One of my dreams is to meet the person responsible for introducing the charge to young adults to “go out there and make a difference.” Youth and young adults are pressured and challenged to go “make a difference” but making a difference has never been clearly defined or quantified anywhere. For a few years now I have refused to tell my students to “go change the world” or “go make a difference.” Do those phrases really mean anything? In light...

Today at Red River Orthodox, I offer a brief introduction to the liberal tradition for Orthodox Christians living in the West: Liberalism, historically, is a broad intellectual tradition including a large and disparate group of thinkers. The epistemological differences between John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant do not stop them all from being liberals. In economics the range extends from Friedrich Hayek to John Maynard Keynes. In political philosophy, from John Rawls to Robert Nozick. For that matter, both...

In this edition of Radio Free Acton, Paul Edwards joins our crew to host a discussion of the crisis in the Ukraine, with perspective provided by Acton Director of Research Samuel Gregg, Director of Communications John Couretas, and with an insider’s perspective of current events from an evangelical Christian currently residing near Kiev. (Our friend from Kiev remains anonymous in order to ensure his safety and security.) Paul and his guests discuss the geopolitical context of the crisis, the different...

This weekend on Ancient Faith Radio, host Kevin Allen interviewed Metropolitan Antony, primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the United States about the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine. The bishop offered very good insights into the religious, cultural and political factors at play now in the Ukraine, carefully pointing out that the situation is very fluid and subject to change almost by the hour. Allen asked the bishop what role the Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches should play in this...

“The definition of a good job, the meaning of work,” says Mike Rowe, Acton’s favorite blue-collar philosopher of work, “[is] the willingness to see what a lot of people might call a bad job and only see an opportunity.” Rowe said jobs have been available since 2003, but Americans aren’t defining them as “good.” Meanwhile, employers are desperate for people willing to learn a “useful skill” and workhard.In a TED talk in 2008, Rowe also talkedabout the nature of hard...

Speaking on February 14 at a Chicago event celebrating George Washington’s Birthday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s headline remark was his insistence that Chicago-style pizza is “not pizza.” But Scalia focused heavily on the abysmal state of civic education, which not surprisingly, includes law students as well. Over at the Liberty Law Blog, Josh Blackman, offers some excellent highlights of Scalia’s words from the event. On the relationship between religion and good government, Scalia declared: Let me make clear...

In 2012, Dr. Ben Carson, former head of pediatric surgery at John Hopkins Hospital, rose to media attention at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. During that speech, he told the audience, including President and Mrs. Obama, that he didn’t mean to offend anyone, but he wasn’t going to be “politically correct,” either. Since then, Dr. Carson has been a regular contributor to The Daily Caller. He recently spoke in Sikeston, Missouri, and gave his prescription for what ails...

People face tradeoffs. To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like. That principle is one of the most basic in economics — and yet the most frequently ignored when es to public policy. A prime example is the tradeoff that is required on two frequently debated political issues: immigration reform and minimum wage laws. Many of the same people who support increasing the minimum wage also support increased immigration and...

Eric Prince, founder and former CEO of Blackwater Inc., speaks at the Acton Institute On Tuesday night, the Acton Institute ed Erik Prince to the Mark Murray Auditorium in the Acton Building in Grand Rapids, Michgan. Prince, a west Michigan native, is the founder and former CEO of Blackwater, Inc., the private security firm that became the subject of a great deal of controversy during the Iraq War, and remains so to this day. Prince’s address shared the title of...

is reporting that, beginning April 1, specially trained teams will be working in UK airports to help stem the tide of human trafficking victims. The British government says it want to make sure that “there is ‘no easy route into the UK for traffickers.'” Home Office minister Karen Bradley said Border Force officers could be the ‘first authority figure in the UK to have contact with a potential victim of modern slavery.’ ‘Their role is vital in identifying and protecting...