In Guidance for Christian Engagement in Government, a translation of Abraham Kuyper’s Our Program, Kuyper sets forth an outline for hisAnti-Revolutionary Party. Founded by Kuyper in 1879, the party had the goal of offering a “broad alternative to the secular, rationalist worldview,” as translator Harry Van Dyke explains it.“To be “antirevolutionary” for Kuyper, Van Dyke continues, is to be promisingly opposed to ‘modernity’ — that is, tothe ideology of the French Revolution and the public philosophy we have e to...

“The Power of the Moral Law” is the title of an address delivered by Calvin Coolidge at the Community-Chest Dinner in Springfield, Massachusetts on October 11, 1921. Published in The Price of Freedom, the text is only available online through Google Books. Coolidge’s main point in his remarks was to reinforce the truth that it is prosperity not grounded in a deeper meaning that threatens our American Republic. Displaying his conservative thought, he challenges materialism of government interventionists and reminds...

I am not an economist. Truth be told, I only took one class in economics as an undergrad. However, I’ve learned a lot in the past few years, and one of the things I’ve learned is that most people don’t understand economics. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry knows this as well, and explains it far better than I could. In today’s Forbes, Gobry breaks down the understanding of economics into two broad camps: the “productivist” view and the “creativist.” First, the productivist: pressed,...

In his latest column, David Brooks examines the limits of data and “objective knowledge” in guiding or directing our imaginations when es to solving social problems. Using teenage pregnancy as an example, he notes that although it may be of some use to get a sense on the general drivers of certain phenomena, such information is, in the end, “insufficient for anyone seeking deep understanding”: Unlike minnows, human beings don’t exist just as members of groups. We all know people...

Is a “profit alone” mentality enough for a business or for a nation? If the economy is running well, should we bother to look any deeper, or just leave well enough alone? Carly Andrews, at Aleteia, says profit alone isn’t good enough, based upon a presentation that professors Alberto Quadrio Curzio and Giovanni Marseguerra made at a recent Vatican conference. The pair spoke primarily about three parts of Catholic social teaching that they believe would help the global economy. Examined...

Yahoo! Finance’s Stock Analyst, Kevin Chupka, recently interviewed Rev. Robert Sirico about the “Cure for e Inequality” and the work of PovertyCure. Chupka begins by stating that “close to half the planet lives on less than $2 dollars a day” and that an alarming number of Americans are living below the poverty line. He then states that despite all the good intentions, decades of charitable giving hasn’t done much to end this problem. Chupka and Sirico discuss PovertyCure’s mission to...

One of the primary themes in the Acton Institute’s new series, For the Life of the World, is the notion that “all is gift” — that we were created to be gift-givers, and that through the atoning power of Jesus Christ, we are empowered to render our activities, nay, our very livesto God and those around us. As Evan Koons explains at the end of Episode 1: “All our work in this world is made of stuff of the earth...

I oppose implementing Skynet and increasing minimum wage laws for the same reason: to forestall the robots. It’s probably inevitable that a T-1000 will return from the future to terminate John Connor. But there is still something we can do to prevent a TIOS from eliminating the cashier at your local McDonalds. In Europe, McDonalds has ordered 7,000 TIOSs (Touch Interface Ordering Systems) to take food orders and payment. In America, Panera Bread will replace all of their cashiers with...

In the past few years, Americans have learned a lot about human trafficking. It’s increasingly encroaching into our cities, towns, neighborhoods. Many groups are working valiantly to bring victims out of trafficking situations, and help them e safe and productive members of society. However, U.S. immigration laws are getting in the way. Jennnifer Allen Jung, a immigrations attorney specializing in human trafficking cases, says are current laws are keeping many victims from stepping out of the shadows and getting help....

This is what our country e to: warning labels on great literature. I’m not talking about the parental warning labels (that no parent ever sees, because who buys CDs anymore?) on CDs with explicit lyrics. Nope, we’re talking about warning labels on literature. You see, we have to protect our young people from possible “triggers” – ideas, descriptions and situations in books that might make them unhappy or feel bad: It is the so-called trigger warning applied to any content...