RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
February Acton Notes
A new Acton Notes is now available online. Acton Notes is a monthly newsletter published by the Acton Institute. This month’s issue features an article by Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, about Socialism. Rev. Sirico points out a couple of ways in which to confront those who mistakenly hold to the fashionable ideology. If a person identifies with the idea mon ownership of the means of production, point out that this is impossible because you hold no...
Question: Which blog is best?
Help Acton do well in the 2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards by submitting a vote or two for Acton. We’re nominated in the following categories (you may vote for Acton in each if you’d like or if you feel we deserve it): • Best Blog Design • Best Religion Blog • Best Charity Blog Voting for a blog does require registration, but it doesn’t take long to do. I’ll occasionally post reminders about this here so that those of you who...
Campaigning for state involvement in education
I came across a troubling essay in this month’s issue of Grand Rapids Family Magazine. In her “Taking Notes” column, Associate Publisher/Editor Carole Valade takes up the question of “family values” in the context of the primary campaign season. She writes, The most important “traditional values” and “family values” amount to one thing: a great education for our children. Education is called “the great equalizer”: It is imperative for our children to be able pete on a “global scale” for...
Global warming consensus alert: New, shocking data!
It’s been a while since we’ve had a GWCW update, so here are links to a couple of articles I just ran across at Watts Up With That: RSS Satellite data for Jan08: 2nd coldest January for the planet in 15 yearsArctic sea ice back to its previous level, bears safe; film at 11 That second post is especially interesting considering the breathless media reports about endangered polar bears in danger of drowning as the ice melts from under their...
Oh, what might have been!
From a review in the New Yorker magazine (HT) of David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215, in which the author clearly regrets that the Arabs did not go on to conquer the rest of Europe. The halting of their advance was instrumental, he writes, in creating “an economically retarded, balkanized, and fratricidal Europe that . . . made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, persecutory religious intolerance, cultural particularism, and perpetual war.” It...
RELIGION & LIBERTY
The Unintended Brilliance of Dead Poets Society
  As students return to school and our anticipation for fall colors grows, many of us are putting on classic movies that fit the autumn vibes. One of those perennial favorites is Dead Poets Society, a film that has been praised by a generation of students and teachers for its rebellious defense of the humanities. But as we approach its 35th...
Mar 24, 2026
The Practice of Prudence in Redgauntlet
  Several years ago, political science professor Greg Weiner surveyed our political landscape and asked, “What space is left for prudence?” It’s a good question: at a time marked by major political division, when neither political party can garner an enduring majority, and after a summer punctuated by two plots on a former president’s life, the ancient virtue of prudence seems...
Mar 24, 2026
The Justness of Exploding Pagers
  “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1949. He was right. Even though there is no provision in our Supreme Law saying so, it is inherent, if unstated, in every law. We cannot interpret the Constitution—or any law—in such a way that sows the seeds of its destruction. The Constitution exists to...
Mar 24, 2026
Your Spouse’s Wins Are Your Wins
  Your Spouse’s Wins Are Your Wins   By: Amanda Idleman   “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4   How many times have you read this verse in the context of marriage and just skipped on past the part about love does not envy? Envy isn’t something that...
Mar 24, 2026
Seek Shelter
  Thursday, October 3, 2024   Seek Shelter   God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. (Psalm 46:1 NLT)   Meteorologically speaking, “times of trouble” in the summer months usually involve thunderstorms or tornadoes. When the conditions are right, the National Weather Service issues a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning that encourages people to seek shelter.   Spiritually...
Mar 24, 2026
Wisdom Begins with Awe
  Wisdom Begins with Awe   By Whitney Hopler   Bible Reading   “Wisdom begins with the fear of the LORD, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” – Proverbs 1:7, CEB   Sitting in the sanctuary of the Washington National Cathedral, I enjoyed a powerful experience of sound and light. Majestic organ music reverberated off the cathedral’s stone walls so strongly that I could feel...
Mar 24, 2026
A Prayer for the Ones Who Dont Feel Great at Anything
  A Prayer for the Ones Who Don’t Feel Great at Anything   By Peyton Garland   Bible Reading   “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” - Psalm 23:6   Listen or Read Below   I masquerade embarrassing mediocrity that most might mistake for success. I can hide...
Mar 24, 2026
Trustworthy Capitalists
  Even among those who largely approve of the free market system, it is often assumed that there are some bleak trade-offs. In exchange for economic efficiency, we allow for the loss of particular industries (such as manufacturing) and the job loss that this incurs. But perhaps more pressing, many worry about the fracturing of our social fabric and the deterioration...
Mar 24, 2026
Against the Profanities of the Age
  The republication by Bloomsbury of the Irish philosopher and journalist Mark Dooley’s superb 2009 intellectual biography of Roger Scruton, Roger Scruton: The Philosopher on Dover Beach,should be warmly welcomed by all serious students and admirers of the late English philosopher and man of letters (the latter appellation was, Dooley tells us, Scruton’s preferred self-designation). The book was originally published at...
Mar 24, 2026
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