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What have many academics and a good number of religious leaders learned from the collapse munism and the failures of so many utopias of socialism that couldn’t deliver on their promises? Well, nothing. In “The Great Lie: Pope Benedict XVI on Socialism,” Rev. Robert A. Sirico looks at a critique of the socialist impulse offered by the Pope in his new encyclical Spe Salvi. In the article, published on , Rev. Sirico discusses the futility of a salvation based on...

Acton Media Roundup

A few radio appearances to let you know about today: Michael Miller made an appearance today on the Accent Radio Network to discuss the role of faith in the public square, especially in light of the ongoing presidential primary process. You can listen to the audio from The Right Balance with Greg Allen by clicking here (2.2 mb mp3 file).On Monday, Dr. Jay Richards joined host Jim Brown on WRNO in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss the impact of religion...

The Evangelical Ecologist on “The Evangelical Ecologist”

I’m a big fan of Touchstone’s blog and the posts of senior editor S. M. Hutchens in particular. A very deep guy. That’s why I was intrigued when I founda book review of his in the New Atlantis entitled "The Evangelical Ecologist" while googling myself (if that doesn’t sound too crude).* He’s responding to E. O. Wilson’s The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, in which Wilson asks the imaginary Baptist pastor to whom the book is addressed...

Check it out: ‘Big think’

A new interactive video sharing site for activism and “ideas,” Big Think (HT), including entries from experts like Niall Ferguson, Jagdish Bhagwati, Paul Krugman, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (along with the requisite spate of politicians). Here, for instance, is Richard Cizik, vice president of Govermental Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals, answering the question, “How should the Bible be interpreted?” Here’s a sample: “Your argument is not with me. Your argument is with God.” Cizik’s video is probably sixty...

Our moral obligations to the young

Robert Samuelson is absolutely right in today’s column. The next generation faces an increasing proportion of the Federal budget that goes to pay the expenses of retired workers. We can’t go on like this. These costs amount to a massive barrier to fertility for the next generation: Our children face a future of rising taxes, squeezed — and perhaps falling — public services, and aging — perhaps deteriorating — public infrastructure (roads, sewers, transit systems). Today’s young workers and children...

Bloggers @ ActonU 2008

I’m passing along this message from Kara Eagle, a program officer here at the Acton Institute. If you are a blogger and are interested in learning more about the pursuit of a free and virtuous society, keep reading: Greetings! As a blogger who is interested in the relationship between morality and freedom, you are invited to apply to attend the June 10-13, 2008 Acton University in Grand Rapids, MI. A limited number of special fee and travel fellowships are available...

Respect for Those Who Come After

Alan Donagan, the moral philosopher, in his text The Theory of Morality reflects upon Genesis 1:26 (“Let us make mankind in our image…”). This text can be seen, he writes, as an affirmation that the earth and all that is on it exist for the sake of the rational beings who live in it; that is, for the sake of man. Yet mankind at large, like any limited human society, is a partnership of the living with the dead and...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

Illiberal Education

Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education has stirred a hornet’s nest of controversy in the academy for good reason – it is the only book-length attack on the policies that are in vogue at many of this country’s most distinguished academic institutions. The considerable press coverage this book has received indicates that D’Souza says something that badly needs saying and says it well. There are several disturbing practices and trends at the modern university that D’Souza powerfully describes and critiques: affirmative...

Sep 15, 2026

Second-Career clergy and parish business

Photo: Getty Images The seminary in The Collar is what's called a second-career seminary, a seminary for men who e to their vocation later in life. Some of the seminarians featured in the work, like the retired marketing executive Jim e from significant careers in the business world. What are these men looking for in the priesthood, and do they make good priests? I think that at the center of that question is a mystery, right? What are they...

Sep 15, 2026

Exporting hope

R&L: Growing up in Estonia, when was the first moment that you realized there was something wrong with the Soviet system? Laar: I couldn't actually say the exact moment. It was very early, but not too early, because my grandfather has told me some stories that I don't remember myself. I was born on the twenty-second of April, the same day Vladimir Lenin was born. I nearly gave my grandfather a heart attack when he asked once whom I...

Sep 15, 2026

Religion, Economics, and the Market Paradox

R&L: In your latest book, pare economics to religion. Why? Nelson: Because economics is a belief system with powerful moral implications. I use the term religion in a broad sense, as something that provides a framework for one's values or some purpose to one's life. I am convinced that people must have some sort of religion, that no one can live entirely free from a framework of meaning. Of course, not all religions require a God, as Judaism or...

Sep 15, 2026

A Tsunami Every Day: An Interview with Tony Hall

How has your faith shaped your political priorities, especially with regard to the fight against hunger? It's quite a major part. A friend of mine who used to work [with me]—a e in and pray with me, and we would read the scripture. He said, “Don't you think it's time you started to take God into your workplace?” I thought, “Yeah, I do, but I don't know how to do it. I don't want to wear religion on my...

Sep 15, 2026

The Economy of trust

What can the world of religion and ethics contribute to economics? The market has deficiencies of a kind for which ethics is a remedy. For example, the world is really filled with private information. There is inside information on products and in contracts. In these situations, there is a very strong possibility of one person using this information to take advantage of the other. If this happens frequently, a market may not exist at all because the buyers know...

Sep 15, 2026

The Moral of the Story: An Interview with Ralph Winter

How do you maintain your faith in a high-demand job environment of money, power, and stress? I've got a support system in place that helps make that all work. Primarily, a wife who understands as well as challenges me. I've been married for thirty-one years. Our lives are centered around our faith in terms of what we're about, where we're going, and why we do things. That remains at the center. And this is a fun job. I like...

Sep 15, 2026

A Century of Catholic Social Thought

This year marks the centenary of the promulgation of Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Over the next several months there will be a myriad of scholarly conferences, lectures, sermons, masses, memorating the anniversary of this seminal Church document and the tradition of social thought that it inaugurated. Collections of essays celebrating this anniversary are already beginning to find their way out of publishing houses and into stores and catalogs. More promise to follow as conferences conclude and their proceedings...

Sep 15, 2026

America's challenge

Chuck Colson R&L: What intellectual tools do Christians need to effectively protect the truth in a post-Christian world, and do Christians have those tools? Colson: The first part of the answer is plicated, so I'll answer the second part first. First, no, Christians do not have the tools today. Most people don't realize what a central issue this is. And Schaeffer used to preach about this a generation ago, and he would say, “The issue is truth! Flaming truth!...

Sep 15, 2026

A Powerful Consequence: An Interview with Francisco Flores

What a change El Salvador has gone through. What a challenge. How do individuals deal with that challenge, especially with regard to their faith? I think that in normal conditions, in peaceful, prosperous conditions, your core identity can be clothed in many layers. But to the degree that you suffer, and that you face yourself with crisis, you face yourself with the possibility of death, that you face yourself with the loss of family members, you are left only...

Sep 15, 2026