Acton Line

This month on the Acton Rundown, Dan and Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content.   At the Frontiers of Scholasticism: Scientific Method, Innovation, and Economic Reasoning | Giovanni Patriarca Religion & Liberty Magazine and Online: The Atoning Death of the Last Scapegoat by Fr. Elias Carr Marriage: The Free Market We Take for Granted by Clara Piano   Video content: Entrepreneurship and the Economy in Uncertain Times | Acton Lecture Series Gabe Coyne and Collin Duff Want to Build Brands that Solve Real Problems Rev. Robert A. Sirico Responds to Jimmy Lai's Sentencing #freejimmylai Stephen Barrows Responds to Jimmy Lai’s 20-Year Prison Sentence #freejimmylai How Should Muslims View Human Rights? Claire Lai Is Sharing the Spiritual Strength of Her Father, Jimmy Lai   Upcoming events: AI & Human Freedom: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives Who Do We Trust Now? Charisma, Expertise, and the Future of Leadership Chicago Luncheon Rethinking Charity: "Building Civil Society” FAVs Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute: June 22–25, 2026 Acton Experience Brasil Acton’s 36th Annual Dinner

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Claire Lai, law student and daughter of entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, about her father’s unjust imprisonment and powerful Christian witness. ⁠Subscribe to our podcasts⁠ ⁠Watch this podcast here⁠ ⁠The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai's Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom [Full Film]⁠ ⁠Stephen Barrows Explains the Jimmy Lai Verdict⁠ ⁠Support Jimmy Lai⁠ ⁠@SupportJimmyLai⁠ ⁠Support Jimmy Lai Instagram⁠ If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at ⁠podcast@acton.org⁠.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Steve Barrows, chief operating officer of the Acton Institute, about entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, who was recently sentenced by a Hong Kong court to 20 years in prison. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Jimmy Lai’s 20-Year Sentence Follows Beijing’s Playbook on Dissent | David Pierson, NY Times The Apple Daily sentences show a new era of media peril in Hong Kong | David Pierson, NY Times Jimmy Lai’s children have led a global campaign for him | David Pierson, NY Times The faith of my father, Jimmy Lai | Claire Lai The Hong Konger (documentary)⁠ If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

supportjimmylai.com

On today’s episode, Dan Churchwell, Acton’s director of programs and education, sits down with Stix Golf co-founders Gabe Coyne and Collin Duff to discuss entrepreneurship, product design, and building purpose-driven brands.  Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton Lecture Series Stix Golf Host Modern If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

This month on the Acton Rundown Dan & Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Winter 2025 Religion & Liberty: Orthodox Social Thought and the Public Square by Anne Bradley The Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth by Jordan Ballor Video content: Dylan Pahman Breaks Down the History of Economic Thought Isaac Willour Is Helping Corporate America Move on from ESG Dave Hebert Rings in 2026 by Analyzing America’s Economy Noah Gould Is Finding Skeptics Finding God   Upcoming events: Who Do We Trust Now? Charisma, Expertise, and the Future of Leadership March 19, 2026 • 12:00pm • Grand Rapids, MI ALS Molly Worthen Chicago Luncheon Rethinking Charity: "Building Civil Society” FAVs April 30, 2026 – May 2, 2026 Courtyard Marriott Grand Rapids, MI Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute June 22, 2026 to June 25, 2026 Acton’s 36th Annual Dinner November 10, 2026 6:00pm

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Noah Gould, Alumni and Student Programs Manager at the Acton Institute, about the shape that religion and faith in God takes for those who journey from atheism and skepticism to the Christian faith. Why are high-profile skeptics taking a fresh look at the Christian faith? Are we experiencing more general revival? What can churches do to be open to a new generation of seekers? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here A Political Scientist Contemplates God | Noah Gould Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why I Am Now a Christian What Happened to Historian Molly Worthen? | Molly Worthen Joe Rogan, Kid Rock, Bigfoot … and the Resurrection | Dan Hugger Perspective: What the data really says about religious revival and Gen Z | Ryan Burge Joe Rogan Experience #2252 — Wesley Huff Taking Charles Murray Seriously | Anthony Sacramone If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Dave Hebert, a senior research fellow at AIER and an affiliate scholar here at the Acton Institute, about the state of the American economy, economic policy, and how American politics on both the left and the right is increasingly economically illiterate. How is the U.S. economy doing? What is the relationship between the stock market and the economy as a whole? Can politicians really make things more affordable for ordinary people? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Trump Credits ‘Mister Tariff’ for the Country’s Strength. Economists Beg to Differ. What to Know About the Criminal Investigation of the Fed Chair China Announces Record Trade Surplus as Its Exports Flood World Markets Fixing Affordability Isn’t Easy. Here Are Four Suggestions. A Lack of Affordability Is a Supply Side Issue If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Isaac Willour, an analyst at Bowyer Research, America's leading pro-fiduciary proxy consulting firm, about all things ESG, an investing principle that prioritizes environmental issues, social issues, and corporate governance. What is ESG and how does it influence corporate governance and investment? What moral responsibilities do shareholders have in corporate governance? How do large state pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and institutional investors fit into the world of ESG? What is the role of consumers and political polarization in driving corporate activism? Are right-wing and left-wing corporate activists two sides of the same coin? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Who Benefitted from DEI Initiatives? | Acton Line Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation | Business Roundtable Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia—CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Annual Summary of Engagements with Corporations 2024–25 Bowyer Research David Bahnsen: My Speech at the Gilead Sciences Shareholder Meeting If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Dylan Pahman, research fellow at the Acton Institute and founder and president of the St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute for Orthodoxy & Liberty, about his account of the history of economic thought found in his new book, The Kingdom of God and the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought (Ancient Faith, 2025). What is the Christian prehistory of economics? How do moral questions inform the work of the classical political economists? Why does modern economics distance itself from moral questions? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The Kingdom of God and the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought | Dylan Pahman Dylan Pahman Is Starting the Conversation on Orthodox Christian Social Thought | Acton Line From Christian Political Economy to Christian Socialism | 2nd Annual Academic Colloquium The Mainstreaming of Marx: Measuring the Effect of the Russian Revolution on Karl Marx’s Influence | Phillip W. Magness and Michael Makovi History of Economic Analysis | Joseph A. Schumpeter If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

This month on the Acton Rundown Dan & Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Winter 2025 Religion & Liberty: Why Orwell Still Matters by John Rodden   Video content: Stephanie Slade Is Chronicling the New Right Peter Boettke Is Teaching the Humanistic Foundations of Austrian Economics Rev. Robert A. Sirico Responds to Jimmy Lai's Guilty Verdict #freejimmylai Stephen Barrows Explains the Jimmy Lai Verdict Acton Institute's 2025 Christmas Message Father Robert Sirico on What Christmas Is All About Kris Mauren Is Thinking About Think Tanks   Upcoming events: Entrepreneurship and the Economy in Uncertain Times Chicago Luncheon Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Kris Mauren, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, about all things Acton. What was the original, animating idea behind the founding of the Acton Institute? Why a think tank? What makes Grand Rapids so grand? What are the greatest challenges Acton faces in fulfilling its mission? What new initiatives should viewers be on the lookout for? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton Institute Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (First Series) Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (Second Series) Journal of Markets & Morality Makers of Modern Christian Social Thought The History of Freedom | Lord Actonnotes If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Father Robert Sirico, co-founder and president emeritus of the Acton Institute, about the true meaning of Christmas. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here A Charlie Brown Christmas | Charles M. Schulz A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens Pied Beauty | Gerard Manley Hopkins If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Stephen Barrows, chief operations officer of the Acton Institute, about the recent conviction of entrepreneur and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, who was found guilty by a Hong Kong court on Monday in a landmark national security trial. Who is Jimmy Lai, and what is his long-standing relationship with Acton? What were the charges brought against him, and why are there reasons to doubt their fairness? How does Jimmy’s arrest, trial, and conviction show the erosion of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rule of law in Hong Kong? What has been the reaction of the international community to the conviction? How can freedom-loving people show solidarity with Jimmy Lai? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Hong Kong Court Finds Jimmy Lai Guilty in National Security Trial Governments and groups condemn conviction of Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai Rev. Robert A. Sirico Responds to Jimmy Lai's Guilty Verdict #freejimmylai The Hong Konger (documentary) The Call of the Entrepreneur (documentary) If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Peter J. Boettke, Distinguished University Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as the director of the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, about the importance of the history of economic thought and the Austrian School of economics. Why read the classics in economics? What is the place of the Austrian School in economics today? How is the humanistic and scientific nature of the Austrian School related to political ideology and commitments? What is the prehistory of the Austrian School in the theologians and jurists of early modern Europe? How do figures in the Austrian tradition relate economics to religion? Why have GMU and Mercatus been so successful in fostering research and educating the next generation of scholars in the Austrian tradition? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Why Read the Classics in Economics? | Peter J. Boettke After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith? | Kenneth E. Boulding Competition and Entrepreneurship | Israel M. Kirzner Human Action: A Treatise on Economics | Ludwig von Mises Mercatus Center F. A. Hayek Program Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (First Series) Sources in Early Modern Economics, Ethics, and Law (Second Series) The Peaceableness Project If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason magazine and a fellow in liberal studies at the Acton Institute, about the “New Right.” Who comprises the New Right, and what is their approach to politics? Has the old conservative movement failed? How does the New Right’s rhetoric relate to their larger political project? Who were the forerunners of the New Right? What are the religious currents of the New Right? Why should conservatives appeal to ideas rather than passions? Is there a moral dimension to conflicts within the American conservative movement? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Against Game of Thrones Christianity | Stephanie Slade The New Right Isn't So New | Stephanie Slade Liberalism Isn't Rule by Elites | Stephanie Slade The Devil Went Down to Wall Street | Dan Hugger National Conservatism and the Great Controversy Reborn | Dan Hugger Frank S. Meyer's Fusionism Melded Classical Liberalism with Traditional Religion | Stephanie Slade If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

This month on the Acton Rundown Dan & Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Essays: Fall 2025 Religion & Liberty American Religion by the Numbers by Miles Smith A Pope for the 21st Century   Video content: Anne Bradley Interrogates Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance Yasir Qadhi on LEAVING Salafism and Rejecting Sectarianism Peter Lipsett Is Podcasting to Answer the Question, "What Is the Right?" How to Rebel John Wilsey Is Priming Conservatives for Religious Freedom Andrew Abela Is Popularizing the Virtues with “Superhabits” Upcoming events: Artificial Intelligence, Human Dignity, and the Free Society | Acton Institute Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Andrew Abela, founding dean of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America and affiliate faculty member at Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program, about his book Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life. How do we best popularize virtues? How does the positive psychology account of the virtues differ from St. Thomas Aquinas’s theological account? What are “superhabits,” and how do they differ from mere “habits”? How do constituent virtues relate to the four cardinal virtues? What resources has the Busch school developed to help students, faculty, and business leaders cultivate the virtues? How do you decide which virtues to cultivate?   Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life | Andrew Abela Superhabits Substack The Anatomy of Virtue | Andrew Abela Virtues, Jordan Peterson, and Thomas Aquinas | Andrew Abela Busch School Virtues Diagnostic GrowVirtue: The New Superhabits App Treatise on the Virtues | St. Thomas Aquinas The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change | Stephen R. Covey The Divine Center | Stephen R. Covey He Once Ran the Most Powerful Conservative Think Tank in D.C. Now He's a Self-Help Guru Writing Books with Oprah. | Ian Ward on Arthur Brooks If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with John Wilsey, professor of church history and chair of the Department of Church History and Historical Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about his new book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. How have the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty existed harmoniously in the American tradition? What contrasts between French and American society did Alexis de Tocqueville observe in his own day? Has the American experiment failed? How does Peter Viereck’s conservative nostalgia for the permanent beneath the flux chart a course distinct from both progressive and reactionary utopian politics? Is religious traditionalism antithetical to dispositional conservativism? Why does the human imagination loom so large in conservative thought? What should secular dispositional conservatives make of religion? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer | John Wilsey The Man vs. the Myth: Who Was John Foster Dulles? | Acton Line Democracy in America | Alexis de Tocqueville The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856) | Alexis de Tocqueville Conservatism: From John Adams to Churchill | Peter  Viereck Conservatism Revisited: The Revolt Against Ideology | Peter Viereck The Leopard | Giuseppe Di Lampedusa The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education | Robert Maynard Hutchins If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Peter Lipsett, vice president at DonorsTrust, about the recently concluded 11-part series “What Is the Right?” for the Giving Ventures podcast. What is “the Right”? What are its largest and most influential factions? Does it share a common intellectual culture or merely political interests? How does the bottom-up nature of populism complicate the story we tell about intellectuals’ influence on political movements? What are the prospects for conservatives after the Trump administration? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here DonorsTrust Giving Ventures Podcast Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 85 — Freedom Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 86 — The Libertarians Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 87 — The New Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 88 — The Traditionalist Conservatives Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 89 — The Fusionists Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 90 — Catholics on the Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 91 — Jewish Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 92 — Christian Conservatism Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 93 — The Defectors Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 94 — The MAGA Right Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 95 — Reflecting on the Right with Yuval Levin and Chris DeMuth My Simplistic Theory of Left and Right | Bryan Caplan National Economic Planning: What Is Left? | Don Lavoie If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.