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...

The Faith Movement, based in the United Kingdom, seeks to bring clergy, religious and lay faithful together to advance the Catholic faith, educating both believers and non-believers regarding the Church. Their website includes book reviews, and Eric Hester currently has a review of the Acton Institute’s Catholic Education in the West: Roots, Reality and Revival. Hester writes: At the heart of this most important little book is what The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “the right and duty of...

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...

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...

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...

Imagine you have a family member who has been in prison for a month. You decide to send them some money to buy a tube of toothpaste from the prison store. How much would you need to send them? At some prisons you’d need to send $130. Jails often deduct intake fees, medical co-pays, and the cost of basic toiletries first, leaving the prisoner’s account with a negative balance. To provide enough money for them to buy that initial tube...

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...