The latest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality is now available online for current subscribers. This issue features the timely and challenging article, “Subprime Lending and Social Justice: A Biblical Perspective,” by William C. Wood, professor of economics at James Madison University and director of JMU’s Center for Economic Education. Prof. Wood notes that within the context of Christ’s call to love our enemies as well as our neighbors, “Christians cannot placent about credit markets even if they...

Nathan Hale has long been enshrined as a patriotic American icon for his last words before his hanging by the British, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” M. William Phelps, who is the author of the new book The Life and Death of America’s First Spy: Nathan Hale, believes Hale never uttered those exact words. But in Phelps’s view, that wouldn’t in any way take away from the significance and importance of...

It’s usually good to steer clear of apocalyptic predictions of any sort, but as temperatures struggle to break the 10 degrees fahrenheit mark under full sun here in the Great Lakes region, talk of a “demographic winter” feels pelling than warnings of global warming. More seriously, the release of a new film by that name is the occasion for Jenny Roback Morse’s reflection on the economics of population. I don’t pretend to be an expert in the field and I...

The Acton Institute released a new short video to mark Religious Freedom Day. The proclamation from President George W. Bush points to religious freedom as a fundamental right of Americans and, indeed, people of faith all over the world. Religious freedom is the foundation of a healthy and hopeful society. On Religious Freedom Day, we recognize the importance of the 1786 passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. We also celebrate the first liberties enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill...

Dire predictions about the “death of capitalism” reveal a deep ignorance about the nature of the current economic crisis — technical and moral. “Markets are bined activities of millions of individuals and families,” Michael Miller writes in this week’s Acton Commentary. “They are posed merely of some guys on Wall Street; they are made up by us.” Read mentary over at Acton’s website, and share your thoughts ments here. ...

In this weeks’ Acton Commentary, Acton Adjunct Scholar William R. Luckey adopts Hayek’s use of the Greek terms “cosmos” and “taxis” to explain why economic life is not something that can be controlled with ever more laws, regulations and quick fixes. “Society and the market conform to the cosmos rather than the taxis,” he writes. “Both are self-generating, a function of billions of interactions between thinking human beings all over the globe.” Read mentary at Acton’s website and share ments...

Here are some excerpted quotes from the text of President Obama’s Inaugural address that are relevant to the themes of this blog. Some are already beginning the parsing of these words: … We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time e to set aside childish things. The time e to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the...

In case you’re interested, I wrote and just posted a five-part review of Miller’s book, Finding Darwin’s God. ...

Eleven times since President Bill Clinton began the practice in 1994, the U.S. President has declared Religious Freedom Day on Jan. 16, calling on Americans to “observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship.” President Bush has done the same this year. The day is the anniversary of the 1786 Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, a work that built upon an earlier Virginia document, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776. There American...

Acton’s Sam Gregg on Public Discourse: At the level of government policy, a prominent instance of moral hazard was what some call the “Greenspan doctrine” of 2002. This involved the U.S. Federal Reserve stating that, while it was powerless to prevent the emergence of asset bubbles (such as the and housing booms), the Federal Reserve would do everything that it could to soften the effects of an imploding bubble. This included providing investors with the option of selling their depreciated...