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The Return of Faith on Film
Like other religious leaders, I was courted by the makers of Prince of Egypt to review the project and offer my perspective. I was prepared to resist these overtures for fear of being politically manipulated. I viewed parts of the film in earlier stages and made suggestions, which were taken seriously, as were those made by others from a variety of religious traditions. In the end, again like the others, I, too, am won over.Whose Liberty? Which Religion?: Acton and Kuyper
During his 1831 visit to the United States, French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville was surprised to see the positive role played by active religious faith in nurturing liberty. The dogma of the Enlightenment’s secularizing philosophes predicted the waning of religious enthusiasm as enlightenment and freedom spread, but Tocqueville’s American experience contradicted this dogma.The Heart of Mystery, The Heart of Enterprise
We laymen expect ministers to lead us to the threshold of mystery. Our work is terribly rationalistic, and rationalism is always in opposition to the profound nature of man. Consequently, ministers should not try too hard to base their reflections on economic or financial facts, but, starting from the nature of the human person illumined by revelation, on the heart of human mystery. Truly, the Original Sin was an attitude that rejected mystery, an attempt to find a rationalism that has led us to disaster.On Declaring Capitalism a Failure
The meltdown of Asian markets, combined with a high- profile hedge fund failure at home, has revived the familiar charge that capitalist greed and pervasive market failure are the sources of economic crisis. What happened to Asian economies and one hedge fund has become a metaphor for the systemic moral failings of capitalism itself.Thinking About Politics
Christians face many temptations. Sensual pleasure and wealth pose obvious dangers. So does power. The latter is particularly insidious because so many people, including Christians, claim to desire it for selfless reasons.Who Puts the Self in Self-Interest?
Self-interest is at the heart of economic analysis. The primary assumption of economists is that people pursue their self-interest, or in the technical expression, that people seek to maximize utility defined by the utility function. The economist typically does not analyze the content of the preferences; rather, the preferences are taken as datum or as parameters to the economist’s problem. The business of economics is to understand how people with given preferences make choices under constraints.Social Security and the Free Society
Social Security has had a profound effect on the way Americans view the government’s role in society and on our confidence in the free society’s ability to solve difficult social problems. Make no mistake, the care of the aged is a difficult social problem that, in my opinion, cannot be solved through purely market means. To say that it cannot be addressed by means of economic exchange alone, however, is not to imply that public solutions are always preferable to private ones.Renewing Our Experiment in Ordered Liberty
In his breathtaking new book, A History of the American People, English historian Paul Johnson writes, “The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and for the rest of mankind.… The great American republican experiment … is still the first, best hope for the human race” and “will not disappoint an expectant humanity.”Living Responsibly: Václav Havel's View
If you could have one chance to speak to the world’s most powerful political body, what would you say?The Samaritan and Caesar
The eleventh-grade catechism class I taught was looking forward to the big day. The confirmation mass would mark the culmination of twelve years of religious education and would be a kind of graduation ceremony inducting them into the responsibilities of a mature Christian life. Confirmands had been prepared to pray for a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for special grace that would strengthen them in their baptismal vows and help gird their loins for Christian battle.The First and Fundamental School
As I sat in the audience during Pope John Paul II’s final Mass in Cuba in January of last year, I was impressed by the explosion of exaltation from the crowd when he spoke firmly to the question of education. He told all parents in Cuba that they, not the state, are entrusted by God to make decisions about their children’s education.The International Vocation of American Business
Few today believe that socialist economics is the wave of the future, but most nations still find it difficult to root themselves in capitalism, democracy, and moral purpose. Most have little experience under the rule of law. Most of the countries of the former Soviet Union, most of Asia (emphatically including China), much of the Middle East, and most of Africa lack many of the cultural and political habits and institutions required for a successful capitalist system.