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Chaplains Concerned About Supreme Court’s DOMA Ruling

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, an organization of chaplain endorsers representing more than 2,000 current chaplains actively serving the armed forces, is concerned about the Supreme Court’s decision today to strike down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Chaplain Alliance calls on Congress to pass enhanced religious liberty protections for all military personnel. “The court’s unfortunate decision to strike down the federal definition of marriage highlights the need for the religious liberty protections recently passed...

Report: ‘A Clamp-Down on Religious Liberty’

From a June 22 CNA/EWTN news article on the 2013 National Religious Freedom Conference in Washington, sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s American Religious Freedom Program. The Very Reverend Dr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, echoed the Rabbi Cohen’s statements, telling CNA that “I think that there is a clamp-down on religious liberty in this country, but it’s so incredibly simple that we aren’t catching the signs.” “If one religious identity’s freedoms are taken,...

Man of Steel, Man of Sorrows

Last time the Superman franchise was rebooted, I reacted pretty negatively to the messiah-lite qualities of Clark Kent’s alter ego. In this fine piece over at Big Think, Peter Lawler analyzes the nature of this tension in the context of the new film quite aptly: The film also has all kinds of Christian New-Agey imagery that you can grab onto if you’re not much of a reader. Superman pared in some ways to Jesus; he begins his mission at age...

Community, Dignity, and Restoration Through Entrepreneurship

Last month, I had the pleasure of interviewing the folks at Neighborhood Film Company, pany that melds for-profit with non-profit to train, mentor, and employ adults in recovery through the process of filmmaking. This week, Tim Høiland has an article for Christianity Today’s This is Our City project that expands on NFCo.’s story, digging deeper into the ins and outs of their business model and further exploring the dynamics of munity-oriented approach. Though big can sometimes be better, the founders...

Bavinck on Marriage and Cultural Reformation

The Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck has some wise words for reform of cultural institutions, notably marriage and family, in his exploration of The Christian Family: All good, enduring reformation begins with ourselves and takes its starting point in one’s own heart and life. If family life is indeed being threatened from all sides today, then there is nothing better for each person to be doing than immediately to begin reforming within one’s own circle and begin to rebuff with...

Commentary: Can America Remain the Land of Religious Liberty?

There is little doubt that America is moving further away from the kind of broad and liberal religious freedom that was championed during the founding period. In terms of intellectual thought, that period was certainly the high water mark for religious liberty around the globe. As Americans celebrate their freedoms and Independence next week, I seek to answer the question in this mentary about America’s ability to remain the land of religious liberty. Sadly, the outlook is rather bleak, and...

Proxy Shareholders Losing Their Religion

Perhaps nothing invigorates the left more than climate change and the exercise of free speech in the political arena – imagine bined dyspepsia when these two issues converge. This is what is occurring with regrettable frequency as Walden Asset Management, Ceres and the Interfaith Council on Corporate Relations have joined a rogue’s gallery of progressive organizations issuing proxy shareholder resolutions urging a variety panies to disassociate from the American Legislative Exchange Council. On June 25, Ernst & Young issued a...

RELIGION & LIBERTY

9 big questions about democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is hot in the United States right now. Both the American media and young people seem to be enamored of the thought of steeply progressive, redistributive tax rates designed to achieve some vision of justice. As with most public policy ideas, we tend to get pretty far down the road before we ask basic questions related to the project. In other words, we imagine a result that appeals to us before we’ve really considered whether other effects...

Oct 24, 2026

Untangling the college loan crisis

The current student loan crisis is a perfect, yet dismal example of policy gone wrong. It is right and good to desire the best life for our children, and for some that includes a traditional four-year undergraduate degree. But in recent years this has been upheld as the essential golden ticket for a prosperous and successful life, deemed necessary to the American Dream. Policies built on myths and fallacies can destroy an economy and, in the process, harm the...

Oct 24, 2026

'The Godfather,' Acton, and the price of liberty

As far as I am concerned, the classic Godfather saga remains plete with only two installments. The alleged third one is remarkable only in how unremarkable it is, and when my boxed set arrived from Amazon, I immediately removed a third disk that went by the title Godfather IIIand threw it into the trash. It pletely unmemorable, except for one line. It is the lament of Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back...

Oct 24, 2026

The moral hazard of ‘erasing’ student debt

In June 2019, Democratic presidential candidate and current Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a plan for eliminating $1.6 trillion dollars in student loans currently held by about 45 million Americans. This was more radical even than a similarly ambitious plan presented by his Democratic rival and Senate colleague Elizabeth Warren. With the election cycle for 2020 looming in the near future, this is one of several issues that will remain at the forefront of the discussion. This is especially...

Oct 24, 2026

Editor's Note: Spring 2019

This issue of Religion & Liberty focuses on higher education in all its fulness. Two statistics throw the college tuition crisis into stark relief: Since 1978 – the year the federal government offered subsidized loans to all students – the cost of college tuition has risen by 1,375 percent. And another 1,400 students default on those loans every day. The cover story by Anne Rathbone Bradley unravels the crisis of student debt. “The essential problem of student loan debt...

Oct 24, 2026

The Christian Revolution

Figures like the Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria (25 B.C.–A.D. 50) fortably between the Hellenic and Jewish worlds. A member of a priestly family, Philo was also a Roman citizen and deeply involved in Roman politics. His brothers and nephews served as Roman officials. But Philo categorically understood himself to be a Jew and visited Jerusalem at least once. Logos and dabhar: parallel concepts Throughout his writings, Philo employs Greek concepts to elucidate aspects of Jewish belief. The word...

Oct 24, 2026

Acton Briefs: Spring 2019

A collection of short essays by Acton writers, click a link to jump to that article: Importing drugs from Canada won’t reduce U.S. drug pricesby Joe Carter Walmart: Corruption’s causes and consequences by Sarah Schwartz No, millions of Americans are not living on less than $2 a day by Joe Carter Importing drugs from Canada won’t reduce U.S. drug prices Joe Carter, Acton Institute If you suffer from acid reflux, your doctor may prescribe Nexium. But at $9 a...

Oct 24, 2026

Manasseh Cutler

It is not possible, in the nature of things, that human laws, or principles of honor, can be adequate substitutes for religion. … Infidelity is a formidable enemy to the true principles of liberty. It erases from their foundation the main pillars that can support a free government. Freedom deigns not to dwell with general immorality: It cannot be enjoyed without virtue, nor can virtue be maintained without religion. –Manasseh Cutler Manasseh Cutler filled the pulpits of New England...

Oct 24, 2026

Till we have faces

An Introduction to Personalism | Juan Manuel Burgos (translated by R.T. Allen) The Catholic University of America Press | 2018 | 233 pages If it is true that “nature abhors a vacuum, ” then we ought to expect new ideas to arise in place of those which have proven false. Juan Manuel Burgos contends that personalism is the philosophical framework to revitalize Western thinking in the aftermath of the twentieth century, and his Introduction to Personalism is a readable...

Oct 24, 2026

Western Civilization: force for good or source of evil?

In 2016, students at Yale University called on the university to “decolonize” a reading list of canonical poets – people such as Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and so on – saying the course “actively harms students” and creates a “hostile” academic culture. The same year, students at Stanford University overwhelmingly voted down a proposal to restore a Western Civilization course requirement. This January, the University of Notre Dame announced that it will cover up a dozen “problematic” murals of Christopher...

Oct 24, 2026