A recent Time magazine feature, which highlights “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now,” has been making the rounds on the theological ‘nets. Coming in at #3 is “The New Calvinism,” which author David Van Biema describes as “Evangelicalism’s latest success plete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and bination’s logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time’s dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.”...

A recent article by the John Locke Foundation’s Michael Moore (no, not the filmmaker) does a good job of outlining the calling of entrepreneurs. He makes a very positive mention of Acton, Fr. Sirico, and The Call of the Entrepreneur. The full article can be read here. Here’s an excerpt: If you ask someone on the street today what they think is a humble and worthwhile profession, they might say a doctor, teacher, missionary, fireman, munity organizer. Now those are...

Edmund Burke: "...in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all."In today’s Acton Commentary, “The State of the Fourth Estate,” I argue that the profession of journalism must be separable from traditional print media. My alma mater’s flagship student publication, The State News, where I broke into the ranks of op-ed columnists, celebrated its centennial anniversary earlier this month. The economics of news media increasingly make it seem as if the few kinds...

Back in September I posted an announcement about a new book that contributed in interesting ways to our understanding of patent/intellectual property issues. Now Julio Cole’s full review of the book in the Independent Review is available online. An excerpt: Should we really be surprised that the patent system’s internal dynamics have finally brought us to the point at which the potential profits of patenting have, for most industries, been entirely gobbled up by lawyers’ fees? Isn’t that e what...

It’s not quite gotten to the point of robbing Peter to pay Paul, at least not yet, but following the spate of foreclosures on residential mercial properties, you can expect another rash of foreclosures on church buildings across the country. There are a number of factors that will contribute to this phenomenon. In no particular order: In many churches the same people who overbought McMansions run the church’s finances. They wanted to be fortable at church as they are (or...

Last week I wrote that “The ethical standards connected with journalism as a profession have arisen out of centuries-long practice and reflection,” and that “To abandon these standards in the rush to new media would impoverish public discourse to the detriment of us all.” (I develop some related points at length in an panying blog post). I also asserted that “Professional journalism must be present for a free society to flourish, and it is in the pursuit of this calling...

Last night I was reading Thoughts of A Philosophical Fighter Pilot by Jim Stockdale (1923-2005). The book is a collection of Stockdale’s speeches and essays over the years. So much of his well thought out writings are words to live by and definitely worth sharing. Here is a timely quote from an essay titled “On Public Virtue” written in 1988: Those who study the rise and fall of civilizations learn that no ing has been surely fatal to republics as...

In response to the question, “What form will journalism take in the age of new media?”, a quick thought, speculative and devoid of adequate substantiation. I’ve heard a lot of worrying about what will take the place of newspapers and news magazines as their decline continues. My worrying runs in a different direction. I plete faith that what the market demands the market will supply. I don’t pretend to know exactly what form it will take, but I’m confident that...

In response to the question, “What form will journalism take in the age of new media?” I came across this Reuters story highlighting a proposal to allow newspapers to file for nonprofit status. The legislation was put forward by Maryland Senator Benjamin Cardin, (D-Md.) and he suggests the nonprofit action could be a possible solution for munity minded newspapers. I’ll let somebody with more expertise regarding print journalism take a crack at the deeper consequences of such an action, but...

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, W. Bradford Wilcox looks at the “boost” that President Obama will give secularism through his rapid expansion of government. An Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia and a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University, Wilcox is also a 1994 graduate of the Acton Institute’s Toward a Free and Virtuous Society program. Excerpt: … the president’s audacious plans for the expansion of the government — from the stimulus...