In last week’s mentary, “The Worst Christmas Song Ever,” Jordan Ballor touched on the well-intentioned yet harmful message shared by “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the 1984 song produced by the music group, Band Aid, in response to the famine that struck Ethiopia. Ballor describes the context and some of the song’s lyrics: The song describes Africa largely as a barren wasteland, ‘Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.’ It continues in this vein. Africa, the...

To end the 2014 on an incredibly dehumanizing note, CBS aired an episode of Undercover Boss that stirred up protests from all walks of life. Undercover Boss is usually a wonderful program that allows CEOs to see what is happening on the ground in panies and reward hard workers accordingly. However, this particular episode profiled Doug Guller, the CEO of Bikinis Sports Bar & Grill, who fired a bartender after she decided not to dehumanize herself by wearing a T-shirt...

Frank Capra’s ‘It’s Wonderful Life’ is one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s a Christmas classic and also—as I’ve always thought—a conservative classic, a film whose themes align closely with traditional conservatism. But not everyone agrees on the politics of Bedford Falls. Keith Miller and Chris Schaefer debate whether themes of the movie lean more liberal or more conservative. Naturally, I agree with Miller’s small government assessment: The movie exults in the way the Bailey Building & Loan...

Friedrich Hayek once called intellectuals “professional secondhand dealers in ideas.” And the Preacher proclaimed, “There is nothing new under the sun.” So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising when ideas, memes, and other cultural phenomena pop up again and again. There is, however, a notable correspondence between an Acton Commentary that I wrote earlier this month, “The Worst Christmas Song Ever,” and a piece that appeared weeks earlier at The Federalist. In “‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ Is The Worst Christmas...

From Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away: God told the world he was going to send it a king and the world waited. The world thought, a golden fleece will do for His bed. Silver and gold and peacock tails, a thousand suns in a peacock’s tail will do for his crib. His mother will ride on a four-horned white beast and use the sunset for a cape. She’ll trail it behind her over the ground and let the...

“If economics is the dismal science,” says Hans Noel, an associate professor at Georgetown University, “then political science is the dismissed science.” Most Americans—from pundits to voters—don’t think that political science has much to say about political life. But there are some things, notes Noel, that “political scientists know that it seems many practitioners, pundits, journalists, and otherwise informed citizens do not.” Here are excerpts from Noel’s list of ten things political scientists know that you don’t: #1. It’s The...

We know how God approached mankind: the surprising incarnation as a baby at Christmas.But how ought we to approach Him? Here is a wide range of 14 ways we often try, along with abenefit for each: Love the right things and you will find your way home to GodThink the right things and you will know the sovereign GodBelieve the right thingsand you will live at peaceObey, obey, obey and you will not go to hellWithdraw from the world and...

In this mentary, Acton president and co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico reflects on Christmas, but also on the things weighing heavily on many hearts. Despite this being a joyful time, we are caught in perilous moment in history due to the meeting of various things: intellectual, financial, militarily, and theologically. President Ronald Reagan gave a similar address in 1981: Rev. Sirico says: How to get to the heart of the matter? That, as Shakespeare might say, is the rub. Yet,...

Parents spend a lot of time and money trying to get their children what they want for Christmas. The list written for Santa is poured over, gifts are wrapped, stockings are stuffed. But are you giving your child what she really wants? IKEA Spain wants us to think about our children’s wish lists a bit differently. ...

Grocery shopping is not a chore I enjoy. It’s a mundane task, and everything you buy you will have to soon replace. Then, when you finally get to the end of the chore, you look at the register and think, “HOW much??” It gets worse. You and I (American taxpayers) managed to “misspend” $2.4 billion this year on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP.) How did we manage this? According to the USDA’s audit for...