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Methodist liberals attack hospitality of renewal groups

United Methodist renewal groups are under attack by liberal denominational leaders at General Conference for providing the gift of free cell phones for some international delegates who made the trip to Forth Worth, Texas. Opponents of the the evangelical renewal groups are afraid that the phones will be utilized to tell certain international delegates how to vote. A letter from the renewal groups supposedly included with the gift invited them to a breakfast, provided other General Conference news, and a...

Returning to the real economy

In the April 24 edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi focuses on the origins and lessons of the global financial crisis. In a previous article, Gotti Tedeschi argued that the downturn is an opportunity for Italy to reform its economy and cut down on unnecessary public spending. He now examines what the crisis means for the state of international finance and draws some unusual but noteworthy conclusions. In his view, the principal answer for improving global...

Toward a theological ethic for internet discourse

The relationship of the Christian church and the broader culture has been a perennial question whose genesis antedates the life of the early Church. In his Apology, the church father Tertullian defended Christians as citizens of the Roman empire in the truest and best sense. If all the Christians of the empire were to leave, he wrote, “you would be horror-struck at the solitude in which you would find yourselves, at such an all-prevailing silence, and that stupor as of...

Fundraising and the fungibility phenomenon

A fight broke out this week between non-profit groups over fundraising. While not in petition for donor dollars, the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance expressed its displeasure with Meijer, Inc. for participating in a fundraising event with the Humane Society of the United States. The program was set up to contribute money to a support Foreclosure Pets Fund, designed to give support to pet owners facing foreclosure. Meijer suspended the program after plaints from the Alliance that the chain was cooperating with...

An advertising stimulus

One sector of the American public that hasn’t missed out on the government’s purpose for the economic stimulus package is the advertising and marketing industry. Savvy marketers are targeting sales and special offers to the federal rebate checks, which start to go out today. One sector of the economy especially banking on how people will spend their stimulus rebates is the automobile industry. Here, for instance, is a local car dealer’s ad specifically targeted to the stimulus package: I’ve seen...

Straight talk on trade

My reaction to any politician claiming to offer “straight talk” is a knowing chuckle (“yeah, right”), and that includes John McCain. So I’ve got to give credit to the so-called Straight Talk Express for a recent campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, where the Republican presidential candidate offered some honest and ments on a contentious subject in politically risky circumstances—straight talk, if you will. The subject was trade, and McCain defended it in a region suffering from the real or perceived...

The slippery slope of Catholic ecology

: What I have found odd is that so many Catholics, especially female religious, should gravitate toward what appears to be essentially pantheism or what some eco-spirituality thinkers prefer to call “panentheism” (the universe as the “body of God”) when the Church has addressed the entire ecology question in a way that would, practically speaking, lead to the same results in terms of respect for the created order and sustainability. Indeed. Given the present direction ofCatholic movement on climate change,...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

When our success threatens our success

Book Review of The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream (St. Martin's Press 2017). Tyler Cowen addresses the economic and social harms that arise from, as he says in The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream, “decisions that are at first glance” in our “best interests.” As our decisions play out, they can prove to have consequences “at the societal level” that, while “unintended,” are “not always good.” Technological advances have created a...

May 16, 2026

Are you brave enough to tell a joke?

Tickling Giants (2017) tells how an edian found a way to fight against and call out abusive leaders using creative nonviolence. This new documentary directed and produced by Sara Taksler follows Dr. Bassem Youssef, the “Jon Stewart of Egypt,” a heart surgeon turned edian who takes on Egyptian authority. It opens on Tahrir Square in Cairo, where protests have broken out against military control of the government. Youssef and a camera crew walk around talking to the fedup masses....

May 16, 2026

Editor's Note: Summer 2017

As summer in Michigan begins to wind down, Religion & Liberty Summer 2017 takes a look at several important issues. We explore religious liberty in Eastern Europe, “pink” issues, Martin Luther, cooking and recidivism, the “Jon Stewart of Egypt” and more. For the cover feature, I decided to revisit a subject we previously covered. We tracked down several graduates of Edwins Leadership and Restaurant Institute (which was profiled in the Fall 2015 issue of R&L) and talked to them...

May 16, 2026

Medium and message in Luther’s reformation

Review of Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation (Penguin Press 2015). In the lead up to 1617, the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, a flood of celebratory and educational publications poured over Protestant Germany. These publications included sermons, plays, prayers, hymns and, of course, reprints of the works of Martin Luther. That the lead up to the Reformation’s five hundredth anniversary would be panied by an analogous flood of new books on...

May 16, 2026

Acton Briefs: Summer 2017

A collection of short essays by Acton writers, click a link to jump to that article: If you care about human flourishing, promote growth by Samuel Gregg Will free trade help the environment after Brexit? by Philip Booth Anti-Americanism at the Vatican by Kishore Jayabalan Our economic age of anxiety by Victor V. Claar and Greg Forster Making college expensive by making it free by Anne Rathbone Bradley Civil asset forfeiture: What you should know by Joe Carter The...

May 16, 2026

Justice, applied equally

Oftentimes during prayer I reflect on my good fortune. I grew up in a loving Italian-American family during an amazing era of progress both economically and technologically. My Italian roots were planted so strong. However, as they say, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Instead of leading a life in quiet near-obscurity, I pursued the public life of a free-market proponent. This entailed employing the Word and other theological and divinely inspired tools to support the small-“w” words of...

May 16, 2026

Reagan remembered

Bulgaria unveils a statue to Ronald Reagan in the battleground for religious liberty. Ronald Reagan remains the most influential U.S. president of the latter half of the 20th century. He is remembered as an optimistic advocate of free minds, free markets, free elections and the free exercise of religion. But gratitude, a universal human emotion, is not limited to the United States. Instead, it extends across the transatlantic sphere to the former Soviet bloc. On May 10, in Sofia,...

May 16, 2026

Working humans, working women

Women are called to the workplace, so how do we make it work? An interview with Katelyn Beaty. Where are the resources for Christian women called to the workplace? Why isn’t there a larger discussion in churches about the life experiences of women? Asking these questions led Katelyn Beaty to write A Woman’s Place: A Christian Vision for Your Calling in the Office, the Home and the World (Simon & Schuster 2016). Beaty was the first female and youngest...

May 16, 2026

Finding 'happiness' in a Romanian gulag

Translated by Gabriela Ailenei Nicolae Steinhardt was a 20th-century writer and Orthodox hermit. He was arrested by the Communist Party of Romania in 1959 when he refused to testify against a colleague who was accused of being an enemy of the people. Steinhardt himself was accused of conspiracy against social order and was sentenced to hard labor. He spent 13 years in a gulag-like prison. There he met a Bessarabian hermit and was baptized Orthodox Christian. After his imprisonment,...

May 16, 2026

Out of the frying pan into the fire

Once men and women leave prison, they have few options and little hope. Edwins is working to change that. After someone has paid the price for their crime pleted a prison sentence, the difficulties of their life certainly don’t end there. In her research for When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry, Joan Petersilia found that nearly 75 percent of men and women remained jobless up to a year after release from prison. Department of Justice research found...

May 16, 2026