David L. Bahnsen, a good friend of Acton, has begun a series of reviews of books on the financial crisis. No doubt, he’ll have many to review in the months ahead. Here’s from Bahnsen’s latest, a review of Greenspan’s Bubbles by William Fleckinstein: When someone in the position of authority and reputation as the chief central banker of the world decides to preach the new paradigm of eternal productivity, he encourages others to join particular sides of trades that may...

Last week Rick Warren’s church hosted the fourth Saddleback Civil Forum. This time the forum focused on reconciliation, particularly on the roles of the church and the government in promoting and fostering reconciliation after crime and conflict. The forum included special guests Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, and Miroslav Volf, a prominent theologian and native of Croatia. One of the things that typically happens in the course of tyranny and genocide is that the church’s social witness is either...

We e a new contributor to the Acton Commentary crew: Dr. Dwight R. Lee, the William J. O’Neil Endowed Chair in Global Markets and Freedom at Southern Methodist University. In this mentary, Lee discusses how the social objectives of clergy and economists are remarkably similar, even though their “windows on the world” suggest different approaches to achieving the shared aim of building a better, more humane society. This mentary is adapted from an article to be published in the Journal...

Not exactly unheralded—he did get obits in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal—but deserving more attention is the passing of Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner and catalyst for the Green Revolution that transformed developing world agriculture. As the headline to Gregg Easterbrook’s outstanding piece in the WSJ put it, he was “the man who defused the ‘population bomb.'” Yet, Easterbrook writes, “though streets and buildings are named for Norman Borlaug throughout the developing world, most Americans...

Several writers have exposed the alarming decay of important military history programs on college campuses. Two great articles worthy of mention are John J. Miller’s “Sounding Taps” and Justin Ewers “Why Don’t More Colleges Teach Military History?” David J. Koon at The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy has contributed an important piece titled “Retreat, But No Surrender for Military History,” which takes the view that military history might be poised for eback. Koon explains: Just as surrender...

Today is Constitution Day in the United States. It seems appropriate to remember especially this day the 10th Amendment to the Constitution: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. What a wonderful expression of federalism, ponent feature of which is the concept of subsidiarity, or rather, coordinated and variegated sovereignty. Lord Acton said that federalism “is the best curb...

If it doesn’t faze you that Uncle Sam badly mishandled the stimulus porkanazaCongress would have directed bazillions to a surreally corrupt Acorn but for these two young heroesMichael Moore’s Sicko is WackoCanadians will no longer have a free market healthcare system to flee toGovernment-run health care will look and smell and feel like the Department of Motor Vehicles … with sharp needles and bedpansIf none of this has convinced you that a government-run healthcare system is a bad idea, then...

From a report in today’s Washington Times: … brace yourselves for a deluge of nuisance taxes, sin taxes and “fees,” limited only by the imagination of revenue-starved governors, mayors and legislators. Raising fees and nuisance taxes amounts to nothing more than “tax adventurism,” said Jonathan Williams of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonpartisan organization of state legislators. Governors and legislators “often raise taxes and increase fees during tough budget times before resorting to hiking broad-based e and sales taxes,”...

In a column in this past Saturday’s religion section, Charles Honey reflects on the second great mandment in the context of the national health care debate. Honey’s piece starts out on a very strong note, detailing the perspective of Dr. John Vander Kolk, director of a local non-profit initiative focused on the uninsured: “Where would we see Jesus in our culture?” asks the member of Ada Bible Church. “He would be down there with his sleeves rolled up, helping the...

Rev. Robert Sirico delivered a sermon titled “Whistling Past the Graveyard” at Mars Hill mega-church in Grand Rapids, Mich on September 20. You can listen to his sermon in its entirety by clicking on the sermon title above. Mars Hill was founded by Rob Bell in 1999. Rev. Sirico addressed Christology, mortality, atonement theology, and the problem of evil. In his remarks Rev. Sirico declared: And the vision of that hill, there on Golgotha’s bloody mount, is the answer to...