News from the Acton Institute: Grand Rapids, Mich. (October 22, 2010) – The Acton Institute won first place in the Ethics and Values category in the 2010 Templeton Freedom Awards for Excellence in Promoting petition. The award, managed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recognized Acton for its production of film documentaries that municate the principles and values of individual liberty and a free society.” Atlas cited Acton for “first-rate documentaries designed municate the importance of virtue, limited government, and...

Rev. Robert Sirico talked about the Tea Party movement and Catholic Social Teaching yesterday with Al Kresta on Ave Maria Radio. Click on the link below to listen: [audio: From Kresta in the Afternoon: The Tea Party Movement: How Does it Gel With Catholic Social Teaching? Since their not-so-quiet arrival on the U.S. political scene, the tea party has garnered a great deal of attention and found growing support among disgruntled Americans, many of whom are Catholics. A missioned earlier...

Acton podcast host Marc Vander Maas was joined by John Pinheiro, Jordan Ballor, and myself to discuss the issue of American Exceptionalism. Click on the link below to listen: [audio: There has been quite the uptick regarding the topic because of fears that America has lost its greatness. “America’s Destiny Must Be Freedom,” is mentary I penned in June related to that fear, as well as an overview of America’s freedom narrative. I also hosted an Acton on Tap on...

A new Detroit News column by Acton Institute President and co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico: Tea party must define ideas By Father Robert Sirico If the recent analysis by the New York Times on the success of the tea party movement is correct, the influence of this movement favoring limited government and low levels of taxation may have a decided impact in the ing elections, particularly in holding the Republican leadership’s feet to the fire on a variety of related...

I remember my first Acton event in 2002, a “Toward a Free and Virtuous Society” conference that I attended as a graduate student. There are a number of things I remember quite clearly, but perhaps most striking was an occasion when someone said something to the effect that those with wealth are able to do more for the Kingdom of God than the poor. This is basically the same view that was once articulated in John Stossel’s special TV program...

This year’s Lausanne Congress, Cape Town 2010, is underway and all reports are of a massive event, with substantial buildup and coordination of efforts of and implications of various kinds across the globe. (Dr. Anthony Bradley, a research fellow at the Acton Institute, participated in one of the conversation gatherings last month leading up to the Cape Town event.) In my book published earlier this summer, Ecumenical Babel, I mentioned Cape Town 2010 as one of the major ecumenical events...

It turns out there’s a phrase for the reality of ‘crony capitalism’ in Hebrew: hon v’shilton, which is “literally translated as capital and government, an expression Israelis use to describe the rich’s influence on government.” Check out Bloomberg Businessweek for an overview of current controversy on Israel’s “business elite.” Of course business need not corrupt government. But the temptation for those with a concentration of economic power to turn that into political advantage in order to retain economic dominance is...

Inspired by Art Prize, I wrote a blog about culture, technology, and the universal desire munity. This appeared on Ethika Politika‘s blog today and an excerpt can be found below: Last week as I was wandering through Grand Rapids’ Art Prize (the world’s largest petition), I came across the very simple interactive piece that is pictured below. Confess is a large board where people can anonymously write their confessions. Everything from the dark, to deeply personal, to lighthearted, to witty...

World churches’ leader’s speech reaches to evangelical Christians By Munyaradzi Makoni Cape Town, 18 October (ENI)–The head of the World Council of Churches has reached out to a global gathering of Evangelicals saying Christians of different traditions need to learn from each other to participate together in God’s mission. “We are called to be one, to be reconciled, so that the world may believe that God reconciles the world to himself in Christ,” the WCC general secretary, the Rev. Olav...

The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, also known as Cape Town 2010, was reportedly the target of an cyber attack. The official statement from the congress says, “The puter network developed for sharing Congress content with the world promised for the first two days of the Congress.” “We have tracked malicious attacks by millions of external ing from several locations,” said Joseph Vijayam, IT Chair of The Lausanne Movement, sponsor of the gathering. “Added to this was a virus...