industry crisis of major proportions, but pop culture potentates seem reluctant to confront it. In May of this year, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that fully 48 percent of American adults say they go to the movies less often then they did in 2000. For 19 consecutive weeks, including the heart of the summer 2005 blockbuster season, the motion picture industry earned less (despite higher ticket prices) than it brought...

The human worker is at his core an artist. Oftentimes, the term artist connotes a vocation of leisure, an esoteric profession of starving bohemians, set apart from mercial world of utility. But this is a rather narrow view that discounts the essence of both art and business. In reality, art and business are subsets of the larger category entrepreneurship. To gain a clearer view of art, business, and the similarities between the two, we can turn to the writings...

Whether economic, political, or religious in nature, our world is structured by ideas. And these ideas move so quickly through our media today that they are often accepted before they have been examined for truth. Modern media has the emotional power to make ideas feel true even when they are not. A single moment caught on film can render an entire story somehow “truthful” to an undiscerning audience. In the entertainment industry, the battle of ideas is fought very...

Every responsible parent knows not to permit their children indiscriminate access to movies, television, video games, and the internet. The dangers to heart, mind, and soul may not be more prevalent in our times than previous times, but technology seems to have made them more accessible. And thus does the urgency of a parental response present itself. One need not be a puritan to insist on caution and even severity on the subject. This is not the same as...

Our first two issues of the new Religion & Liberty were focused on particular themes – an innovation for us. This issue returns to familiar terrain with a broader selection of pieces. Nevertheless, I might suggest that there is something of a connection between the principal articles we have in this issue. The Acton Institute is about promoting a “free and virtuous society.” Perhaps in this issue there is a little more emphasis on the “virtuous” rather than the...

Except for salvation, imagination is the most important matter in the thought and life of C. S. Lewis. He believed the imagination was a crucial contributor to the moral life, as well as an important source of pleasure in life and a vital evangelistic tool. (Much of Lewis' effectiveness as an apologist lies in his ability to illuminate difficult concepts through apt analogies.) Without the imagination, morality remains ethics – abstract reflections on principles that we might never put...

One would think that a seminal religious document such as the Torah – the five books of Moses, the Old Testament –would limit itself to purely spiritual themes. Yet many economic socialists and redistributionists find Torah scripture unnerving, because among its greatest offerings is the motif of private property. Private property and the outgrowth from it that results in the well-ordered, predictable society are necessary conditions for an enduring civilization. And it is civilized society that the Torah wishes,...