Acton Line

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Questioning Questions Feb 07, 2024

Show notes

We are living in the age of deconstruction. We are constantly bombarded online, in schools, and sometimes even in our homes by attitudes and arguments aimed at deconstructing our faith. Through this, do we know what it means to question well?

Faith is not the sort of thing that endures so long as our eyes are closed. The opposite is the case: Faith helps us see, and that means not shrinking from the ambiguities and the difficulties that provoke our most profound questions.

Professor Matthew Lee Anderson says we need not fear questions. By the grace of God, we have the safety and security to rush headlong into them and find ourselves better for it on the other side.

In this episode, Professor Anderson joins Acton director of programs and education Dan Churchwell to discuss his latest book “Called into Questions: Cultivating the Love of Learning Within the Life of Faith”.

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Matthew Lee Anderson

Called into Questions: Cultivating the Love of Learning Within the Life of Faith

Reality: A Post-Mortem | Jon Askonas

The Rise of Religious Anti-Liberalism Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we bring you a recent Acton Lecture Series event with Kevin Vallier.

The 20th century featured an unusual phenomenon: global secularizing movements. In the 19th century, these movements were confined mostly to Western Europe, but in the 20th century they exploded, suppressing the influence of religion around the world. In some milder cases, as in Turkey and India, the political expression of only the great religions was throttled. In others, such as in the USSR and Mao’s China, ferocious religious persecution was an ideological necessity. In light of new political realities, however, older religious traditions are beginning to take back their influence in the public square. And they’re doing so by rejecting the “liberalism” they see as their oppressor.

Dr. Vallier discusses these different anti-liberal movements, critiques them, and explains how Christian liberals can understand and engage them.

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Acton Lecture Series

How to Experience Everyday Freedom Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

On today’s episode, Acton librarian and research associate Dan Hugger speaks with lawyer and chair of Common Good Philip K. Howard about his new book: Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society. Why do so many people feel powerless today? How can people experience “everyday freedom” at work, in school, and in all of life? What forces in American life today stifle our sense of freedom and responsibility, and how can they be counteracted to ensure flourishing for all? What special role do people of faith have in empowering others in their community to realize freedom and responsibility?

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Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society | Philip K. Howard

Common Good

Philip K. Howard | Common Good

Misconceptions About China Jan 17, 2024

Show notes

After decades of trade and investment with advanced democracies, China is far richer and stronger than it otherwise would have been. Simply put, the West’s strategy of engagement with China has failed. Democracies have underestimated the resilience, resourcefulness, and ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party. Growth and development have not caused China’s rulers to relax their grip on political power, nor have they accepted the rules and norms of the existing international system.

In this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Aaron L. Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, about the biggest misconceptions the West has about China and the current Chinese regime—and what the West should be focused on in years to come.

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Getting China Wrong | Polity

Connecting Family, Property, and Liberty Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of Acton Line, Dylan Pahman, Acton research fellow and executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality, interviews Dr. Clara Piano, assistant professor of economics at Austin Peay State University, about her recent paper “Familial Liberty: Property and Family in Late Scholastic Thought,” presented at Acton’s Third Annual Academic Colloquium. Their wide-ranging discussion addresses such questions as: What is the connection between family and property? What insights do late Scholastic theologians have for us today? What does modern “pro-family” policy get wrong?

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Alejandro Chafuen, “Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics”

Juan de Mariana, “A Treatise on the Alteration of Money”

Frank H. Knight, “Ethics and Economic Reform, I: The Ethics of Liberalism”

Acton Line, “Free Enterprise and the Common Good”

Pope Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum”

Victor V. Claar and Angela K. Dills, “Claudia Goldin Is the Ideal Academic Researcher”

Imagining Hope for the Future Jan 03, 2024

Show notes

On today’s episode, Acton, director of marketing and communications, Eric Kohn, speaks with AEI economic policy expert James Pethokoukis about his new book: The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. With a popular culture fixated on catastrophe, are we at risk of pushing a pro-progress future into the realm of the impossible? Pethokoukis argues there’s still hope if we choose to do more than just dream—we must act, too. Why suddenly are we threatened by change? And where are our flying cars? Can we once again turn imagination into reality?

The Conservative Futurist | Hachette Book Group

The Great Unlearning Dec 27, 2023

Show notes

In the late 1960’s as the hippie movement was shredding norms of hygiene and cleanliness in order to live more ‘authentically’, diseases emerged not seen in so long they didn’t have a latin name. The hippies, and others, were relearning why we engaged in certain hygienic practices all over again.

In an essay titled “The Great Unlearning” from the January 2024 issue of National Review, senior writer Noah Rothman observes similar patterns of people persuading themselves that inherited wisdom and common knowledge no longer apply.

In this episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Rothman about why certain people have persuaded themselves that the lessons of history, economics, and good governance don’t apply anymore.

The Great Unlearning | National Review

The Great Relearning | Tom Wolfe

Don't Buy Stuff | Saturday Night Live

What J.D. Vance Could Learn From Reading Hillbilly Elegy | Reason

A Christian Perspective from Visiting Israel Dec 20, 2023

Show notes

On today’s episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Mike Cosper, director of podcasting for Christianity Today, about his recent trip to Israel. How has the region changed since the October 7 terrorist attacks? What do Christians in the region think? What hopes do those caught in the middle of the conflict have?

The stories Mike heard, the people he talked to, and the impression left on him by the experience are all part of Christianity Today’s newest roundtable podcast, The Bulletin.

The Bulletin | Christianity Today

Canceling Cancel Culture Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

On today’s episode, Acton director of marketing and communications Eric Kohn speaks with Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), about his new book, The Canceling of the American Mind. Cancel culture appears to be pervasive, and this book is the first to examine the effect it has had—and is having—on the United States. How are both left and right using the power to “cancel” someone? Is cancel culture a relatively new phenomenon or has it always been with us in some form? And more importantly, what can we do to reclaim a free-speech culture?

The Canceling of the American Mind | Simon & Schuster

Can We Solve Poverty? Dec 06, 2023

Show notes

On today’s episode of Acton Line, we bring you a conversation about poverty recently held on our sister podcast, Acton Unwind. Acton’s Eric Kohn and Dan Hugger are joined by their colleague Michael Matheson Miller, who discusses his essay “The Poverty Pyramid Scheme,” and AIER’s Samuel Gregg on his book review “Mistaken About Poverty.” Both pieces appear in a special poverty-themed edition of RELIGION & LIBERTY magazine (Fall 2023) that contends that there isn’t one solution to poverty, but many.

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The Prosperity Pyramid Scheme | Michael Matheson Miller

Mistaken About Poverty | Samuel Gregg

Poverty, Inc.

Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization | Samuel Gregg

Afghanistan I fought for lacks foundation for freedom | Stephen Barrows