Acton Line

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with John Pinheiro, director of research at the Acton Institute, about his feature essay in the latest issue of Religion & Liberty: “Thomas Jefferson ant the Virtue of Limited Government.” What is Jefferson’s status today relative to the other Founding Fathers? What was Jefferson’s agrarian republican vision for America? How did that vision clash with those of the other Founders? What is Jefferson’s fundamental anthropology, and what are its underlying assumptions? What does Jefferson make of the commercial society? Where does Jefferson root his case for limited government? What is his conception of subsidiarity? Why should we turn to Jefferson for inspiration to meet today’s challenges? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Thomas Jefferson and the Virtue of Limited Government | John C. Pinheiro The Roots of Jefferson's Union | John C. Pinheiro Lessons from Early America’s Tariff Wars | John C. Pinheiro 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 new book, The Kingdom of God & the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought. What is the state of contemporary Orthodox Social Thought? What is the “social question,” and how have churches sought to answer it? Why turn to the Bible to answer modern social questions? How does the historical experience of Orthodox churches inform Orthodox Social Thought? Why should economics inform Orthodox Social Thought? What are some uniquely Orthodox Christian perspectives that have been brought to bear on social questions? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The Kingdom of God & the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought | Dylan Pahman St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute for Orthodoxy & Liberty Orthodox Communities in the Middle East | Acton Institute An Ascetic Way of Life in a World of Abundance | Dylan Pahman For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy | Alexander Schmemann Great Lent: Journey to Pascha | Alexander Schmemann 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 Anthony Bradley, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Acton Institute and research professor of Interdisciplinary and Theological Studies at Kuyper College. They discuss Anthony’s new book, God at Work: Loving God and Neighbor Through the Book of Exodus. Why is Exodus such a great evangelistic conversation starter? What human emotions drive the narrative of Exodus? How do thinkers like Gerard Van Groningen, Reinhold Niebuhr, Karen Honey, and Abraham Kuyper help us understand the meaning of Exodus? What lessons for individuals, churches, and society are contained in Exodus? What is the role of women in the Exodus narrative? How does Exodus speak particularly to the anxiety of men and boys particularly? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here God at Work | Anthony B. Bradley From Creation to Consummation | Gerard Van Groningen The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation | Reinhold Niebuhr The Neurotic Personality of Our Time | Karen Horney Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World: Volume 1 | Abraham Kuyper Common Grace: God’s Gifts for a Fallen World: Volume 2 | Abraham Kuyper Common Grace: God's Gifts for a Fallen World, Volume 3 | Abraham Kuyper 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 Pinheiro, director of research at the Acton Institute, and Caleb Whitmer, project manager at the Center for Social Flourishing, about Pope Leo XIV’s first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te. This exhortation to all Christians encourages us to see Christ in the poor among us. How does Pope Leo use scripture to show us Christ in the poor? Which of the church fathers argue that charity is a matter of justice? Why is it so important to have a wholistic definition of poverty? Can economic data be trusted? Why is meaningful work the best solution to poverty? Do Christians have a duty to accompany migrants? How can we embrace almsgiving today? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te of the Holy Father Leo XIV on Love for the Poor (4 October 2025) Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991) Laborem Exercens (14 September 1981) Universal Basic Community Now! | Rachel Ferguson Pope Francis’ Plea for Migrants and Acton’s Core Principles | Stephen Barrows Center for Social Flourishing 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.

On today’s episode, Acton’s director of research and programs, Dan Churchwell, talks to CEO and founder of Permanent Equity Brent Beshore. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Permanent Equity Brent Beshore | Permanent Equity 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 and Dylan chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Essays and Books:Universal Basic Community Now! | Acton Institute The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics | Vernon L. Smith Video Content: What Is the Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage?   Upcoming Events: 2025 Pittsburgh Dinner | Acton Institute Orthodox Christian Social Thought: The Kingdom of God and the Common Good | Acton Institute 2025 Portland Dinner | Acton Institute Acton’s 35th Annual Dinner | Acton Institute Acton Institute Fifth Annual Academic Conference: Character, Commerce, and Human Flourishing Virtues, Not Values: Reclaiming the Human Core of Business | Acton Institute Rethinking Charity: Local Agency, Commercial Society, and the Human Person | Acton Institute Annual Calihan Lecture and Novak Award Presentation | Dr. Kirstin Anderson Birkhaug | Acton Institute Artificial Intelligence, Human Dignity, and the Free Society | Acton Institute Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute

On this episode, Acton’s director of program and education, Dan Churchwell, interviews Dr. Jeffery Degner following his participation in an Acton Lecture Series panel discussion. They talk about themes such as the importance of family as an ideal for community health, the overlooked importance of fatherhood, and how economic factors such as inflation shape the incentive families face. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton University Acton On-Demand Is There a Future for the Family? A Panel Discussion | Acton Lecture Serie Dr. Jeffery Degner 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 Noah Gould, Alumni and Student Programs manager at the Acton Institute. They discuss two recent pieces Noah has written on corporate social responsibility (CSR). First off, what is it? Why do some oppose CSR initiatives? Is there a relationship between CSR and fraud? How are religious people particularly attracted to CSR? What should be the role of business in society, and does that role change depending on whether a business is privately or publicly held? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The ‘Religious’ Corporate Social Responsibility Trap | Noah Gould A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits | Milton Friedman Corporate Politics: Fads Can’t Replace Meaning or Community | Noah Gould The Nature of the Firm | R.H. Coase 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 Bradley J. Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and professor of history at Hillsdale College, about Russell Kirk and the American conservative movement. What role did Kirk play in the conservative intellectual ferment of the early 1950s? How does the biographical framing of the Conservative Mind point to its humanistic nature? Who entered and left The Conservative Mind during its revisions? How did Kirk’s relationships and conflicts shape the evolution of his thought? Why did Kirk get involved with the Goldwater campaign and how did it affect his reputation? What is the political legacy of the conservative intellectual movement? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton University Russell Kirk: American Conservative | Bradley J. Birzer Ten Conservative Principles | Russell Kirk Individualism True And False | F.A. Hayek Seven Conservative Minds| Bradley J. Birzer The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot | Russell Kirk The New Science of Politics: An Introduction | Eric Voegelin Witness | Whittaker Chambers The Genius of American Politics | Daniel J. Boorstin Natural Right and History | Leo Strauss The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom | Robert Nisbet Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 1 (Modern Library Classics) From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present—500 Years of Western Cultural Life | Jacques Barzun Why I Am Not a Conservative | F.A. Hayek The Imaginative Conservative Lord Acton on Revolution | Russell Kirk 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 operating officer at the Acton Institute, about the relationship between Catholic Social Teaching and economics. In what sense is economics a science? How does Catholic Social Teaching relate to social science? How well has the Catholic Church integrated the insights of economics into its social teaching? What can economists learn from Catholic Social Teaching? How does the Acton Institute apply the best insights of economists vis-à-vis Catholic Social Teaching in service of the common good?  Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton On-Demand Rerum Novarum | Pope Leo XIII  Pope Francis’ Plea for Migrants and Acton’s Core Principles | Stephen Barrows Labor Economics and the Development of Papal Social Encyclicals | Stephen Barrows CORE: Economic Way of Thinking | Anne Rathbone Bradley The Call of the Entrepreneur—Full Movie | Ed O’Brien | Peter Boettke | George Gilder The Humane Economist: A Wilhelm Röpke Reader | Dan Hugger, Editor A Value Judgment on Value Judgments (1941) | Wilhelm Röpke A Value Judgment on A Value Judgment on Value Judgments | Samuel Gregg Economics in One Lesson | Henry Hazlitt 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, and Nathan chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton On-Demand Nathan Mech on Interfaith Dialogue at the Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage DEBATE: Carl Trueman & Vincent Phillip Muñoz | Christianity and Liberalism Is There a Future for the Family? | Acton Institute Acton Experience Brasil | Acton Institute 2025 Pittsburgh Dinner | Acton Institute 2025 Portland Dinner | Acton Institute Acton's 35th Annual Dinner | Acton Institute Acton Institute Fifth Annual Academic Conference: Character, Commerce, and Human Flourishing | Acton Institute Virtues, Not Values: Reclaiming the Human Core of Business | Acton Institute Rethinking Charity: Local Agency, Commercial Society, and the Human Person | Acton Institute 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 Nathan Mech, Founding Director of the Collins Center for Abrahamic Heritage at the Acton Institute. They discuss the history and work of the Collins Center. What makes up the Abrahamic heritage? Why is dialogue between Christians, Jews, and Muslims important? How does interreligious dialogue enrich participants from different faith traditions? What contributions have different faiths made to the history of freedom? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Collins Center | Acton Institute Collins Center: Christianity and Liberalism DEBATE: Yasir Qadhi vs. Mustafa Akyol | Islam and the State DEBATE: Sebastian Morello vs. Kevin Vallier | Christianity and the State Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism | Benedikt Koehler Nathan the Wise: A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing | Project Gutenberg 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 Clara Piano, visiting assistant professor of economics at the University of Mississippi and an affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. Clara tells the story of how Fr. Robert Sirico, along with Pope St. John Paul II and Michael Novak, inspired her to start thinking through the moral case for the free economy as an undergraduate as well as her trajectory as a scholar. How is the idea that markets are opposed to morality historically naive? Who is doing great research today exploring the relationship between markets and morals? How do you bring your research and values into the classroom? How should religious leaders understand the relationship between morals and markets? What should young people consider when discerning their professional calling and forming relationships and families? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Clara E. Piano Economics as an Antidote to Envy | Clara E. Piano The Economics of the Parables | Fr. Robert Sirico Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy | Fr. Robert Sirico Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life | Michael Novak Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991) An Economic Theory of Economic Analysis: The Case of the School of Salamanca | Clara Jace Dylan Pahman | Acton Institute The Political Economy of Distributism | Alexander W. Salter Hannah's Children | Catherine Ruth Pakaluk Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church The Fertility Gap and Economic Freedom | Clara E. Piano 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 Jenna Robinson, president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. They discuss current crises in American higher education and what can be done to resolve them. Is there too much or too little money in higher education? How should colleges and universities think about their role in preparing students for work and careers? What is the role of the university in forming citizens? Why is it important for universities to hand down cultural heritage and perennial wisdom? How might a reinvention and renewal of general education requirements help solve the crisis in higher ed? Can AI play a constructive role in academic renewal? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal The Case Against Education | Princeton University Press Decadence and renewal in the higher learning: An episodic history of American university and college since 1953 | Russell Kirk Core Knowledge Foundation Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know | E.D. Hirsch Jr. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students | Allan Bloom God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom' | William F. Buckley Jr. Consortium of Christian Study Centers The Martin Center Releases New Publication: "Blueprint for Reform: General Education" Utah Adopts Legislation Inspired by the General Education Act | The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal 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 Samuel Gregg, president of and Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also an affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. They discuss his new essay “Michael Novak the Thoroughly Catholic Capitalist,” published in the Summer 2025 issue of Religion & Liberty. How was the American Catholic milieu of the first half of the 20th century different from today’s? Why were religious, ethnic, and political identities so intertwined? How did Michael Novak go from being a writer and journalist to a public intellectual? From liberal to conservative? What were Novak’s unique contributions to Catholic social thought? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here  Michael Novak: A Thoroughly Catholic Capitalist Samuel Gregg | AIER The Open Church | Michael Novak Spirit of Democratic Capitalism | Michael Novak Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in American Life | Michael Novak Toward the future : Catholic Social Thought and the U.S. economy: A Lay Letter | Lay Commission on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy Will it Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology | Michael Novak Instruction on Certain Aspects of the "Theology of  Liberation” | Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Centesimus Annus (1 May 1991) | Pope John Paul II A Conversation with Michael Novak  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. They discuss the American economy from all angles. What do the latest GDP numbers mean in the real economy? Why are the new tariffs announced by the White House troubling? How does the Bureau of Labor Statistics do its job—and are the latest jobs numbers “rigged”? Will new tariff revenue put a dent in the national debt? What are the economic consequences of erratic policies, undermining of the legitimacy of economic data, and suspicion of the science of economics by policymakers? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here David Hebert | AIER No Jibbering | Dave Hebert | Substack Trump Administration Updates: White House Announces Sweeping New Tariffs for Much of the World | The New York Times Economy Updates: After a Weak Jobs Report, Trump Fires That Agency’s Commissioner | The New York Times U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics David Bahnsen on the State of the U.S. Economy Oren Cass Has Learned Just Enough Economics to Be a Nuisance | RealClearMarkets The Devil Went Down to Wall Street | Dan Hugger 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 and Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and announce two new affiliate scholars. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Acton’s 2025 Emerging Leaders Marcel van Hattem on the Fight for Freedom in Brazil Why I Slept on the Streets for a Year – Religion & Liberty Online Why Brazil?: Pursuing Freedom in the Americas: Berlanza, Lucas, Catharino, Alex, Pinheiro, John C: 9798218700645: Amazon.com: Books 2025 Pittsburgh Dinner | Acton Institute Acton's 35th Annual Dinner | Acton Institute The Heart of a Machine: Technological Threats to Liberty in Adam Smith and Beyond The Meaning of Work: What Skilled Trades Can Teach About Forming Workers of Character Silicon Valley Revival? 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.

On today’s episode, Noah Gould, Acton’s Alumni and Student Programs manager, speaks to three members of the Emerging Leaders Program. The Acton Emerging Leaders Program is an 8-week leadership-development internship in Grand Rapids, Mich. The program brings together a cohort of student leaders from across the nation and around the globe for a transformative experience. During the summer, Emerging Leaders will gain professional experience, grow their network, and go deeper into the ideas of a free and virtuous society. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Emerging Leaders Program | Acton Institute The Use of Knowledge in Society | F.A. Hayek Intellectuals and Socialism | F.A. Hayek The Disadvantages of Being Educated | Albert Jay Nock Dining with Judas: The Limits of Culinary Diplomacy | Abigail Ingram 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 Kevin Vallier, professor of philosophy at the University of Toledo, where he is associate director at the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership and affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. They discuss his new essay, “The Fusionist Manifesto,” published in the Summer 2025 issue of Religion & Liberty. Do critics of the fusionist tradition in American conservatism have a point? In what ways is American conservatism’s fusionist tradition undertheorized? What are the traditional arguments for the compatibility of freedom and virtue, and how might they be improved? How can new intellectual blood best be infused into the fusionist tradition? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The Fusionist Manifesto American Fusionism | Acton Institute In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays | Frank S. Meyer Free Persons and the Common Good | Michael Novak The Liberty-Virtue Dance | Kevin Vallier, Religion & Liberty Online Fusionism and the Problem of Order | Kevin Vallier, Religion & Liberty Online Dignitatis humanae | Pope Paul VI The ‘man of public spirit’: Politics as art, not science | Dan Hugger, Religion & Liberty Online The Roman Question | The Rambler (1860)             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 Eric Kohn, CEO of America’s Future. They discuss just that—and what the organization Eric leads is doing to make that future a bright one. What are the ideas that animated America at its founding, and how do we best transmit them to a new generation? What are the sociological dimensions of building up the liberty movement in America? How can young people build skills and community—and have a good time doing so?Home — America's Future Writing Fellows — America's Future Gell-Mann amnesia effect | Wikipedia A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream | Yuval Levin The Internet of Beefs