John H Armstrong

Is the World on a Permanent Downhill Slide?

Is the world on a permanent downhill slide? To listen to many Christians you would think so. During this political season you would think so even more than during other years. People, left and right, remind us daily of the dire consequences of this election and of what will happen if the wrong person, or party, is elected in November. For many you would think that America's entire future hangs in the balance. Pardon me if I am skeptical about all of this but I heard this message in 1960. I was only eleven years old. It was not true then and it is very likely not true now either. Wars followed Kennedy's election, economic cycles came and went, morals improved and declined (yes there have been ups and downs both). Over and over things went on coming and going like waves of the sea. Some things improved, some didn't. Has our culture drifted? Well, in some ways yes. Marriage is in deep trouble. But then if I was an African American I would say things have improved, at least in terms of freedom, since 1960. And the economy, with some setbacks, has generally grown over the long haul. 

If you say, "Things got much worse after 1960" then I'd like to ask you what you know about the period between 1861 and 1865 in this country? And what about the moral breakdown in the 1790s following the Revolutionary War? Illegal drugs, alcohol consumption and divorce were at amazing highs. What about the Great Depression, from which many felt we would never recover? Or the hippies and the counter-culture of the 1960s, through which I lived during my college years? And when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 some felt strongly that Armageddon would be launched by this crazy yahoo of a new president.

I was thinking about this social and cultural pessimism last week when I came across my friend Fr. Robert Sirico's "President's Report" in the January-February issue of Acton Notes. Here is how Fr. Sirico puts it:

Many people I know are rather despairing about our future. This is contributing to a real and growing pessimism throughout society. I can understand all of these feelings but there is a potential mistake here. I’ve begun to think that those who are too attached to the day’s headline news develop a bias toward thinking that the world is on a permanent downhill slide. The mistake is looking only at the bad things we know about without considering the good trends for the future.

Consider, for example, all the amazing technologies we are benefiting from today that would have been unheard and unimagined five or ten years ago. Digital communications—fueled by private investments, the market economy, and entrepreneurial risk— have connected the world as never before, making life much more efficient and easing poverty. These technologies have spread art, beauty, and truth across the globe.

The very nature of the market economy, which is an extension of human action and choice, is that we can’t anticipate its results ahead of time. Markets are constantly surprising us with new ways of communicating, healing, teaching, creating, interacting. In a way, it reflects God’s restoration of creation. Because we cannot know the shape of the future precisely, we tend to look only at the bad trends and form an overall picture that can be very bleak.

Such a bleak outlook on life can also cause us not to seize on the special opportunities that our times have given us for living out the dream of a free and virtuous life. If we understand free markets and the astounding way in which the Lord delivers us from despairing about our contemporary politics, we would temper our pessimism to realize that blessings can come to us when we least expect them. Our age has given every living generation a difficult challenge. This challenge is unlike any we’ve faced in our past. Through prayer and hard work, we can build a beautiful future for truth and liberty. This is what we are working toward at the Acton Institute, and we are grateful for your support.

Some of you who read this blog are inclined to question this kind of optimism. Why? Perhaps you've been listening to too much cable news lately. Or maybe you've been touched by the kind of prophetic teaching that confuses God's people and leads them to pessimism as a way of life. I know not the reason(s) but I can assure you Fr. Sirico is not offering a perspective that is without some serious reasons for commending it. Is the world on a permanent downhill slide? Are you sure? Have you bought into some form of pessimism when there is always reason to believe that God has a lot more to do to accomplish his good purpose in our world? Even if things do get worse there will be new opportunity to see the myriad of ways in which God might lead us in order to bless us and show again that his ways are not our ways. A little less pessimism is not a bad thing right now. God's truth marches on and he is still blessing those who trust him and follow his ways.     

Religion & Liberty: A Magazine Your Should Read

I admit my own bias but one of my favorite magazines is Religion & Liberty, published by the Acton Institute. You can get a print subscription but you can also read issues online. The most recent issue features a great interview on "Rethinking Mission to the Poor." This is vintage Acton thinking expressed by the kind of people who have made a real difference working with the poor. Check out the current issue at Acton's magazine site.

While you're there check out the November-December issue for 2010. You might recognize the guy on the cover. I hope you will enjoy the interview they did with me. I was very pleased with the finished product and how they told my story through this interview. 

I am very pleased to serve Acton as a partner by being a Senior Advisor. In this role I represent Acton to evangelical leaders and seminary professors. I am pleased to say that the job is delightful and the work is a lot of fun for me. It fits with my missional-ecumenism vision wonderfully. This is why my most recent book, The Unity Factor, is also published by Acton. You can get it for a very good price in the Acton bookshop online.  

Acton's web site is well worth your time. Check out all the resources and the wealth of great material on freedom and economics. 

What Andreas Widmer Learned About Business and Entrepreneurship from the Pope

Business entrepreneur Andreas Widmer has a truly great story to tell. His new book, The Pope and the CEO, tells this story and makes a hugely valuable point about both business and poverty. Widmer says, “The pope showed me what real leadership looks like. He modeled for me how to pursue our God-given potential. Not coincidentally, this also makes us and those around us better employees, more capable of and more willing to work hard at building a stronger company. That is something that makes both good human sense and good business sense.” Amen!

Andreas Widmer served as a member of the elite Swiss Guard for two years. The guard is a security detail that protects the pope. (I had the opportunity to talk to some members of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican in March and find their work very interesting.)  In this new book Andreas Widmer gives us a behind-the-scenes look into the life and thinking of Pope John Paul II, “the most authentically human person I’ve ever met.” He reveals how these memories shaped and forged his own success, after he served at the Vatican, as a corporate executive.

Papal biographer George Weigel has called Widmer’s story a powerful example of leadership at work. In this new book Widmer recounts his personal experiences in serving Pope John Paul II and then relates the secrets of successful leadership that he learned directly from the pope. Both the story and the secrets are worth the time and the book.

Widmer moved up the ladder of business success and eventually became senior management in a $600 million company.This company, Dargon Systems, developed voice recognition system for computers. When he helped to sell the company he was involved he relates that he learned a hard lesson. The company that bought the business was fraudulent. He says the leaders of Dragon went with their stomach not their heart and they paid for it deeply. He began to think a lot more deeply about business rather than just balance sheets. The result of this process shows powerfully in his new book.

What Andreas Widmer says the pope actually taught him was about the value and importance of entrepreneurship. The pope said that when you look at the market you must focus on the goal, not the system itself. He says the pope taught him that the real human goal of any enterprise was human flourishing and prosperity. These results, flourishing and profit making, rests on three legs: (1) The freedom that comes from participatory government. We must be able to vote and have a say in the direction of our human affairs. (2) A free economy. The law must be “blind.” Everyone is the same before the law. Without this freedom, joined with the “rule of law,” economic association will not work properly. (3) A robust public moral culture. This is the only thing that will check the appetites of the first two. Put simply greedy capitalism is a real problem but the solution is not to attack freedom.

You can watch Widmer talk about these principles and his new book on a recent Wall Street Journal interview. The interviewer should have allowed Widmer to talk more but the second half of the interview is worth waiting for it you take eight minutes to see it. Andreas Widmer is part of the Seven Fund. SEVEN (Social Equity Venture Fund) is a virtual non-profit entity run by
entrepreneurs whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of innovation and diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. I am also pleased to say that Andreas Widmer also has a relationship with Acton Institute.

We Are One in Mission

The core of my vision is unity in Christ’s mission. I call this missional-ecumenism. I live to make Christ known in and through the unity of all his people. I believe he has made it abundantly clear that he has come to reveal the Father and that the world will see this and believe this when it sees our oneness (cf. John 17:20-23). This is so clear that it amazes me how unimportant most of us seem to think this really is to the mission of Jesus.

I have written a new book, The Unity Factor: One Lord, One Church, One Mission (The Christian’s Library Press, 2011), that presents my vision in 44-pages. The purpose of this new book is to get this vision into the hands of as many people as possible in a form that can be read in 30-45 minutes at most. This book should be available by the end of this month. It will be available in an e-book form, print form and a video will eventually be made to correspond with the book. This project came out of an ACT 3 Board meeting in February where the members of our board asked me to give them something they could give away that would get people into this vision and allow them to understand what ACT 3 is all about.

In a recent worship service we sang a hymn I had not sung before. It was sung to the familiar tune of the well-known hymn: “The Church’s One Foundation.” The new hymn, written by Rusty Edwards, expresses my vision succinctly and powerfully. This is why it is included at the end of my new book.

 

We all are one in mission; we all are one in call,

Our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all.

A single great commission compels us from above

To plan and work together that all may know Christ’s love.

 

We all are called for service, to witness in God’s name.

Our ministries are different, our purpose is the same;

To touch the lives of others with God’s surprising grace,

So every folk and nation may feel Gods warm embrace.

 

Now let us be united and let our songs be heard.

Now let us be a vessel for God’s redeeming Word.

We all are one in mission; we all are one in call,

Our varied gifts united by Christ, the Lord of all.

The Freedom & Virtue Institute: A Grassroots Commitment to Human Dignity and Flourishing

In my role as a Senior Advisor to Acton Institute I enjoy many opportunities to teach, write and network with other Christian leaders. One of those leaders is Ismael Hernandez. I met Ismael at Acton University in Grand Rapids in June of this year. (If you are interested please note that the next AU occurs June 12-15, 2012. I hope some of you will plan to join me.)

At our meeting this June Ismael Hernandez and I exchanged business cards and then began a correspondence. I grew interested in his small but well-focused work. He directs the mission of The Freedom & Virtue Institute in Ft. Meyers, Florida. This work is dedicated to the disseminating idea of a free and virtuous society and thus champions the ideas of freedom and virtue and supports practical strategies to realize and implement these ideas.

Ismael correctly believes that human freedom and private initiative are the best instruments to effect lasting and positive change in society. This is why their work highlights the limited role of government and the importance of family, communities, volunteer organizations and churches. This practice is at the core of what Acton Institute promotes so I’m deeply interested in Ismael’s work.

The Freedom and Virtue Institute believes that the essential virtues build character and promote individual and collective well-being. These are essential to authentic human fulfillment and flourishing. They understand that it takes people who believe this deeply to promote it through teaching and modeling it.

They also believe that each human person is unique and unrepeatable and thus each human person is called to know the truth and do good. The human person possesses a dignity that comes from being made in the image of God. This means that the person must remain at the forefront of ideological commitments and social action.

Further, Ismael believes we are called to autonomous living and independence. What this means is that each of us must take charge of our improvement to meet the challenges of life in community. This does not suggest that we live in isolation but instead presumes a deep personal responsibility for our actions and affirms our inherent capacity to better ourselves and help others.

The Freedom and Virtue Institute also believes in the moral benefit of work and diligence in developing character. Reward must be connected to achievement in order to avoid the attitude of entitlement, dependency and victim identity. When we work, we utilize the gifts God has given to us for our benefit and that of others. Linked to the moral benefit of work is the role of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a person who recreates their environment and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcomes of their personal endeavors. Thus the Institute affirms the entrepreneurial vocation as the pursuit of one’s goals and passions by using the talents and capacities with which they are endowed.

Finally, the Institute believes that nothing should be done by a bureaucracy that can be done as well by a smaller, simpler or more local community. Limited government and personal freedom ought to reign supreme over the centralization and excessive intervention characteristic of the welfare state.

I encourage you to check out The Freedom and Virtue Institute. If you live anywhere near Ft. Meyers, Florida, you might set up a time to meet Ismael and get involved. The address of the Institute, and Ismael’s email, is listed here if you’d like to contact him directly:

Freedom & Virtue Institute
2714 Oakridge Court, Suite 602-D
Fort Myers, FL 33901
(239) 322-8082
[email protected]

The Barnabas Group

I recently had a unique opportunity to speak about unity in Christ’s mission. I was asked to present an address to The Barnabas Group (TBG) in San Diego (May 9) and Costa Mesa (May 10). The Costa Mesa site is in Orange County for those who do not know Southern California. My title for both meetings was: “The Unity Factor: One Lord, One Church, One Mission.”

The Barnabas Group is one of the more unique missions and ministries I’ve encountered. It combines a high view of business as divine vocation with a big vision of Christ’s kingdom and personal responsibility to his mission. The members of the Barnabas Group are thoughtful, serious and successful people. (I am using the word success here in a business sense thus I do not mean by it that success equals Christian faithfulness per se.)

The Barnabas Group (TBG) has existed since 2000. Their purpose is to make a powerful impact on ministries around the corner and around the globe. In contrast to many great individuals and organizations who support ministries primarily with the checkbook, TBG believes ministry-minded people can provide so much more if given an opportunity to use their network, time, unique abilities, spiritual gifts and resources to help ministries that reflect their own God-given passions. The result is a truly dynamic organization that stays fresh, exciting, and highly relevant to its members, ministries and the communities where it serves.

TBG was founded by Bob Shank (photo) and Jim West. Their purpose was to help men and women who had completed a three-year coaching program (The Master’s Program) to engage their personal calling in service for God’s Kingdom. Today, The Barnabas Group is made up of men and women who are enrolled in, or are graduates of, The Master's Program as well as other service-oriented Christian men and women who are willing to search out and participate in the exciting opportunities TBG provides. You can read more about the passion and vision of both men at the Web sites I’ve linked to in this post.

TBG meets as a whole four times annually. Members invest money and time in the group which allows them to learn about ministries and get involved at a personal level. Each time TBG meets six ministries are allowed/asked to present their mission and its need in 15 minutes. Two speakers are also asked to give plenary addresses that are considered relevant to the mission of TBG. I was one of those two presenters on May 9 and 10.

Presently there are ten groups, five of which are in California and the five in Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Phoenix and Houston.

I experienced several opportunities by speaking to TBG. First, I met some of the finest  Christian businessmen I’ve come across in my entire life. It was so great to see what happens when the member ministers (laity) of churches become highly trained and deeply committed to their work as divine calling. Second, the ministries that presented themselves to the two groups I spoke to were all interesting, dynamic and exciting. I got to know each of these presenters personally. I felt that my primary role was to encourage these other missions. I see myself as an encourager of leaders so this opportunity fit me perfectly. I was not directly seeking financial help (though ACT 3 can use help) so I was perfectly free to give myself to the group and the other ministries who were there to present. I was given peace to trust God for what he wanted to do through my investment and let the results flow as they would. This is part and parcel of my ACT 3 vision, which is “to equip leaders for unity in Christ’s mission.” Third, I was deeply encouraged personally. My nephew had a lot to do with my getting to know Bob Shank and Jim West. When each person at out table was asked to share what person had encouraged them recently we each shared. My nephew said, “My uncle John!” That was enough to make my day.

I also had a wonderful opportunity to introduce a number of Barnabas Group leaders to Acton Institute, which gave me a special opportunity to partner again with my new Acton connection.

If you are a man or woman in business, and want to get better trained for effective kingdom ministry and involved in one of the most unique groups I’ve met, then check out The Master’s Program and TBG.

My New Role with Acton Institute

I have noted, in various blogs and comments, the value and importance of the Acton Institute for several years. I have been a blogger for Acton, attended a number of their events as a guest, and assisted them in several ways in public ventures. (I will be a part of the program of the luncheon on May 5 in Chicago.) In general I have been an open supporter of Acton’s vision of freedom and virtue in public theology. Acton provides a unique partnership for ACT 3 since it is a think tank that includes wide religious participation (Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox/Jewish) while it embraces what I call missional-ecumenism as one of its core values. The specific mission of Acton Institute is “to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.”

Now I have personally been given an opportunity to work with Acton. On April 1 I became a Senior Advisor, with particular emphasis on reaching the Protestant evangelical community. I work very closely with Dr. Stephen Grabill, an accomplished scholar and wonderful brother in Christ. A Christian foundation recently gave Acton a generous gift to expand its work among evangelicals. This project makes it possible for me to serve even more effectively with Acton. I will be an active participant in conversations, planning and development with certain members of the Acton staff in order to shape content, tools, programming and messaging for the evangelical community. I will also recruit evangelical leadership from seminaries, universities, denominations and local churches who will become Acton participants. In this role I will find and network leaders, especially younger leaders, for participation in special Acton events and one-day seminars. I will also use email and other social means to converse with these leaders and future leaders.

One of the truly important components of this new Acton evangelical initiative is the translation of the remaining (un-translated) written work of the famous Dutch minster, theologian and public servant, Abraham Kuyper. His work on common grace, so important for Protestant thought, will soon be available in English because of this Acton initiative. Another good friend, Dr. Nelson Kloosterman, is doing the translation. This will prove to be a huge resource for recovering a robust and orthodox Protestant social theology.

In April I represented Acton at the Mission America Coalition in the affinity track on marketplace theology and mission. God willing, I will do more of the same in similar contexts. The really neat thing about this special partnership is that I am already ministering in these contexts thus adding Acton to my missional network is both logical and uncomplicated. I will still do the same ACT 3 work that I’ve been doing for nearly twenty years but now I will do it as a defined partner with Acton Institute. I will cultivate relationships, develop institutional networks and strategically expand the missional-ecumenical vision by equipping leaders for unity in Christ’s church, a unity that has at its core both orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

I hope you will become more familiar with Acton Institute in the coming months. I will be saying more about my partners and more about my work with them as ACT 3 and Acton forge a new relationship for better serving the whole Christian church.

I will be a teacher at the Acton University June 14-17. I teach a class titled: “Introduction to Protestant Social Thought.” I call this public theology and I believe one of the greatest needs of our time is a deep, thoughtful and contextually rigorous social (public) theology. My generation was raised on a thoughtless, partisan political theology without a solid foundation and the next generation has rightly reacted against this ideological mix. I will attempt to show, on June 16, a better way to understand Protestant contributions to this debate. Check out the Acton site for information on the Acton University. I hope some of you will attend in June. (If you qualify then check out the scholarships available, but first be sure to make formal application.) I would love to see some of you in Grand Rapids. This is a wonderful event and the people you will meet are wonderfully diverse and come from all over the world.

Rome: Day Two

On day two of my journey to Rome I toured some of the greatest sights of the ancient city and spoke in the evening. I will describe the city first and then my evening address.

The day began with breakfast at the house of St. Bridget. The breakfast was almost the same every day. A large hollow bread roll, a little butter, some jam with cheese and coffee. Before long I realized I would need to consciously look for fruits and vegetables to keep my diet in order for my best physical well-being.

Michael Severance picked me up at 10 a.m. Then our big sight-seeing day followed. We saw the Coliseum, as well as many of the ancient ruins of the first century before Christ and the two centuries after Christ.  This included ruins from Emperor Trajan, the Appian Way, the Circus Maximus and other sites related to early Rome in the days of the Caesars. One of the first things that you notice everywhere you go are the letters SPQR, which is the Latin abbreviation for “The Senate and People of Rome.” Citizenship meant something to Romans, as the New Testament reminds us in the case of the Apostle Paul. When I read through Acts this week I saw again how Paul made use of this factor in his own defense and in the preaching of the gospel. If you were not a citizen of Rome you had no honor or privilege in antiquity.

The Coliseum is particularly amazing. Built in the second half of the first century, during the time of the New Testament, this was a massive amphitheater that seated 80,000. It was a place for entertainment. It had four levels and people sat according to their rank as Romans. I learned, from our excellent tour guide, that one of the most common myths about the Coliseum is that of Christians being put to death here in significant numbers. There are a few prominent martyrs who died in the Coliseum but this was not a common occurrence. Christians were put to death by a number of Roman leaders, Nero being prominent in the first century. But those who were fed to the lions at the Coliseum at the end of a long day were generally criminals.

The Coliseum is in considerable ruin today because of an earthquake centuries ago. The major portion that stands is still very impressive. I sensed many things at the Coliseum but most of all there was an impression that entertainment has always played a dominant role in cultures where people enjoyed a measure of freedom. Our guide told us that the modern movie that most accurately portrays what went on here in the first century is Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe. Being a movie critic I want to see it again and thereby appreciate more fully the realism of what I saw in the Coliseum.

Tuesday, March 8, was the day I toured the most. It was sunny and windy. It was a glorious spring day and Rome was alive everywhere. We walked for miles but it was still glorious. Things I had seen and thought about for a lifetime were right there in front of me.

In the evening I spoke for Acton Institute Rome. Acton has a small office just a few blocks from the Vatican. Most of the work of Acton Rome is devoted to building relationships with church leaders and teachers. But Acton occasionally does an event similar to the one I spoke at in Grand Rapids in December, “Acton on Tap.” This evening gathering was a “wine and cheese” event.  There were about 12 adults, most of them young and some of them Americans studying in Rome. All but one was Catholic. I was the first Protestant speaker in the history of these Acton Rome events. My subject was “Missional-Ecumenism and the Vision of Pope Benedict XVI.” I explained the basis of my vision of ecumenism for the trenches, an ecumenism rooted in ancient faith and the classical Christian Creeds, sometimes called paleo-orthodoxy. I then connected this doctrinal foundation to the mission of Jesus given in John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

I followed this teaching on missional-ecumenism with some extensive comments taken from the large corpus of written work of Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. I believe I showed why Pope Benedict would have great sympathy for what I am teaching. In fact, I believe his own model, is often one of missional-ecumenism. He clearly desires a completely united church but he knows that while this is being discussed and labored over in worldwide conversations there are many practical ways that we can work in fellowship with one another for the mission of Christ in our modern world. We can no longer afford the luxury of fierce opposition, especially when what we share in common is so large. While we cannot agree on some important matters, the Eucharist being a major one, we can pray, we can read the Scripture together and we can work side-by-side sharing Christ’s love and good news with the culture around us.

Acton Institute is committed to thinking and teaching a type of Christian social theory and practice that allows them to be a ministry that practices missional-ecumenism. For this reason it was especially gratifying to work with them in Rome. In addition to Michael Severance I met the director of Acton in Rome, Kishore Jayabalan . Both Michael and Kishore are Americans and Catholics who speak fluent Italian. They are gracious men and treated me like visiting royalty. This all helped to strengthen the bonds of affection that I have for my friends at Acton and underscored the importance of Acton’s teaching on social ethics, freedom and virtue. I urge you to check out Acton and to consider attending Acton University in Grand Rapids this June. Michael and Kishore will be there so you could meet them. I will teach a class on “Protestant Social Ethics.”

After a meal on Tuesday evening, where I had the opportunity to get to know Kishore after my Acton address, I got to bed quite late. I did not sleep as well on the second night as my body was adjusting to the jet-lag and fatigue of three full days, counting my travel day on March 6th and a Tuesday filled with miles of walking and hours of standing.

Tomorrow: Our team meets at Centro Pro Unione for the first time. Our conversations and how friendships began to form in a remarkable way.

Rome: Day One

I arrived in Rome on Monday, March 7, after an overnight flight out of Atlanta. This was my first overseas flight in a long time. One of my three benefactors gave me miles to fly in business class so I could rest much better. (I am spoiled now! I hate to think of not flying this way on an international flight should I do it again.) Numbers of intercessors were praying for my health. I sat next to a woman with the worst imaginable cold. She was miserable and it showed. I prayed that I might be spared getting sick once I got to Rome. Thankfully, the Lord protected me from a new virus that would weaken me profoundly since my already weakened immune system is not ready for normal battle most of the time.

I went right to the place where I would rest for the next eight nights: The House of St. Bridget, a wonderful 15th century building on a very Italian piazza (which means square in English). My place was at 96 Piazza Farnese.  This guest home, pictured in the photo I’ve included above right, sits across from the French Embassy. This particular piazza, like all such neighborhood centers in Rome, is busy. A piazza is the center of social life in Rome, especially at night. After an evening where I heard the noises of the street late into the evening I asked the sisters to allow me to move to a room with a window facing a small interior center of the building. I was removed from the street noise problem but then was literally rattled every fifteen minutes by the huge bells of St. Bridget’s which rang from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. I think my room must have adjoined the bell tower since it sounded like it was inside the room and the walls literally shook.

The sisters at Piazza Farnese were a delight, at least when I found one who spoke good English. I became more than a little interested in the history of the place since I do not recall ever staying in a residence built more than 500 years ago. This was no American convent or residence. The history of this church and center is nothing short of remarkable to someone with my curiosity and interests. My last evening there (March 14) the best English-speaking sister in the Order showed me around and introduced me to the life of Bridget in a wonderful way. I also bought a book on her life which I am reading at a leisurely pace since I returned home. I discovered that Bridget's Order was treated rather badly by the Lutheran Church in Sweden, since the women remained devout Catholics during and after the Reformation. Yet Bridget and her followers prayed for love and unity among Christians. Her prayer has found deeper expression since Vatican II. Her Order, and this house, model that prayer.

Bridget of Sweden has been called “The Mystic of the North.” She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1391. She clearly was a unique personality, powerful in her message of peace. Belonging to the royal family did not hinder Bridget from spending a great deal of time in the study of the Bible, in prayer and meditation, and in mysticism and personal mortification. A deeply cultured and practical woman, a wife and mother of eight children, Bridget became a counselor to the highest of royalty in her time. Later in life, after her husband died, she founded this Order which she dedicated to Christ as her Savior and Lord.

What proved to be of great interest to me, and to my purpose for being in Rome in the first place, was that this Swedish lady of faith was fully involved in events which six centuries later would engage her spiritual heirs to become “a bridge of unity between Rome and the noble of Sweden, between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Churches of Northern Europe,” as Paul VI described it.

Bridget is a Saint with pan-European dimensions. Since October 1999, together with Therese of the Cross and Saint Catherine of Siena, she is the co-Patron Saint of Europe, a continent with common traditions, faith and history in spite of its various historical vicissitudes. Her Order now stands for ecumenism around the world. I realized that my arrangements, to stay here in this place at this time, had been made with a divine purpose.

When I fly east I always seek to remain awake until the evening so I can adjust my body clock as quickly as possible. So once I was settled I was ready to go. My first meeting was with Michael Severance (photo right), one of the two directors of Acton Institute’s Rome office. Michael had arranged my car from the airport and my lodging. We met, realizing we had met before in Michigan at a meal some years ago, and then went to our first appointment with Dr. Teresa Francesca Rossi, the associate director of the Centro Pro Unione, located on the famous Piazza Navona. (The photo here is of the square and the famous building in which the Center for Unity is located.) After a tour of the Center for Unity’s office it was off to my first Italian meal. Michael knew a little place that was classic and not too pricey. The food, as is most Italian food, was really exceptional.

Dr. Rossi is a very able scholar and a profoundly gracious person. She is also deeply involved in dialogs with several Protestant communions, including the International Roman Catholic-Baptist Dialog and the International Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialog, both official functions with an official relationship inside the Catholic Church. The Center for Unity is directed by the Franciscans of the Atonement, an order that was once Protestant but now Catholic. The Center opened in 1968 in a building that belongs to the famous Doria Pamphilj family. It consists of a library of three large rooms, a meeting room and a large conference hall for annual conferences on ecumenism in the summer. The Franciscan Friars of the Atonement remain deeply committed to pursuing unity in a gracious and effective way and the Center demonstrates this beautifully. The library at the Center was the best ecumenical library I’ve ever seen, clearly the best in Italy. It has 400 periodicals, over 20,000 books and over 27,000 records of interchurch theological dialogs. I wanted to stay an browse but time didn’t allow a great deal of leisurely searching of the stacks. The Center also publishes a semi-annual bulletin in English, Centro Pro Unione Bulletin. Through this bulletin the Center for Unity provides a multi-lingual bibliography of interchurch and inter-confessional dialogs. The Center works as well with the Italian Episcopal Conference to co-publish and distribute material for the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-25).

I would return to the Centro Pro Unione on Wednesday, March 9. Here I would have my first meeting with our seven-member team but this advance visit with Dr. Rossi on Monday allowed me to meet her in advance. I was able to get a feel for the kinds of ecumenical events and research that go on in Rome year-round. And now my book will soon be in the vast collection of ecumenical books in the Centro Pro Unione Library.

After lunch Michael and I began my first round of touring. We walked to a number of famous places. I got my first view of the Vatican (photo is me standing on one of the bridges over the Tiber River that leads to the Vatican), the Pantheon and some rather ancient and amazing places. The best touring would come on Tuesday. 

My evening was on my own so I wandered back out into the Piazza Farnese and looked for a place to get my first pizza. Italian pizza is thin and freshly made. I am spoiled by thick crust Chicago-style pizza. I still actually prefer it but the Italian style is lovely. You really can’t go wrong eating Italian food in Italy, right? I eventually found a place where the waiter was superb and spoke great English. Here I ate for three or four of my evenings on Piazza Farnese. I soon begin to try all kinds of new food and enjoyed almost all of it.

I was also reintroduced to Prosecco, which I had tasted once in a real Italian restaurant in Chicago where an Italian friend took me to dinner a few years ago. Prosecco is a white Italian wine—generally a dry or extra dry sparkling wine. It is made from Glera grapes (previously known as Prosecco grapes). Glera grapes are grown in several regions of Italy but, Prosecco can only be produced in certain regions of Italy.

When I went to bed on Monday evening I was very, very tired and I slept very, very well. The Lord refreshed me and gave me strength for busy days ahead. I ended my day reading the last words of the Old Testament, from Amos through Malachi. (My 90-Days Through the Bible was not going to end in Rome!)

Tomorrow: Day Two in Rome. Sites, impressions and the first Protestant speaker for Acton Institute in Rome

My Relationship with Acton Institute

About seven or eight years ago I came across a poster about a small conference on freedom and virtue. This unique event attracted young leaders from many backgrounds and professions. Most were still graduate students. There were thirty students in the group and four teachers. I was allowed to sit on the edge of the circle and observe. I felt like I had wandered in from the cold. As I listened to Catholic and Protestant scholars explain the freedom of markets and governments, all rooted in virtue, I felt as if I was drinking from a fountain that I had been searching for over the course of my whole life. I was frankly tired of political partisanship as a way to change culture. I wanted to connect with people who saw a better way to make a real difference in society without overtly linking their vision and efforts to raw party politics. I also wanted a different paradigm for understanding principles of economic freedom that was not rooted in the modern ideas of socialism, capitalism, etc. (Capitalism is not the same thing as economic freedom and a free market!)

Founded in 1990, through the efforts of the president, Fr. Robert Sirico, and the executive director, Kris Mauren,  the Acton Institute is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There is also an international office in Rome, where I spoke for Acton just this past week. The Acton Institute was named in honor of the famous Catholic layman, Lord John Acton (1834-1902). Acton made the history of liberty his life’s work. Indeed, the most notable conclusion of his work is that political liberty is the essential condition and guardian of religious liberty. He thereby points to the union of faith and liberty, which has been the inspiration for the mission of the Acton Institute from 1990 to the present.

It is also Lord Acton who is known for one of the most frequently quoted, and often misused, statements about power you've heard: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The Acton mission and perspective is summed up on their website by this statement:

The mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free, virtuous, and humane society. This direction recognizes the benefits of a limited government, but also the beneficent consequences of a free market. It embraces an objective framework of moral values, but also recognizes and appreciates the subjective nature of economic value. It views justice as a duty of all to give the one his due but, more importantly, as an individual obligation to serve the common good and not just his own needs and wants. In order to promote a more profound understanding of the coming together of faith and liberty, the Institute involves members of religious, business, and academic spheres in its various seminars, publications, and academic activities. It is our hope that by demonstrating the compatibility of faith, liberty, and free economic activity, religious leaders and entrepreneurs can contribute by helping to shape a society that is secure, free, and virtuous.

Acton Institute has several core values that are deeply rooted in their teaching and mission. The first two of these core values are the foundation for everything they do.

1. The dignity of the person - The human person, created in the image of God, is individually unique, rational, the subject of moral agency, and a co-creator. Accordingly, he possesses intrinsic value and dignity, implying certain rights and duties both for himself and other persons. These truths about the dignity of the human person are known through revelation, but they are also discernible through reason.

2. The social nature of the person - Although persons find ultimate fulfillment only in communion with God, one essential aspect of the development of persons is our social nature and capacity to act for disinterested ends. The person is fulfilled by interacting with other persons and by participating in moral goods. There are voluntary relations of exchange, such as market transactions that realize economic value. These transactions may give rise to moral value as well. There are also voluntary relations of mutual dependence, such as promises, friendships, marriages, and the family, which are moral goods. These, too, may have other sorts of value, such as religious, economic, aesthetic, and so on.

I will be teaching at the Acton University this June in Grand Rapids. I hope some of you will check this out and even make plans to attend. If the cost is a problem please contact Acton to see if they can help you in this regard. Certain qualified younger people can attend on scholarship.