In 1973, a pair of Supreme Court rulings helped convince many evangelicals and Catholics to align as co-belligerents in the struggle against abortion. In 2012, an executive branch mandate is having a similar effect, this time bringing the groups together to defend religious liberties. A new level of cooperation occurred last week when Wheaton College, a leading evangelical liberal arts school, joined with The Catholic University of America in filing a federal lawsuit opposing the Health and Human Services “Preventative...

July 31st marks the 100th birthday of the economist Milton Friedman. Celebrations planned by proponents of free-markets will take place across the country to recognize and pay tribute to his legacy and the power of his ideas. I am speaking at an Americans for Prosperity event in town on the topic of school choice on his birthday. mentary this week is on school choice. Nobody has influenced and shaped the school choice movement more than Friedman. In my piece, I...

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 So what brought you to this blog today? What were you doing 10 minutes before you clicked on this link and started reading these words? Do you have a sense for why you were doing that task or thinking those thoughts? Most of the time we can’t answer questions like this with much clarity or definitiveness. Instead...

A Holland, Mich., teenager is being stopped from opening a hotdog cart due to city zoning laws. It’s really disheartening when you consider the fact that this young person was trying to be responsible and work to help his family and build up savings for his future. In Work: The Meaning of Your Life, Lester DeKoster writes that work is a way in which we provide service to others—a service this teenager has been denied the chance to provide. The...

Coptic icon of St. Anthony the Great and St. Paul of Thebes Earlier today, Dwight Gibson, Acton’s Director of Program Outreach, gave a presentation for the Acton Lecture Series on “The New Explorers.” While in the nineteenth century being an explorer was a vocation, the twentieth century saw a certain stagnation; geographically, at least, most of the exploring was finished. Furthermore, mon mindset was changed from the hope of what could be discovered, on all frontiers, to the idea that...

There are some misleading statistics that never die. Take, for example, the claim that “American women who work full-time, year-round are paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts.” For decades economists and pundits have explained why that figure, even if accurate, doesn’t tell us what we think it does (e.g, that woman are being discriminated against in the workforce). But many people are still confused by such claims, so it’s encouraging to hear Anna Broadway...

Last week, CBS Radio Philadelphia host Dom Giordano took to the airwaves to address President Obama’s “You didn’t get there on your own” speech. The speech, which garnered plenty of discussion at Acton and elsewhere, drew varied responses from Giordano’s radio audience. Among those responses were several callers who mended Rev. Sirico’s latest book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, as a useful corrective to the President’s speech. This prompted Giordano to read the book...

Last month, a Christianity Today editorial noted some of the intellectual foundations for ecumenical efforts in the public square, particularly relevant to evangelical and Roman Catholic cooperation against the HHS mandates. The editorial focuses on Chuck Colson, and says “you can credit Colson, who died on April 21, for a major part of evangelicals’ reduced anxiety about relations with Roman Catholics.” The editorial goes on to describe how Colson’s ecumenism and broader theological foundations were inspired by “key evangelical theologians,”...

Hugh Whelchel and Anne Rathbone Bradley explain why removing the work requirements to welfare undermines both human dignity and the nature of work: From a Judeo-Christian perspective, we see that people are designed to work. In the Book of Genesis we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15). Wheaton College professor Leland ments on this verse: “Here human work is shown to...

Over at the Christian Post, Napp Nazworth does a good job summarizing some of the political jockeying that has been going on ahead of and now in the midst of the release of the latest Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises.” He includes the following tidbit: Chuck Dixon, ic book writer who created Bane in the 1990’s, did not like the idea paring his villainous creation to Romney. Calling himself a “staunch conservative,” Dixon said that Bane is more of...