While eating lunch at an Israeli kibbutz last winter, I learned firsthand about what used to be a self-contained, munity. I was struck by the local guide’s positive view that socialism produces munal life and economic prosperity. The guide’s praise only echoes A.I. Rabin and Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi from Michigan State University. They wrote that “[t]he most successful attempt at building a mune has been the Israeli kibbutz.” The optimism expressed by these observations is not without cause: The kibbutz...

Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero - The Tragic Life of Robert E. Lee’s Father | Ryan Cole | Regnery History | 2019 | 426 pgs Henry Lee III, besides being the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, may be best known for his masterful eulogy of George Washington: “To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” In Light-Horse Harry Lee,...

From Eastern Europe to China, and from Laos to Venezuela, the followers of Marx and Engels used the most extreme forms of violence to annihilate religion. In many ways, the Bolsheviks only continued the Jacobite hostility towards “the throne and the altar.” Vladimir Lenin said in 1905, “Our propaganda, necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.” Leon Trotsky said, “The highest expression of serfdom’s ideology is religion.” Pravda never ceased to call priests the “enemies of the people.” During the...

In his State of the Union address this year, President Donald Trump warned of the dangers of socialism. But is there any substance to that worry? Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a self-declared socialist, has made headlines with her Green New Deal proposal. And more recently, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who also identifies as a democratic socialist, has been considered one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination for president. Perhaps we should not write off the president’s rhetoric as...

Pope Leo XIII’s prescient 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum delineated the perils of Marxist collectivism, especially the horrors that would follow in its wake. Drawing both from historical observations and his own projections, Pope Leo wrote: Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of munity of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into...

Surveys prove the decline of religion in America is real – depending on how you define “religion.” Weekly church attendance is falling, as is self-identification with a formal denomination, religion, or belief system. Meanwhile, the rise of the “Nones” seems to be steadily replacing the religious-cultural standards and norms of old with a modern milieu of “personal spiritualties” based on any number of humanistic priorities – from humanitarianism and political activism to the exultation of garden-variety hedonism, materialism, and...

When 16-year-old Greta Thunberg stood before the UN Climate Action Summit, she “announced a sort of secular apocalypse,” writes Rev. Robert A. Sirico. This issue of Religion & Liberty focuses on the siren song of alarmism, and how people of faith should approach the very real environmental debate. The Acton Institute’s executive editor, Religion & Liberty, John Couretas, contributes the cover story on moving beyond the environmental apocalypse. “Regrettably, too many religious leaders have bought into the apocalyptic hysteria...

A collection of short essays by Acton writers, click a link to jump to that article: Amazon chief: Liberation theology keeps my people poor by Joseph Sunde A bait and switch at Peter’s Pence? by Andrew Vanderput The uneasy conscience of a fair trade fundamentalist by Jordan J. Ballor Amazon chief: Liberation theology keeps my people poor Joseph Sunde, Acton Institute As the recent Synod of Bishops from the Pan-Amazonian region gathered, a local chief voiced his objections to...