This is a really intriguing story about a munity beset by an unfriendly local tax environment, “Sand Lake civil war: Move to dissolve es down to taxes.” The village government of Sand Lake, Michigan, is threatened with dissolution. As you might expect, those facing the chopping block are crying foul. How’s this for overblown rhetoric? “This is domestic terrorism. It’s an attack on small town USA. I have a personal anger against these people. Their purpose is not the good...

I just finished writing a review of Robert H. Nelson’s book, The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America (Penn State University Press, 2010) that will appear later this year in Calvin Theological Journal. It is a good book. It is a timely book. There are flaws, but overall there is much to learn from Nelson’s analysis. I found a good summary passage that appears as a footnote on p. 171: The terms ecology and economics...

Time to set the record straight. Some of ments on my original posting of Faith McDonnell’s article Embracing the Tormentors are representative of the sort of egregious moral relativism, spin doctoring, and outright falsification, that have for so long characterized the “social justice” programs of lefty ecumenical groups like the WCC and NCC. Then, for good measure, let’s have some of menters toss in a dollop of hate for Israel and claim that this nation, which faces an existential threat...

Joseph Morris at Acton Lecture Series We’re posting the audio from Mr. Joseph Morris’ excellent May 6 Acton Lecture Series presentation, Alinsky for Dummies: His Persistent Influence and Its Meaning for American Society and Politics. As Lord Acton warned that power corrupts, Saul Alinsky — the father of modern munity organizing” — rejoiced that corruption empowers. Saul Alinsky As Morris pointed out, decades after Alinsky’s death his ideas and teaching continue to shape the American political and social landscape. Barack...

When in Krakow, Poland, for Acton’s recent conference, I was interviewed by journalist Dominik Jaskulski for the news organization Fronda. Dominik has kindly allowed us to publish excerpts from his translation of the interview. Father Sirico, tell us why your conference, organized with the Foundation PAFERE, is important for Poland. Today, many people in the world are in a situation of transition. If you do not respond well in such conditions, you may see a repeat episode where – as...

I’ve recently stumbled across the fantastic blog of Craig Carter, a professor at Tyndale University & Seminary in Toronto, and author of Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective. Take a moment to add it to your RSS reader of choice, and then go ahead and read his thorough critique of Jim Wallis’ hatchet job on the Tea Party movement. ...

Rev. Robert A. Sirico at Acton Lecture Series We’ve had a lot of requests recently for the audio of Rev. Sirico’s lecture on social justice. We’re posting a recording of his April 15 Acton Lecture Series presentation, “Does Social Justice Require Socialism?” In this talk, he addresses the increasing calls for government intervention in financial market regulation, health care, education reform, and economic stimulus in the name of “social justice.” Watch for more ALS audio on the blog in the...

More audio from this year’s Acton Lecture Series. In “Virtue and Liberty in the American Founding,” Dr. John Pinheiro examines the American Founders’ understanding of liberty as rooted in a classical and Christian understanding of virtue. His talk touched on the reasons why George Washington argued that public happiness could be attained without private morality and why John Adams wrote that, “[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I reviewed a new book by George H. Nash on the history of the American conservative movement: Reappraising the Right By Bruce Edward Walker In his 1950 work, “The Liberal Imagination,” Lionel Trilling famously stated that American liberalism was the one true political philosophy, claiming it as the nation’s “sole intellectual tradition.” Unknown to him, two young men — one toiling as a professor at Michigan State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) and the...

When I lived in Hawaii my family visited Punchbowl National Cemetery to see where my grandfather’s high school buddy was buried. He was killed in the Pacific Theatre in World War II. As a child I had two thoughts that day. It was taking a long time to find his grave simply because it was a sea of stones and I remember thinking at the time, I wonder if his family wanted him buried here, so far from home. Did...