While overall crime rates are falling, in major U.S. cities the untold story is that crime is now more concentrated among the underclass. For example, The New York Times ran a story of the concentration of crime in the city of St. Louis to show the reality of this trend. St. Louis, like many other cities, is highly divided by race and class, demonstrated in the city’s crime statistics. The highest crime areas are also the areas that are predominantly...

In his 2010 book, Hipster Christianity, Brett McCracken explored the dynamics of a particular cultural movement in (and against) modern evangelicalism. In his new book, Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty, he pulls the lens back, focusing on how the church more broadly ought to approach culture, particularly when es to consuming it. Though McCracken’s book focuses on just four areas — food, drink, music, and film — his basic framework and the surrounding discussion offers much...

A recent piece in The Washington Post by Lori Montgomery reports that conservative U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan has been working on solutions to poverty with Robert Woodson, solutions rooted in passion, spiritual transformation and neighborhood enterprise. The Post seems to want to praise Ryan (R. Wis.) for his interest in the poor, but to do so it first has to frame that interest as something foreign to conservatism: Paul Ryan is ready to move beyond last year’s failed presidential campaign...

Even though the author of this essay in Catholic World Report is careful to make distinctions, this would seem to be the choice: Thomas Aquinas or Ron Paul. It is, in fact, how the indispensable Real Clear Religion website framed the debate this morning. pare a religion with an intellectual and moral tradition that goes back thousands of years with a quasi-political movement that is more known for what it is against than what is for is worse paring apples...

In The Word of Life, Tom Oden declared, “My mission is to deliver as clearly as a I can that core of consensual belief concerning Jesus Christ that has been shared for two hundred decades – who he was, what he did, and what that means for us today.” The Word of Life, Oden’s second systematic theology volume, is a treasure for anybody who wants to know more about the fullness and power of Christ. Over at Juicy Ecumenism, Mark...

Kathryn Jean Lopez, at National Review Online, has interviewed Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research, on his newest book, Tea Party Catholic: The Catholic Case for Human Flourishing, a Free Economy and Human Flourishing.To begin, Lopez asks Gregg about the title of the book. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Tell us about the title of the book. Does the Tea Party have anything to do with the Catholic Church? SAMUEL GREGG: Tea Party Catholic itself has very little to say about the...

While we’ve grown accustomed to finding conservatives longing for a mythical Mayberry-era that never, in fact, actually existed, we expect those on the left to be perpetually forward-looking. So it’s rather disconcerting to see ‘progressives’ get nostalgic for the mostly mythical past. Usually such longing for the good ol’ es from ex-hippies missing the free love and cheap drugs of the 1960s. But on rare occasions the radical left dips back even further. Like to the 1930’s-era anarcho-syndicalism of the...

Hawaii is consistently ranked as one of the states where most Americans want to live. But for many residents, the island life is more nightmare than tropical dream. The high cost of living and lack of affordable housing contributes to Hawaii having one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. The state government has attempted to address the crisis in ways that are sometimes as creative as they are disturbing. Earlier this year, the state legislature voted to...

Back in 2009, I wrote mentary titled “Veterans First on Health Care.” I argued the government must prove it can handle existing obligations before proposing any further takeover of the health care industry. I interviewed former Congressman Gene Taylor (D-Miss), who I once worked for, and among other things, assisted with Veterans Affairs claims and other military constituent services. Taylor made the point then that “We [government] can’t pay for the promises we’ve already made on health care, and it...

Peter Robinson, host of the Hoover Institution’s mon Knowledge program, interviews playwright David Mamet about his book The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture and his conversion to conservatism. The blurb on the video notes that, “Mamet explains how, by studying Jewish and Christian texts such as the Talmud and the Bible, he came to approach arguments from a new perspective that aligned itself with conservative politics.” Throughout the interview, which runs about 35 minutes, “Mamet discusses his...