Quaestus Journal

Because it will be most conducive to clear communication, I’m going to take this opportunity to be somewhat informal. Quaestus (Kway-stus) is basically a group for students who want to get people to talk about important topics. Together, we form an editorial board of between five and seven undergraduate or graduate students, led by Dr. Scott Niederjohn with Dr. Daniel Sem as an advisor. We run two writing contests, one in the fall and one in the spring. Student editors are either chosen from the winners of these contests or invited by the current editorial board after demonstrating writing ability.

Quaestus serves two main functions. First: we publish two periodicals a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The fall periodical involves transcriptions from speakers at CUW’s annual Liberty, Faith, and Economics summit. The spring periodical includes articles by students, faculty, and Quaestus editors. Any CUW student or faculty member can publish articles through Quaestus, although they must be accepted and peer-reviewed by the editorial board. The idea is that people can read the fall periodical for inspiration, then write articles for the spring periodical based on the themes of the fall periodical. Themes generally relate to free speech, economics, healthcare, and politics.  

Second: we develop and lead forums to promote conversations on contentious topics. Our general model is to select one or more experts to speak on an issue. If we can, we will invite speakers with opposing perspectives. Our speakers will present publicly on the topic, demonstrating to the student audience that a healthy and productive conversation on this topic is possible. Students always get a chance to question our speakers at the end of the forum. In the past we have led forums on racial relations, Roe v. Wade, educational issues, and the like. This spring our topics will be climate change, gender and feminism, and religious freedom. Expect one forum each month of February, March, and April.

For the members of the editorial board, Quaestus serves as an excellent opportunity to practice writing, editing, and publication. We experience the peer-review process, develop strategies for marketing our publications, and learn to sharpen our thoughts. There are also opportunities to interact with leading experts in various fields, as well as chances to attend and present at conferences.

The following periodical includes transcriptions from the fall Liberty, Faith, and Economics (LFE) Summit at Concordia Wisconsin. This event is run by the Concordia Free Enterprise Center in association with the Action Institute, an American think tank focusing on religion and liberty. The summit is held annually and has drawn numerous high-profile speakers including this year’s keynote, Yeonmi Park. The focus of this year’s LFE summit was freedom under pressure. A second periodical will be published in the spring including student and faculty articles related to this topic.

Ultimately, our goal as an institution is to practice fruitful conversations and careful thought. Quaestus, which means profit in Latin, has a special emphasis on things that are profitable for us to be thinking about and discussing. As you read the following transcriptions, we hope you will be inspired by them into further questioning of our world, conversations about truth, and perhaps even to step into publication yourself.

Isaiah Mudge
Senior Editor

LFE Event Quaestus Essay Competition

Due Dec. 1st at 11:59pm

There are TWO categories for this competition: the Topic Question category and the Free Response category. Please choose one to respond to.

LFE Topic Questions

This year’s Liberty, Faith, and Economics (LFE) Summit focused on three dimensions of liberty and freedom: economic, political, and religious. Please pick one or a combination of the three sources quoted below to focus your essay upon. You should also contribute your own resources and sources (please refer to the requirements section below). As you consider essay topics, consider the questions listed below for ideas to help get you started.

Religious: Matthew 25:29

“For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

NOTE: If you are stuck on something to write about, research the Matthew Principle.

Political: John Adams, in a letter to the Officers of the Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798

“Our constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Economic: Julian L. Simon, The State of Humanity

“Adding more people causes problems. But people are also the means to solve these problems. The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge; the brakes are our lack of imagination and unsound social regulations of these activities. The ultimate resource is people — especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty — who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefits, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well.”

Questions

• Are economic, political, and religious freedom interconnected? Can the three (or two of the three) passages below be connected in your essay?
• Which of the three types of freedom is the most important? Does one have to come first, and if so, why?
• Can a society have religious or economic freedom without political freedom? Can political freedom occur without economic freedom? What does history tell us?
• Reflect on the implications of the passage below from Matthew on the role of religious freedom in our society. What happens when societies gain or lose religious freedom?
• Considering the quote from John Adams below, do you think he was right? Does our constitution only work for “moral and religious” people? Support your ideas
• How has our constitution and system of government helped Americans avoid the mass suffering that many autocratic and communist countries have been afflicted by and were discussed by Mr. Harbison at the LFE event?
• How could economic freedom be considered our first basic “right”? Can you be free if you don’t own your own labor, property, and wealth?
• Ever since the first economist Adam Smith, the discipline of economics has sought to discover what makes countries rich and poor. Does economic freedom matter for human flourishing? What about political or religious freedom? Why?

Your goal is to recognize the intersection of different perspectives on freedom while making an argument about the presence and impact of liberty (or lack thereof) in our lives and society. Essentially, you are joining a great conversation about economic/political/religious freedom and, in consideration of what has been said before, contributing an idea of your own (either in agreement or dissent). As you write, keep these questions in mind: Why should your audience care about what you are saying? What is the evidence for your argument? The best essays communicate something that you care deeply about.

Prizes

• 1st - $750
• 2nd - $500
• 3rd - $250

Or enter the Free Response category

Relate your area of study or interest to the broad topics presented at the LFE event (Did any of the speakers remind you of a book or historical event or ethical concept or artistic period or medical principle or musical idea? Is there an area/field that interests you which relates to the LFE content?). The point of this prompt is to encourage you to think outside the box and recognize how seemingly unrelated areas, like medicine, literature, and economic liberty, are all connected in our lives and add to the richness and complexity of what it means to be human.

Prize

• 1st - $750

Requirements

• APA format
• Word count suggestion: 1,500 - 3,000
• 3+ sources (scholarly journal or academic book)
  • Cited via footnotes throughout essay and in a complete bibliography at the end.
  • Essays without any sources will not be considered for winning a prize.

There are recordings of the LFE summit on the Free Enterprise Center site, so it’s ok if you missed some of the speakers!

Essays should reference the content of the LFE presentations, but do not need to directly quote or cite the speakers in the essays. For instance, one could write about socialism as a broad concept in their paper without necessarily directly referring to George Harbison’s talk. Of course, if it would help develop your essay, feel free to use LFE materials but it is not a requirement for the essays.

Essay Workshop Event!

• Oct 28th at 6:00pm in the Lakeshore room
• Need help formulating ideas or gathering sources? Come speak to the Quaestus editorial staff to improve your essay!

Quaestus Conversations provides monthly audio content designed to spark conversations beyond our Concordia audience, and showcase our student contributors' exceptional work. Click here for the latest episode and archives on Spotify.