Marvin Olasky, a Senior Fellow in Acton’s Research Department, has an article in World Magazine regarding evangelism and effective economic development in Ghana. There is an effort to teach strategic economic skills to budding entrepreneurs incorporating a wholistic bining not only economic lessons, but spiritual ones as well. The clubs teach about showing love to neighbors in concrete ways. For instance, young Esther Wood received business start-up money that allowed her to buy a small bowl and fill it with...

In his magnificent reflection on the nature of art, Real Presences, polymath George Steiner invites us to make a thought experiment: What if we lived in a city where all talk about art, mere talk about art, was prohibited? In other words, what would follow if we did away with artistic criticism qua criticism, an activity derivative by nature and one Steiner calls “high gossip”? In this posited city, what Steiner calls the Answerable City, the only permitted response to...

A recent national Pew Research Center survey has found conflicting opinions regarding many Americans’ view of the rich: As Republicans gather for their national convention in Tampa to nominate a presidential candidate known, in part, as a wealthy businessman, a new nationwide Pew Research Center survey finds that many Americans believe the rich are different than other people. They are viewed as more intelligent and more hardworking but also greedier and less honest. Nearly six-in-ten survey respondents (58%) also say...

Book Review: “Ferguson on Green, Pauper Capital” David R. Green. Pauper Capital. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010. Reviewed by Christopher Ferguson (Auburn University) The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, monly known as the New Poor Law, is arguably the most notorious piece of legislation in British history. Deeply controversial in its day, it has unsurprisingly generated a dense and diverse scholarly literature ever since, yet one in which the national capital has played a remarkably minor role. Indeed, David R....

After relating how city regulations in Chattanooga, Tenn., helped kill a small business, economist Mark J. Perry offers a sympathetic sentiment for failed entrepreneurs: To paraphrase President Obama: Look, if you’ve been unsuccessful, you didn’t get there on your own. If you were unsuccessful at opening or operating a small business, some government official along the line probably contributed to your failure. There was an overzealous civil servant somewhere who might have stood in your way with unreasonable regulations that...

As the Presidential debates draw near, there is one question that tops my wish list of questions that should (but won’t be) asked of the candidates: What e range constitutes “middle class”? This undefined group of citizens seems to be a favorite of politicians on both ends of the political spectrum. Reagan and Bush cut their taxes. Clinton too. And Obama promised not to raise their taxes. But who are these people? Ask the janitor sweeping pany’s floors and he’ll...

Order matters. So much in life builds on what e before and prepares us for those things that are in our future. So it is no accident that es before Monday. Since the Early Church, Sunday has been both the first day of the week and the day of rest and worship for Christians around the world. But have we stopped to ask why God gave us Sunday before Monday? What is supposed to happen on that first day of...

Louisiana College, a Baptist school in Pineville, La., is the most recent institution to file a lawsuit over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. Kathryn Jean Lopez interviewed the the school’s president, Joe Aguillard, about the decision to sue the government: LOPEZ: The president contended last week that there is promise. So why would you sue? AGUILLARD: Any repeated claim that the government promised is recycled nonsense. The HHS mandate will force us to cover abortion pills in our health plans...

At the Mackinac Center blog, I look at a really shabby piece of reportage in GQ Magazine on ArtPrize, the annual public petition in Grand Rapids, Mich. Grand Rapids is also where the Acton Institute is based and it’s a terrific Midwestern city doing a lot of things right. But when East Coast writer Matthew Power visited GR he saw only “flyover country,” a “provincial” mindset, “G.R.-usalem” (lots of churches) and “ordinary” local inhabitants. You know where this is going....

As I leafed through this week’s Wall Street Journal Europe mentary, I finally felt a little redemption. Hats off to WSJ writers Peter Nicholas and Mark Peter whose brief, but poignant August 20 article “Ryan’s Catholic Roots Reach Deep” shed light on vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s value system. This was done by elucidating how Paul Ryan views the relationship of the individual with the state and how the local, small-town forces in America can produce great change for a...