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It’s not even close to the end of summer but we’re already promoting Acton University 2009! Acton Media has just released a video short promoting Acton University – take a look and see if it looks interesting to you. Acton University is a truly eye-opening experience filled with lectures and discussions with experienced and knowledgeable experts on economics, religion, and beyond. Find out more about Acton University by visiting the ActonU Website. No materials have been published on Acton University...

Michigan Science, No. 7, Spring 2008

The newest issue of Michigan Science has been posted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. I especially enjoyed reading Deneen Borelli’s piece on the failed “cap and trade” legislation titled, “Just the Facts.” Borelli looks at what cap-and-trade legislation would mean for Michigan consumers and businesses. She and I both noted in articles the hardest hit would be households with lower e. It seems like an obvious point, but it is still amazing that many policy makers and religious...

Right Online Austin: Samsphere Session

The Sam Adams Alliance hosted a session titled “Samsphere” here in Austin, Texas at the Defending the American Dream conference. After a brief biography of American Founder Samuel Adams, discussions turned to improving networking and message organization for individuals and mitted to freedom and political liberty. In a nutshell, the purpose of Samsphere is to network pre-existing bloggers together into single or shared networks. The Sam Adams Alliance also spent much of their discussion focusing on the importance of strengthening...

Bureaucracy, not the Church, blocks Italian academic research

In the July 14-15 Italian edition article of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Luca M. Possati examines the crisis of the Italian university system. Where most secular intellectuals blame the Church for its suppression of “academic freedom,” it turns out the real culprit is the vast education and research bureaucracy propagated by the national government. Possati notes how the different governments have tried to reform public administration in different sectors, but have failed miserably, only creating more public debt, inefficiency,...

The Effective Stewardship Curriculum

Here’s another new production from Acton Media – The Effective Stewardship Curriculum. The Effective Stewardship Curriculum is a series of five video lessons, geared toward church small groups or other faith-based educational settings exploring how Christians live out the call to be stewards of our talents, the environment, our fellow man, institutions, and our finances. Expect the curriculum to be available for sale at the end of this summer. A study guide will also be available to help stimulate discussions...

Defending the American Dream

The PowerBlog is well-represented this weekend at the Defending the American Dream Summit in Austin, Texas. Ray Nothstine and I have made the trek to Texas to engage and learn from a variety of organizations seeking to bring the power of new media to bear on the conservative movement. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation and RightOnline are the major sponsors of the Texas summit, which features keynote addresses from Barry Goldwater Jr. and Robert Novak, as well as talks by...

Compassion for the poor?

Denver’s homeless may get free tickets to see a movie or go to the zoo next month while the Democratic National Convention is in town next month, according to the Rocky Mountain News. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to get 500 movie tickets and passes for places such as the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for the homeless that they work with. This plan obviously raises many questions, one of these being: how...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

Faith, Freedom, and September 11

How many times in the past months have we been struck by the expansive scope and seemingly endless depth of evil? In the midst of something so heinous, so diabolical, can the hand of the One whose finger is said to write straight with crooked lines be detected? As the stories of the orphans and their grief are told and retold, whether in our national media or in our kitchens, there is lurking in each telling and retelling the...

Apr 7, 2026

The Roots of Law

Some may consider a discussion about the roots of law needless. Don't we already know the roots of law? If I were to poll Christians, asking, “Where do we find the roots of law?,” no doubt the overwhelming majority would reply, “in the Bible—in the law of God.” And I agree that the roots of law are more perfectly presented in the Word of God than in any other book. But knowing this is not enough. Not in the...

Apr 7, 2026

Biography: Karol Wojtyla

“Freedom is offered to man and given to him as a task. He must not only possess it but also conquer it. He must recognize the work of his life in a good use, in an increasingly good use of his liberty. This is the truly essential, the fundamental work, on which the value and the sense of his whole life depend.” When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla pronounced these words during the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976, he articulated...

Apr 7, 2026

To Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts

Lord Acton, the great historian of freedom, understood that “liberty is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization.” The liberty of which he spoke embraced a broad scope of human freedom, including dimensions political, intellectual, economic, and, especially, religious. The civilization of which he spoke was the West, whose heritage of Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christian faith indelibly marked it and inexorably pushed it toward the full panoply of liberties we enjoy today and to which the rest...

Apr 7, 2026

The Delusion of Darwinian Natural Law

In a short, inconspicuous paragraph in the conclusion to the first edition of On the Origin of Species, Darwin speculates that “in the distant future … psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.“ One hundred and forty years later, Darwin's eerie prediction about the revolutionary effect of his work on human beings' self-understanding seems all too prophetic. After a century of dissemination, the once-novel theory...

Apr 7, 2026

Enjoying and Making Use of a Responsible Freedom

Apr 7, 2026

The Moral Dimensions of Monetary Policy

Before the turn of this century, an entire generation of preachers and ministers concluded that a moral monetary policy was an easy-money policy. “Give the people more money and credit,” was the cry of the populist ministers. “Down with gold, up with silver.” They mistakenly believed that the Treasury's printing press was the key to earthly salvation. Even as late as the 1940s, this ideology is evident in film. As much as I love the Christmas classic, It's a...

Apr 7, 2026

Economics and Theology: A Wondrous Exchange

Attempts to write of one's own vocation often fall flat. A priest whom I know remarked recently on the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination, “The Lord could have chosen much better, he could have chosen much worse. He chose me.” That is every vocation in sum, and saying anything more often means just multiplying words. Every “vocation story” is an account of God whispering in an individual soul and, as such, it remains somehow inaccessible to others to...

Apr 7, 2026

Solidarity: The Fundamental Social Virtue

Families are bound together in love and solidarity. Every individual family is called to be a rich expression of that love and solidarity and a witness of the same to the world. Furthermore, the human person participates in the broader human family by his own nature. Our humanity is shared, and our reality as persons immediately and irrevocably links us to the rest of the munity. Yet, for participation to be most meaningful, it must be consciously practiced and...

Apr 7, 2026

Reading Centesimus Annus

Grasping the authentic significance of Centesimus Annus requires two approaches. First, one must read the encyclical on its own merits, independently of previous papal teaching. As objectively as possible, one can exegete its various passages to discern its thrust and priorities. Then one must read the document in the context of previous social pronouncements by the magisterium over the past one hundred years and see what new themes, developments, and directions the present encyclical initiates. When read for its...

Apr 7, 2026