In this week’s Acton Commentary titled “Pascal’s Blunder: Miscalculating the Threat of Global Warming”, Jordan Ballor writes on the growing voice of evangelical Christians speaking out about global warming. Ballor responds to a recent article in Christanity Today by Andy Crouch, pares the current debate about global warming to Pascal’s wager, stating that we gain nothing if global warming turns out to pletely natural and beyond human control, but that we gain everything if we can control it. Ballor points...

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has produced a “Kidz Rap,” designed to alert children to the dangers of disasters and the function of FEMA. For example, did you know that “mitigation is important to our agency”? Also, “When disaster strikes, we are at our best / But we’re ready all the time, ’cause disasters don’t rest.” Click here to listen to the “rap”. No word yet on what role the FEMA rap played in informing Deamonte Love of how...

With the prevalence of moral relativism in the western world, science tends to forge ahead, regardless of opposition from traditional ethics, into whatever realms it deems necessary for the “advancement” of mankind. To counterbalance the extremity of the munity, especially in regard to the genetic engineering of hybrid species, I would like to offer up the thoughts of an historian from 2000 years ago regarding the mixing of species. His e from the long oral and written traditions passed down...

The House is likely to vote this week on an aid package that will provide nearly $52 billion during the next month or so on housing, clothing and other recovery needs for Hurricane Katrina victims. In the Senate, however, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana threatened to delay passing the bill for more money. Republicans said that any attempt to amend the bill could delay getting the measure to President Bush for his signature before last week’s $10.5 billion disbursement...

It’s one thing to have a great government policy put in place with intention of seeking justice. It’s quite another to continue to promote policies whose unintended consequences hurt the most vulnerable populations. Even though Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves, the lack of a reliable infrastructure, sabotage, and government-imposed price controls (oil is $.05 a gallon, a holdover from the Saddam Hussein regime) make gas for law-abiding citizens hard e by. These price controls result in forced...

Andy Crouch was kind enough to respond to my article on climate change (which itself was penned in reply to Crouch’s original piece), and I’ve included a response of my own. His words are in the large blocks of italics below: While I’m disappointed that you don’t even try to engage the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, by far the most extensive and diligent effort I’m aware of to evaluate the science of global warming, In my...

Check out this piece by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, an Acton senior fellow, in which she argues “that marriage is the cornerstone of civil society. And the images of Katrina demonstrate this, if we are willing to see.” ...

The Acton Institute’s Catholic High School Honor Roll has released its annual list of the Top 50 Catholic High Schools in the United States. About half are repeat winners and half are new honorees. See the Honor Roll web site for more information. ...

Check out this editorial from the current issue of Christianity Today, “Neighbor Love Inc.” The editorial focuses on the importance of work and labor in the Christian life: “Business for the Christian is a form of neighbor-love, a way to fulfill the second Great Commandment.” The entrepreneurial calling is one that should be affirmed within a biblical framework by Christian leaders. CT recognizes that “the church has spent enormous energies on guiding our sexuality, but done little at the congregational...

Samuel Gregg writes on a recent BBC Radio listeners poll that ranked Karl Marx as the greatest philosopher in history. Gregg reflects on the evils and atrocities that mitted by the political heirs of Marx’ philosophy menting that the materialist view of Communism removes any possibility of fulfilling the two mandments; loving God and loving our neighbors. Above all, Gregg wonders how people have forgotten what Marx stands for: “Why is Marxism’s red flag not treated with the same contempt...

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Brendon Miniter notes that many of those stranded in New Orleans after the levee breaches were literally caught in a trap set by government “assistance”: We still only have anecdotal evidence to go on, and we can be hopeful as the death toll remains far below the thousands originally predicted. But it’s reasonable to surmise that Sen. Kennedy is correct about those who wanted to leave: Most people who could arrange for their own transportation...

Psychiatrist and author Theodore Dalrymple has published a brilliant essay in the National Review highlighting the importance of the rule of law. He takes as a case study the looting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: “New Orleans shows us in the starkest possible way the reality of the thin blue line that protects us from barbarism and mob rule,” writes Dalrymple. The essay questions whether such barbarism is inherent in human nature in crisis or if there are elements...