Because of the crush of Acton University blogging activity, I’ll be posting mostly links today. Watch for a wrap up in the days ahead. Also, Jordan Ballor’s fine Acton Commentary “Unity or Unanimity at Reformed Council?” was published yesterday in the Detroit News under the headline “Ballor: Church activists shouldn’t adopt separation as doctrine.” Blogging AU: — Grzegorz (Greg) Lewicki explains what we mean by, “Get lost from my porch, or I’ll break your neck right now.” — Jackson Egan...

At Public Discourse, Acton’s Research Director Samuel Gregg examines why many European governments are so hesitant to engage in much needed but painful economic reforms – especially reforms that involve diminishing the size of expansive welfare states. The causes are many, but in “Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State,” Gregg zeroes in on a potentially damaging linkage between democratic systems of government and the growth of large welfare states that seek to provide economic security to ever increasing numbers...

This week’s Acton Commentary from Research Director Samuel Gregg. +++++++++ Europe: The Unjust Continent By Samuel Gregg In recent months, the European social model has been under the spotlight following Greece’s economic meltdown and the fumbling efforts of European politicians to prop up other tottering European economies. To an unprecedented extent, the post-war European model’s sustainability is being questioned. Even the New York Times has conceded something is fundamentally wrong with the model they and the American Left have been...

Acton University 2010 is underway. This year, 450 students and faculty from 55 countries are gathered in Grand Rapids for a deep dive into the “free and virtuous society.” Attendees this year include seminarians and college students — groups that have studied at Acton conferences for two decades now — but also presidents of colleges, corporate executives, Christian missionaries, entrepreneurs, physicians, lawyers, business leaders, retired people and a few high school students. Acton also es 44 Protestant seminary professors who...

This week’s Acton Commentary from Jordan Ballor: Unity or Unanimity at Reformed Council? By Jordan Ballor Global es to Grand Rapids, Mich., this weekend in the form of the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). Thousands of delegates, exhibitors, and volunteers will gather on the campus of Calvin College to mark the union of two Reformed ecumenical groups, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC). This new global ecumenical...

More great coverage of Acton University. Also check out our Flickr and Twitter (hashtag: #ActonU) feeds in the sidebar. — Carl Sanders, chair of Bible and Theology, at Washington Bible College/Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, Md., has posts up at Insomniac Memos and 100 Days, 100 Books: A Reader’s Journal. He reviews the foundational lectures: Our final afternoon session was a wide-ranging question section with the panel of presenters from the day. Unlike many such sections, I felt the questions...

I’ve long argued that school choice is the quintessential bipartisan cause, with boundless potential to transform American primary and secondary education. Yet, for various reasons (all of them bad), it has failed to live up to that potential—its significant successes in various places notwithstanding. One more anecdote to file away on this es from Rich Lowry at NRO: the travails of Eva Moskowitz in New York City. Favorite quote: It’s amazing what you can plish, she says, when you design...

Ryan T. Anderson, editor of Public Discourse, weighs in on BP’s blowout in the Gulf of Mexico: What we’re seeing is an animus directed toward modern technology and industry, an unmodulated suspicion of the private sector’s motives, an unexamined belief that markets have failed, all coupled with an uncritical (and nearly unthinking) faith that, in the final analysis, only government and extensive regulation will save us from ourselves and protect Mother Nature. But the history of environmental progress tells a...

Last week Acton research fellow Jonathan Witt treated the topic of Tolkien and the free society at the June “Acton on Tap.” I was reminded of this theme when I finished reading C. S. Lewis’ novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Ed. note: The lack of a serial, or so-called ma in that title bothers me.) to my son last night. There’s a beautiful passage towards the end that illustrates what Lewis thought good government looks like: These...

Lee Edwards calls William F. Buckley Jr. “The St. Paul of the conservative movement.” No other 20th century figure made such a vast contribution to the intellectual force of political conservatism. He paved the way for the likes of Ronald Reagan and all of those political children of Reagan who credit the former president for bringing them into politics. He achieved what no other had done and that was his ability to bring traditional conservatives, libertarians, and munists together under...