D. Eric Schansberg, an Acton adjunct scholar, takes a look at the Social Security system, and concludes that “policymakers should address the oppressive taxes that Social Security imposes on the working poor, its pathetic rate of return, and inequities in its payouts.” Read the full text here. ...

During last week’s Symposium, munication staff had the opportunity to interview two African religious leaders on a variety of issues facing their continent, including the $40 billion in debt relief proposed to the G8 nations. The Rt. Rev. Bernard Njoroge is bishop of the diocese of Nairobi in the Episcopal Church of Africa, and also a member of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission. Chanshi Chanda is chairman of the Institute of Freedom for the Study of Human Dignity in...

From the press release: A new Web-based resource providing detailed information and evaluation of more than 200 nonprofit organizations in the United States is now available for use by charity managers, philanthropists and the public. The Samaritan Guide, developed by the Acton Institute’s Center for Effective Compassion, is a searchable posed of applicants for the annual Samaritan Award and has organized the directory according to location and area of service. The guide focuses exclusively on U.S. charities that accept little...

Madison, Wisconsin’s city council voted down a resolution that would have allowed an exemption from the public smoking ban for cigar bars. The ban goes into effect July 1. HT: Cigar Jack’s Cigar Blog ...

At today’s Get Fuzzy. ...

Rev. Richard Cizik of Virginia is being hailed as “in the vanguard of a striking new movement: evangelicals prodding President George W Bush to take action on global warming. And his stance cannot easily be dismissed as radical nonsense, as the Green cause is traditionally mocked by the Right. He is the Washington representative for the National Association of Evangelicals, America’s largest evangelical group. With 30 million members, the NAE is possibly the most powerful voting bloc in the country.”...

Samuel Gregg, director of Acton’s Center for Academic Research, wrote “One nation under God?” appearing in tomorrow’s The Tablet: To European eyes, America seems a remarkably united religious country. But the United States is as prey to disputes over secularism as other Western nations. ...

“Winning isn’t everything.” Whatever happened to this slice of wisdom? In Columbus, Ohio, a team of baseball players has been ejected from their league for being “too good”! (Read the story here). The parents of the teams being slaughtered by the better plained that losing was seriously detrimental to their kids’ self-esteem. Therefore, the league decided to reward the hard work of the winning team with expulsion. Winning isn’t everything, but apparently, losing is. What this league and the supporting...

The Detroit News included a statement from me, along with two of their Faith and Policy columnists, reacting to a Washington Post story by Alan Cooperman about cooperation between religious leaders from the political left and right. Here’s my bit: The Washington Post’s article about the prospects for rapprochement between religious conservatives and liberals gets to the heart of the “cold war” that has existed between these groups for so long. The historic intractability of both sides has led to...

Ronald Reagan was voted the Greatest American in history by a slim margin by a Discovery Channel program, barely beating out Abraham Lincoln. Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin rounded out the top 5. Of course, I’m not sure how much credence should be lent to a list whose top 100 included such luminaries as Tom Cruise, Ellen DeGeneres, Brett Favre, Dr. Phil, and Michael Moore. In any case, when Ronald Reagan passed away last year, Acton...

I have to admit that I’ve never been able to get that fired up about the controversies surrounding the various public displays of the Decalogue. It no doubt has to do with my view that it is far more important for the law to be written on our hearts rather than on stone (see for example Jeremiah 31:27-40). It’s all (on both sides) struck me as a little to much like public posturing, and for the Christian conservatives who support...

Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 8 • Number 1 The publication of this issue (vol. 8, no. 1) marks the full implementation of the journal’s two issue moving wall. This means that as an archived issue, volume 7, number 1 is now freely available in its entirety. Subscribers are able to access electronically the full content of the two most current issues. Stephen Grabill’s editorial deals with these trends in scholarly publishing, with an eye on the specific situation...