Acton Vault

A Special Edition of Acton Vault featuring Acton Line This week, we’re bringing you one of the plenary lectures from this year’s Acton University, featuring Bishop Robert Barron speaking on “The Philosophical Roots of Wokeism.” "Wokeism” is arguably the most influential public philosophy in our country today. It has worked its way into the minds and hearts of our young people, into the world of en...

One of America’s success stories is its economy. For over a century, it has been the envy of the world. The opportunity it generates has inspired millions of people to want to become American. Today, however, America’s economy is at a crossroads. Many have lost confidence in the country’s commitment to economic liberty. Across the political spectrum, many want the government to play an even greate...

In this episode, we’re bringing you a talk from our Acton Lecture Series from 2019. To be economically literate requires neither formal training nor advanced study. For those with the inclination, the most valuable economic principles can be understood with just a little nurturing of the so-called “economic way of thinking.” In this talk, Dr. Sarah Estelle shares how she sees the economic way of t...

Few technologies are as simultaneously disruptive and controversial as cryptocurrency. Attitudes among businesspeople range from viewing it as way to revolutionize the entire monetary system to seeing cryptocurrency as an inherently valueless asset destined for embarrassing collapse. The recent downfall of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried have fueled this debate further. Dr. Guido Hulsmann provides his p...

The year is 1837. Imagine that you live in Calcutta and a man with a thick Boston accent offers you some ice cream. There is no such device as a refrigerator, much less a freezer, and yet here is a man offering you a cold (and delicious) treat. How did it get there? In this lecture from the 2019 Acton Lecture Series, Dave Hebert explains how ice harvesters in 19th century Boston were able to creat...

In this episode, we’re bringing you a talk from our Acton Lecture Series from January 2023, that was co-sponsored by the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. In their own time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Russell Kirk occupied different ends of the political spectrum. Their philosophies inspired the two most powerful movements of the age: the Nonviolent Movement (which led the larger Civil...

Today’s episode is a brief one, and takes us back in time to 2000 and the remarks from Sir John Templeton at the Acton Institute’s Annual Dinner. It was at this dinner that Templeton was award the inaugural Acton Institute Faith & Freedom Award for his contributions to civil society as “a pioneering philanthropist with wisdom to understand the tremendous role of faith in the course of human histor...

There is no shortage of headlines pointing to another powerful corporation run amok or the consumer base being manipulated. These types of issues have cast a significant shadow on the legitimacy and purpose of business, even the possibility of a good or moral business. This lecture from James Otteson aims to present how a renewed vision of the interconnectedness of morality and prosperity is key t...

Russell Kirk has long been known as perhaps the most important founding father of the American Conservative movement in the second half of the 20th century. In the early 1950s, America was emerging from two decades of the Great Depression and the New Deal and facing the rise of radical ideologies abroad; the American Right seemed beaten, broken, and adrift. Then in 1953, Russell Kirk released his...

Dr. Matson's lecture explored how in the British tradition, political economy, which partly emerged out of discourses in natural theology, ethics and jurisprudence, casts some light on the content of our moral obligations. Drawing on Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, he desicussed how commerce in the eighteenth century came to be depicted as a mode of cooperation—either literally with God or metaphorica...

In this episode, we’re bringing you a panel from our recent Poverty Cure Summit. The Poverty Cure Summit provides an opportunity for participants to listen to scholars, human service providers, and community leaders address the most critical issues we face today that can either exacerbate or alleviate poverty. These speakers will join panel discussions to discuss the legal, economic, social, and t...

For this episode, we are taking you back to June 17, 1997 and the Acton Institute's 7th Annual Dinner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The guest of honor that evening was Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, who passed away suddenly on February 13, 2016, was a jurisprudential giant. One of the foremost proponents of originalist and textualist interpretation of the Constitution and law...

There's been renewed interest in the role Christianity has played in liberalism since Larry Siedentop’s 2014 book, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. Building on Siedentop, Daniel Klein says universal benevolent monotheism, and Christianity in particular, has led to the articulation of a specific social grammar and corresponding rights—in short Adam Smith’s “liberal plan....

Books connect us in a very real way to people and ideas from the past. This talk will explore how we can help the current and future generations understand the thoughts and the minds of the thinkers of the past through printed books and publications. For the past 25 years, Kristopher Bex has served as the President and board member of The Remnant Trust, Inc. Currently located in Lubbock, Texas and...

For this episode, we're bringing you a session from our recent Poverty Cure Summit. A conversation entitled "Hope for the City: Neighborhoods, Commerce, and Social Capital" featuring Rachel Ferguson, Justin S. Beene, and Ismael Hernandez. The Poverty Cure Summit provides an opportunity for participants to listen to scholars, human service providers, and community leaders address the most critical...

In 1867, Sen. Charles Sumner posed the question “are we a nation?” in the wake of the Civil War. As America confronts new extremes of polarization in the 21st century, the question is inescapable again. Samuel Goldman explores the ways the U.S. does and does not correspond to historical conceptions of the nation-state. Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washing...

The dramatic social changes of the past century have left our world with a fragile sense of identity. Changes in technology and entertainment have constrained spiritual imaginations and reoriented our collective vision of the good life. These trends pave the way for charismatic leaders in politics, the marketplace, and religious communities to provide meaning through belonging to a group, especial...

Libraries are filled with books on the parables of Christ, and rightly so. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, “While civilizations have come and gone, these stories continue to teach us anew with their freshness and their humanity.” Two millennia later, the New Testament parables remain ubiquitous, and yet few have stopped to glean wisdom from one of Christ’s most prevalent analogies: the...

This episode takes us back in time to September 2018 for a talk from our Acton Lecture Series. Students of 20th century American history know of the importance of the Marshall Plan to the effort to rebuild Europe after World War II, as well as the leading role taken by the United States in building international institutions and alliances that would be central to maintaining peace and checking the...

Anyone who has read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings can gather that their author hated tyranny, but few know that the novelist who once described himself as a hobbit “in all but size” was—even by hobbit standards—a zealous proponent of economic freedom and small government. There is a growing concern among many that the West is sliding into political, economic, and moral bankruptcy. In his be...

The conventional wisdom on C.S. Lewis was that he really didn’t care much for politics, or for law, and so he wouldn’t have spent much time or energy on liberty either. But the conventional wisdom is mistaken. The truth is Lewis was deeply interested in the political, properly understood, as well as natural law, the human person, and genuine liberty. In this session we will explore Lewis’ thoughts...

Myths about economics die hard. What’s worse, such fallacies are destructive to human cooperation and flourishing. Join us for a discussion of six economic lies you’ve been taught and probably believe.    Caleb Fuller is an assistant professor of economics at Grove City College and a faculty affiliate of the Program on Economics and Privacy at the George Mason University Scalia Law School. He rece...

Few questions loom as large for parents and students these days as the question of how to afford a college education. College costs have been rising for decades, and all too often, students rely heavily on student loans and graduate with significant debt loads that they spend years paying off. Alex Chediak, professor of engineering and physics at California Baptist University, has tackled this que...

Around the world, discouragement erodes the vitality of Christian organizations. Visionaries often succumb to cynicism. Zealous advocates give up. Leaders coast as their passion for the cause grows cold.   Grounded in deep research, The Gift of Disillusionment: Enduring Hope for Leaders After Idealism Fades invites followers of Jesus to sustain hope in long-term service. It’s about moving past the...

This week, we go back in time to October 9, 2014, and the Acton Institute’s 24th annual dinner for this speech from Daniel Hannan. Hannan is a British writer, journalist, and politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament representing South East England from 1999 through 2020, standing down from the EU Parliament upon in the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU in 20202, for which Hanna...