India has a huge and still-growing medical tourism industry. A $2 billion part of this industry is the surrogacy business. India has few laws regulating surrogacy, and it is a popular place for people from the U.S. and the EU to head to for a baby. But the lack of regulations also means very little help, support and care for the women producing these children. The women literally e cogs in a giant machine. If one cog breaks, it’s simply...

Did you watch the U.S. v. Portugal game last night? Did you cheer for the amazing play of American keeper Tim Howard? Did you howl in disbelief at the last minute goal by Portugal? Even if you’re not a soccer fan, it’s hard not to get swept up in the fun and rivalry of the world’s biggest soccer extravaganza. Unless you’re a victim of human trafficking. Every large sporting event in the world has e a red-light district. Where there...

[Part 1 is here]. In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the ring leader of a little band of first-century Jewish rebels asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” He’s sure the answer is absolutely nothing, but one of the rebels meekly pipes up with “The Aqueduct.” A moment later another rebel squeaks, “And the sanitation.” Then another, “The Roads.” The ringleader grudgingly grants all of this and then tries to wrench the meeting back on track. “But apart...

In the first episode of For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, Evan Koons discovers a new approach to Christian cultural engagement. Revolving around “God’s economy of all things,” he proceeds to explore six key areas of human engagement, one in each episode, including the economies of love, creative service, order, wisdom, and wonder, and, finally, through the church herself — an organism and institution that runs before and beyond all else. But it’s no wonder that...

Acton president and co-founder, Rev. Robert Sirico was recently interviewed for Beliefnet by John W Kennedy, who writes about “the crossroads of faith, media, and culture.” They discussed a variety of issues, including the Church’s views on economics, the media portrayal as business as inherently evil, the ments about economics, PovertyCure and more. See a portion of their discussion below: John W Kennedy: In your view, how can government — and religion — help create an atmosphere in which free...

A nation-wide sweep last week by the FBI netted the arrest of almost 300 human traffickers and rescued 168 underage trafficking victims. “Operation Cross Country” was carried out in 106 cities across the U.S., the 8th such sting of its kind by the FBI. Since the beginning of this operation, over 3,600 children have been rescued. These are not children living in some faraway place, far from everyday life,” FBI Director James Comey said in a press conference Monday. “These...

One of the best books I’ve ever read on American history is Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer. I’ve always been an admirer of the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by German American artist Emanuel Leutze. The painting of course has been criticized mentators for its inaccuracy. Fischer notes in the first chapter of his book: American iconoclasts made the painting a favorite target. Post-modernists studied it with a skeptical eye and asked, “Is this the way that American history...

Christian’s Library Press has released Integrated Justice and Equality: Biblical Wisdom for Those Who Do Good Works by John Addison Teevan, a book that seeks to challenge popular notions of “social justice” and establish a new framework around what Teevan calls “biblically integrated justice.” The term “social justice” has been used to promote a variety of policies and proposals, most of which fall within a particularly progressive economic ideology and theological perspective. Educated in economics, theology, and intercultural studies, and...

When most people think of Starbucks they think of overpriced coffee, free wifi, and omnipresence. Starbucks are everywhere. pany was founded in 1971 and since 1987 they’ve opened an average of two new stores every day. In the U.S. alone there are 12,973 locations. When most people think of “big business”, though, they don’t often think of the Seattle-based pany. But they should. Starbucks has 151,000 fulltime employees, $15 billion in annual revenues, and three times as many locations as...

Part 1 is here.] An economically free society doesn’t have to be hyper-utilitarian, materialistic and banal; and yet, here we are, living in a capitalist age marked by these very features. Some social conservatives who see capitalism as one of the main culprits argue that we should turn away from both socialism and greedy capitalism, toward a more humanitarian munity-based approach, toward a small-is-beautiful aesthetic of farmer’s markets, widespread property ownership, social responsibility and local, collective enterprise, a political and...