I have been duped. I thought, along with my husband, that we were doing a good thing by raising our children in a household that valued traditional marriage and saw our children as gifts from God. I chose, for more than a decade, to work at home raising our children because I could not imagine a more important job during their formative years. According to Laurie Shrage, I’m quite mistaken. Wives who perform unpaid caregiving and place their economic security...

In 1977 a pro-life Jesse pared the pro-choice position to the case for slavery in the antebellum South: There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view. I believe that life is not private, but rather it is public and universal. If one accepts the position that life is private, and therefore you have the right to do with it as you please, one...

Christian’s Library Press and Acton Institute announce the release of the first English translation of The Christian Family by Herman Bavinck. When this book was first published in Dutch, marriage and the family were already weathering enormous changes, and that trend has not abated. Yet by God’s power the unchanging essence of marriage and the family remains proof, as Bavinck notes, that God’s “purpose with the human race has not yet been achieved.” Accessible, thoroughly biblical, and astonishingly relevant, The...

Whether the Republicans cry “fraud” or the Democrats scream “disenfranchised” we can be certain of one thing after the polls close: the President of the United States won’t be elected today. Even if there are no hanging chads or last minute court appeals, the election of the President won’t be made until December 13. That is, after all, the way the Founding Fathers designed the system to work. Confused? Then it’s probably time for a brief refresher on the Electoral...

Today is November 6th, and we’re supposedly going to elect a new President of the United State of America by the time Charles Krauthammer goes to bed early tomorrow morning. But for those of us who can’t help but think “big picture” every second of every day, what does November 7th look like – regardless of who wins? What about November 8th? How about a year from now? Anyone who values liberty, limited government, and the free enterprise system knows...

In an essay for Big Questions Online, a site that examines questions of human purpose and ultimate reality, Rev. Robert Sirico considers whether morality is intrinsic to the free market: Is a hammer intrinsically moral? Your reply would most immediately be: “It depends on what it was used for. If employed to bash in the heads of people you do not like, the answer is no. If employed to help build a house for a homeless people, your answer might...

As a part of our evangelical outreach at Acton, we missioned four primers from different evangelical traditions on the intersection of faith, work, and economics. The books will be written from the Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Reformed traditions and will be released throughout ing year. The first book released is the Baptist primer written by Chad Brand. Chad is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY as well as the associate dean of Boyce...

A prayer “For the Nation,” from the BCP: Lord God Almighty, who hast made all the peoples of the earth for thy glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with thy gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever....

Over at Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg has an analysis of a recent, and little noticed, article that Pope Benedict XVI published on, among other things, “the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.” Gregg writes: This message isn’t likely to be well-received among those who think religious pluralism is somehow an end in itself. Their fort, however, doesn’t lessen the force of Benedict’s point. The context of Benedict’s remarks was the 50th anniversary of Vatican II’s opening....

There is an utter disconnect between what I hear other people – mostly in the media – say about evangelical conservatives, and what I’ve experienced living in and among them for nearly three decades on this planet. I hear how intolerant and close-minded this group supposedly is, and I sit and absorb such attacks with a blank look on my face. They bear no resemblance to the environment I was reared in. The people who instilled in me the values...