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Tornadoes, Disaster Relief, and the Power of the Christian Community

At the bottom of this storm and tornado roundup from The Weather Channel, there is a powerful slideshow on the devastation in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. The death count in the region stands at 31. Mississippi’s Governor Phil Bryant described yesterday as “The most active tornado day in Mississippi history.” Some people forget that it is denominational church agencies that often are the first to meet the material needs and fort to the afflicted. Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is well...

Fossil Fuel Follies

The religious crusade against fossil fuels and various methods of extracting it to heat and light our homes, offices, and factories continues apace. The 2014 proxy shareholder season is a veritable spider web of networked religious-affiliated activist groups decrying coal, natural gas, oil, hydraulic fracturing and mining. Ceres, for example, reports “35 institutional investors have filed 142 resolutions in a coordinated effort to spur action by panies” on what it calls climate-related measures. Based in Boston, Mass., the nonprofit group...

If You Love Babies You Should Love Economic Growth

Today you’ll be hearing a lot aboutthis latest bit of bad —really, really bad —economic news: Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the first quarter (that is, from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of 2014), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. There are a lot...

The Acton University Experience: ‘You Really Need to Meet These People’

Today on the PowerBlog, we’re continuing our Radio Free Acton series featuring people who have attended Acton University and their experiences. As we close in on the deadline for registration for AU 2014, we hope that as you hear from people who have been impacted by the experience of Acton University, you’ll considerregistering for AU 2014and making the experience your own this year. Today’s podcast features Father Hans Jacobse, an Orthodox priest and the founder of the American Orthodox Institute,...

Burke vs. Paine on Choice, Obligation, and Social Order

I recently read Yuval Levin’s new book, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, and found it remarkably rich and rewarding. Though the entire book is worthy of discussion, his chapter on choice vs. obligation is particularly helpful in illuminating one of the more elusive tensions in our social thought and action. In the chapter, Levin provides a helpful summary of how the two men differed in their beliefs about social obligation and...

Let’s All Join the Tenth Commandment Club

In our modern era, the ancient sin of covetousness primarily manifests itself in three forms: greed, theft, and arguments about inequality. The greedy selfishly desire to acquire what others have, thieves illicitly acquire what others have, and equality advocates want the government to redistribute what others have. It would be unfair, of course, to assume that all critics of inequality are driven by covetousness. But if you stripped away that sin as a motivation, the number of people who care...

Does Religion Do Us Any Good, Even If We’re Not Religious?

Is there any societal reason to protect religion? That is, do we get anything out of religion, as a society, even if we’re not religious, and is that “anything” worth protecting? Mark Movsesian thinks so. In First Things, Movsesian says religion does do good for a society – a good that is worthy of protection. Religion, munal religion, provides important benefits for everyone in the liberal state—even the non-religious. Religion encourages people to associate with and feel responsible for others,...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

The Umpire’s Limits

　　A Constitution that divides power among three branches and between the federal government and the states needs an umpire. Politicians, responding either to their own interest in expanding their authority or to public passions, will frequently overstep constitutional boundaries. 　　Through judicial review, the Supreme Court therefore serves as a neutral arbiter charged with maintaining the Constitution’s boundaries. But the Court...

Aug 27, 2026

On the Importance of First Principles

　　In his abstruse “Substantive Due Process Is Still Antidemocratic,” the Manhattan Institute’s Tal Fortgang critiques a California Law Review essay from two Yale Law denizens, Douglas NeJaime and Reva Siegel, who recently mounted, as Fortgang puts it, “an ambitious defense of the modern ‘substantive due process’ cases—Griswold, Roe, Lawrence, Obergefell—against the charge that they are antidemocratic in the manner ofLochner.”...

Aug 27, 2026

Ciceros Life in the Arena

　　With the exception of the Caesars, no ancient Roman political figure is as famous as Marcus Tullius Cicero. Like the Caesars, the myth of Cicero has taken on a life of its own: the philosopher-statesman who, until his final breath, withstood the forces of totalitarianism in defense of the republic. Certainly, there is a great deal of truth to this...

Aug 27, 2026

Alexander Dugin’s Platonopolis

　　Alexander Dugin (1962– ) is that rare bird, a philosopher who becomes a media personality. Perhaps the last was Rûhullah Khomeini, the Grand Ayatollah. An influence on Dugin, Khomeini—who appeared on the cover of Time Magazine six times—thought Plato one of the “great leading figures of divine wisdom.” Comparably, Dugin thinks “all Christian dogma is based on Plato. … In...

Aug 27, 2026

The Seeing Stones of Modern Warfare

　　The Iran war is the theater for the most expansive use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms to date. Some have even called it the “AI War.” Of the five leading AI programs employed in the war, two take their names from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The most important of those platforms is Palantír, which raises the...

Aug 27, 2026

California’s Road to Serfdom

　　Several years ago, California brothers Arron and Arthur Benedetti inherited 267 acres of farmland from their father, a turkey farmer who spent his life working that land. They were not asking for a subsidy, tax break, or any government benefit. They simply wanted to build a home on property they had lawfully inherited. The government of Marin County, however, took...

Aug 27, 2026

Magnificent Humanity, Poor Economics

　　It would be an understatement to say that people across the world from all backgrounds and political persuasions are nervous about what artificial intelligence (AI) might mean for the future. The extent to which AI is on people’s minds can be gauged by the immense interest shown by believers and non-believers alike in a document published in May this year...

Aug 27, 2026

Bob Joness Warning

　　Now seems to be an especially precarious time for American colleges and universities. In recent months, American institutions of higher learning have been confronted with near-constant disruptions that threaten both their short-term operations and long-term stability. From Congress’s passage of a new endowment tax to the White House’s revocation of millions in research funding, the Department of Justice’s announcement of...

Aug 27, 2026

Man, Machine, and Market

　　Pope Leo XIVs first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, was published just over a month ago to mixed reactions. Some found the pontiffs views admirably measured and wise, acknowledging the potential good that can come from new technology while issuing salient warnings about the potential for ideolatry and dehumanization. Others were concerned that the encyclical misrepresented the state of the world today,...

Aug 27, 2026

Reading Erasmus in an Absurd Age

　　In 1509, while traveling from Italy to England, the famed Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus composed one of the strangest and most enduring works of the Renaissance. In Praise of Folly (Moriae Encomium) was written partly for amusement, perhaps out of a self-deprecating boredom to break up the neurasthenia that was synonymous with long-distance travel in the early sixteenth century. As...

Aug 27, 2026