In this week’s Acton Commentary, I examine recent events surrounding the conflict amongst evangelicals over global warming political activism. In “Evangelical Environmentalism’s Moral Imperative,” pare the shape of the argument to the debate over the last decade on the topic of poverty. In the same way that conservatives were accused of not caring for the poor because they opposed an expansive welfare state, critics of climate change politics are being portrayed as not caring for the environment. To the extent...

Speaking of a “red-letter hermeneutic,” for which I criticize Vince Isner of the National Council of Churches, Tony Campolo says that the new group of evangelical activists, who “transcend” partisan politics, has decided to go by the name of “Red-Letter Christians.” “By calling ourselves Red-Letter Christians, we are alluding to the fact that in several versions of the Bible, the words of Jesus are printed in red. In adopting this name we are saying that we mitted to living out...

As promised I saw ‘300’ on Saturday night. The IMAX was sold out, so I saw it in “digital cinema presentation,” which was of noticeably higher quality than a regular showing. I really liked the film (Anthony Bradley gives it a ‘B’). The visuals are quite striking and impressive. The action sequences alone are well worth the price of admission. Gerard Butler gives a powerful performance as King Leonidas, and his wife, Queen Gorgo (played by Lena Headey), does more...

Check out the links from this piece by Joe Knippenberg at No Left Turns, which make the case that “small-scale support for private slum schools—through scholarship programs, backing for school-voucher schemes, or subsidized microfinance—might do far more good than a big aid push directed at government-run education.” Combine that with the insights from this recent NBER paper, “The Effects of Education on Health,” which examines the “well known, large, and persistent association between education and health,” and you could reach...

The Acton Institute won first place in the Free Market Solutions to Poverty category in the 2007 Templeton Freedom petition. The award, managed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recognized Acton for its use of the “power of the popular media to mon beliefs about how to alleviate poverty.” Using the tagline, “Don’t Just Care, Think!,” the Acton project used documentaries, short films, public service announcements, print ads, and other educational materials to make the case that good intentions alone...

Some of Michigan’s economic woes are pretty well outlined in an editorial in today’s OpinionJournal, “MoveOnOutofMichigan.org”. It begins by noting a symbolically important defection: Comerica Inc. was founded in 1849 in Detroit and the Detroit Tigers play in Comerica Park, but this week the bank pany announced it is moving its headquarters to Dallas–where, it said, the bigger growth opportunities are. Consider it one more vote of confidence in the state the national expansion forgot, and especially in Michigan Governor...

I’m planning on going to see the film ‘300’ tomorrow, in all its IMAX glory. This despite Scott Holleran’s quite critical review that calls the film “history hijacked by horror,” and says that “The script is filled with words—tyranny, freedom, reason—that pletely unsupported and have no meaning. The Spartans, portrayed as snarling animals seeking hostility for its own sake, claim superiority over mysticism, but cartoonish mystics inflict real damage, thereby negating the power of reason over faith.” He also can’t...

It has mon for politicians to cite God in promoting their programs and views. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has recently joined this growing list by invoking God’s name in promoting a new Illinois health care program. This proposal is a tax-increase-for-health-insurance plan that the governor promoted last week as something “God intended” for the people of this great state since God does not want people without health insurance. He even says his new tax increase is a “moral imperative.” That...

John Henry Newman called him “by far the greatest thinker America has ever produced,” but I venture to say very few Americans have ever heard of Orestes Brownson. (Acton devotees, of course, are unusually well informed and have seen him featured among our “Liberal Tradition” biographies.) Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., recently deceased, wrote a biography of Brownson some seventy years ago, but there had been little interest in the nineteenth-century Catholic convert from transcendentalism since then—until recently. The unmistakable signs of...

The title of this post is not intended to imply anything by way parison between Smith and the American gentlemen. It is only to report that the United Kingdom has launched a new 20£ note sporting the visage of the Father of Economics. Peter Heslam spins the news to good effect in a ment on Smith’s moral sensibility. To investigate that issue more thoroughly, see James Halteman’s 2003 article in the Journal of Markets & Morality. ...