Last Wednesday, Pope Francis spoke about his Apostolic Journey to Albania on September 21. He stated first why he wished to visit this country, highlighting the Albanians ability to peacefully co-exist in a nation with two strong religious factions. This visit was born of my desire to go to a country which, after long being oppressed by an atheist and inhuman regime, is living the experience of peaceful coexistence among the country’s different ponents. I felt it was important to...

Andy Crouch, Christian author, musician and former Acton University plenary speaker, reviews For the Life of the World, a new curriculum series produced by the Acton Institute. In the newest edition of Christianity Today, Crouch discusses how this series takes the Dutch Reformed theology of Abraham Kuyper and “pops” it in a whole new direction. The result, Crouch says, is inventive, profound and rewarding. With the intention of attempting to “articulate core concepts of oikonomia (stewardship), anamnesis (remembering), and prolepsis...

Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has created quite thestir, andwith its overwhelming size (700 pages) and corresponding array mentaries and critiques, it’s toughto know where to start. Cutting throughsuch noise, Russ Roberts provides his usual service on EconTalk,chatting one-on-one with Pikettyabout the key themes, strengths, and weaknesses of the book. The interview is just over an hour, and I encourage youto listen to the whole thing. Piketty lays out his argument quite concisely in the beginning,...

An estimated 10 million American households — about 8 percent of all households — are “unbanked” and one in five households — 24 million households with 51 million adults — are “underbanked.” These are households which don’t have accounts at banks and other mainstream financial institutions and use cash for most of their transactions. As a result, notes the FDIC, these “cash consumers pay excessive fees for basic financial services, are susceptible to high-cost predatory lenders, or have difficulties buying...

In the nineteenth century, fertility in Europe began to drop —and it never rose again. Of all the explanations given for the change (e.g., increase in birth control technology), there is one that is often overlooked: public pension systems. Does knowing you’ll get a social security check at 70 limit the number of children you have in your 30s? Most people would say it wouldn’t (or, at least, shouldn’t). But a new study finds that in the past there is...

The theme for this week’s Acton Commentary, “The Image of God and You,” struck me while I was rocking my baby son in the early morning hours. In the dim light he reached up and gently touched my face, and it occurred to me how parents are so prone to see the image of God in their children. And yet I wondered what it might be like for a child to look into the face of a parent. What would...

that would require homeschooled and public school students to undergo mandatory mental health assessments. The bill aims to “provide behavioral health assessments to children” and states the following: “That section 10-206 of the general statutes be amended to require (1) each pupil enrolled in public school at grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 and each home-schooled child at ages 12, 14 and 17 to have a confidential behavioral health assessment, the results of which shall be disclosed only to the...

In progressive ideology, liberal billionaires are like a cardigan-wearing Mr. Rogers, inviting the rest of the world to the Land of Make Believe for a cup of nonfat, organic, free-trade cocoa. On the other end of the spectrum reside the Koch brothers, twirling their respective mustaches as they push wheelchair-bound pensioners down flights of stairs. Such increasingly has been the narrative since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, a controversial (for progressives) ruling that launched activism to...

Details have been releasedsurrounding the launch of a new Bible museum on the National Mall in Washington D.C., a project founded and funded by David Green, president of arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby. Museum of the Biblewill open in 2017, displaying artifacts from theGreen Collection, “one of the world’s largest private collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts,” along with other antiquities,replicas, and various exhibits. “Washington, D.C., is the museum capital of the world,” says Green, “So, it’s only fitting that...

Stephen Grabill and Evan Koons recently joined John Stonestreet on BreakPoint todiscuss For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, the latest film series from the Acton Institute. You can listen to the full discussion here. The conversation covers a rangeof topics surrounding the series, but focuses mostlyon the central theme of life in exile: How oughtwe as Christians to think about our role in culture and society, and what does the series aim to uncoverwhen es to...