Note: This is the post #21 in a weekly series of explanatory posts on the officials and agencies included in the President’s Cabinet. See the series introductionhere. Cabinet position:U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Department: U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) at the State Department Current Ambassador:Nikki R. Haley Department Mission:“The U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) serves as the United States’ delegation to the United Nations. USUN is responsible for carrying out the nation’s participation in...

Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, recently published a review of Maurice Cowling’s 1963 book Mill and Liberalism,in which Cowling warnsof the tendency towards“moral totalitarianism”inJohn Stuart Mill’s “religion of liberalism.”Gregg acknowledges fifty-four years after Cowling’s warning, “significant pressures are now brought to bear on those whose views don’t fit the contemporary liberal consensus.” The book’s analysis “provides insights not only into liberal intolerancein our time but also into how to address it.” Mill was not the “secular...

James Hodgkinson opened fire on a group of congressmen after ascertaining they were Republicans. He wounded several people and was killed himself by Capitol police, who were present to protect House Whip Steve Scalise. Hodgkinson was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter and had a social media history indicated severe disdain of President Trump. The first thing to be said is that some people simply e unbalanced. There are problems of mental illness, drug imbalances, traumatic events and other catalysts for...

“When people work together,” says Dylan Pahman in this week’s Acton Commentary, “they are able to multiply the fruits of their labors far beyond what they could each do alone.” “Work,” wrote the Reformed theologian Lester DeKoster, “is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.” I like this definition because it puts things in a realistic, everyday perspective. Certainly, people can work just because they want a paycheck to spend on themselves alone. That might be greedy,...

The decision to protect private property from state control played a pivotal role in the ing beatification of a Catholic martyr. On June 25 in Vilnius, the Roman Catholic Church will beatify Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis. The ceremony will mark the first time the Vatican has recognized a Soviet-era martyr from Lithuania, and the first Lithuanian beatified in his native land, according to the local bishops’ conference. Archbishop Teofilius was born in 1873 in the village of Kadariškiai. He was ordained...

A new paper released this week by a pair of political scientists claims, as The New York Times reports, that, “pastors are even more politically divided than the congregants in their denomination.” As the abstract of the paper states: Pastors are important civic leaders within their churches munities. Several studies have demonstrated that the cues pastors send from the pulpit affect congregants’ political attitudes. However, we know little about pastors’ own political worldviews, which will shape the content and ideology...

The newly opened House of European History has a blind spot: It entirely omits the role that religion played in European history. According to a new essay from Arnold Huijgen at Religion & Liberty Transatlantic, when es to religion, the$61 million museum in Brussels, built by the European Parliament, is “an empty House.” Instead, the EU displaces the Divinein its exhibits. Walking through the structure the day it opened, he observed: [I]t is as if religion does not exist. In...

“The answer to the healthcare conundrum is not be found in Congress or in the White House, or in any draconian centre of usurped power,” says Joseph Pearce, “it is to be found on our own doorstep, in our own homes and in the homes of our neighbors.” Put simply, the principle of subsidiarity rests on the assumption that the rights of munities—e.g., families, neighbourhoods, private associations, small businesses —should not be violated by the intervention of munities—e.g., the state...

How are we to live in a fallen world under Christ the King? In partnership with the Acton Institute, Lexham Press has now released Pro Rege, Vol. 2: Living Under Christ the King, the second in a three-volume series on the lordship of Christ (find Volume 1 here). Originally written as a series of articles for readers ofDe Herault (The Herald), the work serves as plement to Kuyper’s three volumes on Common Grace, focusing on Christ’s claim that “All authority...

“Deadbeat Dads”—absent fathers who don’t provide financial support for their children—are one of the most significant factors contributing to child poverty in America. So why do some single women have children outside of marriage when they know they will receive little to no support from the child’s father? A 2014 study from the University of Georgia and Boston College attempts to answer that question. The authors created an economic model to simulate a scenario in which every absent father was...