Today is the unofficial first day of the holiday shopping season. Here are five facts you should know about “Black Friday.” 1. The term “Black Friday” was coined by the Philadelphia Police Department’s traffic squad in the 1950s. According to Philadelphia newspaper reporter Joseph P. Barrett, “It was the day that Santa Claus took his chair in the department stores and every kid in the city wanted to see him. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season.”...

I’m not entirely sure, but it seems a safe bet that Chicago bluesman Willie Dixon wasn’t referring to the Internal Revenue Service when he wrote his classic “Back Door Man.” But, as it turns out, the IRS is serving as a convenient back-door resource for the progressive movement to name and shame donors to causes and organizations opposed by leftist shareholder activists. The IRS is proposing rules that will grant nonprofit organizations the option of disclosing donors of $250 or...

The recent terrorist attacks in Paris have again brought to the forefront discussions aboutproblems of culture faced by both Europe and the United States. The attacks plicated western responses to the Syrian refugee crisis, with concerns about the stated intentions of groups like ISIS to smuggle operatives into western nations among the legitimate refugees in order to carry out terror operations. And of course, the questions of patibility of Islam with western political and economic values, as well as questions...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Cheap Grace and Gratitude,” I extend the notion of “cheap grace” beyond the realm of special or saving grace to the more mundane, general gifts mon grace. One of the long-standing criticisms mon grace is that it actually cheapens or devalues a proper understanding of special grace. That is, by describing mon gifts of God to all people as a form of “grace,” the distinctive work of salvation can be overshadowed or under-emphasized. This criticism...

“Mockingjay — Part 2,” the last film based on Suzanne Collins’ bestselling Hunger Games trilogy, opened this past weekend to high sales that, nevertheless, fell short of the other films in the series and industry expectations. In addition, with a thematically confused ending, the story itself doesn’t live up to the quality of previous installments. Regarding sales, Brent Lang reported for Variety, The final film in the “Hunger Games” series debuted to numbers that few pictures in history have ever...

From lame dad jokes to awkward mom hugs, parents have nearly inexhaustible means to embarrass their children in front of their friends. But when I was a young teenager my mother had a surefire way to fill me with shame and dread: ask me to buy groceries using food stamps. In the early 1980s—an era before EBT (electronic benefits transfer) cards could be disguised as a debit card—food stamps took the form of easily recognized slips of colored paper. In...

In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis appeals for “a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.” (n. 14) The encyclical also calls for “broader proposals” (n. 15), “a variety of proposals” (n.60), greater engagement between religion and science (n. 62) and among the sciences (n. 201), and bringing together scientific-technological language...

As debates about the Syrian refugee crisis bubble and brim, we continue to see a tension among Christians between a longingto help and a desire to protect. As is readily apparentin BreakPoint’s wonderful symposium on the topic, Christians of goodwill and sincere Biblical belief can and will disagree on the policy particulars of an issue such as this.(SeeJoe Carter’s explainerfor the backstory) Indeed, although we have heard plenty of rash and strident grandstanding among Christians — not to mention byPresident...

It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood production: Nuns dressing up as prostitutes to infiltrate brothels and rescue woman and children from sexual abuse. But the organization of religious sisters called Talitha Kum, which translated from Aramaic means “arise child” (Mark 5:41), is real—and they’re expanding across the globe. Talitha Kum, also known as the International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking in Persons, is a network within the International Union of Superiors General which originates from a project...

On this edition of Radio Free Acton, we talk with Marina Nemat – author, columnist, human rights advocate, and former political prisoner in her native Iran. Born in 1965, Nemat grew up in a country ruled by the Shah – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – who ruled in a relatively liberal pared to what was to follow after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Nemat describes her youth and the changes that came after the revolution that led her to her time...