John C. Médaille
John Médaille is a businessman in Irving, Texas, and also an Instructor in Theology at the University of Dallas, where he teaches a unique course on the Social Encyclicals for Business Students. He is the father of five, grandfather of two, and husband of one. He is the author of The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace and is finishing up another book, Equity and Equilibrium: The Political Economy of Distributism. John also blogs at The Distributist Review.
Articles by John C. Médaille
Nisi Crederet, non Caperet
Beauty is the beginning and end of all true knowledge: really to know, one must first love, and having known, one must finally delight; only this “corresponds” to the Trinitarian…
Patriotic Subversives: Distributism as a Political Problem
We are presented with a complex and even contradictory task. In the name of subsidiarity, we must work to undermine liberal capitalism and create alternative spaces for production and exchange,…
Abortion: Realpolitik, Kulturkampf, and Evangelization
One side has dominated the story while the other has tried to dominate the politics. But separating culture and politics is a self-defeating strategy.
The Monkey in the Margin: History, Tradition, and Transgression
[T]he early scholastic notion of revelation was more dynamic than the modern one. Revelation does not occur, in the medieval understanding, once and for all in the static letters of…
“Ora et Anti-Labora”? Kathryn Tanner on Finance Capitalism
The mighty cosmos of the modern economic order determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual who is born into…
Absurd Wisdom: An Apology for Euthyphro
“Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom…God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise.” (1 Cor. 1:26-27) The Philosopher and the Theologian The…
Free Labor: The Liberation Theology of Capitalism
Capitalism as Theology In his seminal work, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak provides his readers with a “Theology of Democratic Capitalism.”1 Now, some might find his theology a…
Summoning Jeremiah
The Call to Prophecy When we think of the great biblical prophets, we might be tempted to think of people concerned mainly with wholly religious or purely spiritual matters. But…
Social Justice vs. Social Charity
The Pernicious Nature of Charity There is a pernicious force that operates in all societies, but especially in ours and especially in these sad days. It is a force that…
“Torches of Freedom”: The Anti-Literature of Advertising
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute…
Why Anti-Liberalism Fails
The Failures of Liberalism The intellectual critique of liberalism is coextensive with liberalism itself, going back at least as far as Giambattista Vico’s dispute with Descartes. The term “liberalism” itself…
The Art of the Deal, and the Writing on the Wall
The Republican candidates for president would have us believe that they are strong, manly men who would stand up to Putin, destroy daesh, contain Iran, and generally “restore” America’s power…