Religion & Ethics Newsweekly featured the following video on Dorothy Day. Her cause for canonization in the Catholic Church has been championed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who says Day’s life represents so much of the struggle of our times. So there was sexual immorality, there was a religious search, and there was a pregnancy out of wedlock and an abortion. Her life, of course, like Saul on the way to Damascus, was radically changed when she became introduced to Jesus...

I have been known to parisonsbetween the punitive HHS mandate and King Nebuchadnezzar’s infamous power trip—an analogy that casts theGreen Familyand others like them as the Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abednegos of modern-day coercion subversion. As I wrote just over a year ago: As we continue to see Christian business leaders refusing to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s Golden Image—choosing economic martyrdom over secularist conformity—the more this administration’s limited, debased, and deterministic view of man and society will reveal itself. Through it...

Usually, discrimination against Christians is subtle and discreet. But the Ferndale Public Schools in Oakland County, Michigan, seems to be quite open about their bias. As Michigan Capitol Confidential discovered, the teachers union contract requires the district to provide “special consideration” to “those of the non-Christian faith” in hiring decisions: The contract ran from 2011 to 2012 but was extended to 2017. The teachers belong to the Ferndale Education Association, a division of theMichigan Education Association. Regarding promotion to a...

Today at Ethika Politika, I review Fr. Philip LeMasters’ recent book The Forgotten Faith: Ancient Insights from Contemporary Believers from Eastern Christianity. With regards to the book’s last chapter, “Constantine and the Culture Wars,” I write, … LeMasters does a good job in acknowledging the line between principles of faith and morality on the one hand, and prudential judgments that may not be as clear-cut on the other. He does not give the impression of advocating any specific political program;...

Calvin Coolidge’s autobiography was published in 1929, shortly after Coolidge left the White House. He wrote the book in long pletely by himself. Sales at the time were great but mentators panned it as being too short and simplistic with little new information or juicy tidbits. In Amity Shlaes’s biography of Coolidge she notes, “Not every reader appreciated its sparse language, but the short book would stand up well to the self-centered narratives other statesmen produced, especially those who relied...

Over at The Gospel Coalition, Ryan Hoselton offers a nice summary of the key ideas in Herman Bavinck’s The Christian Family, which was recently translated by Christian’s Library Press. Hoselton begins by surveying the range of evils that “threaten the well-being of the home,” as well as the dire state of the cultural landscape as it pertains to such matters. “No family evades the consequences of evil,” he concludes. Yet he wonders: “Does the problem lie in the institution of...

We would all agree that digital technology has made life better in many respects. But in what ways do smartphones, email, social media and the Internet in general bring pressures to bear upon us that diminish human dignity and work against us in the free market, our social connectivity, and the interior life? Douglas Rushkoff has been thinking and writing about these very questions for years. He is a media theorist and author of the book, Present Shock: When Everything...

The 1990 movie “Pretty Woman” is still wildly popular; it relies on the Hollywood canard of the “hooker with a heart of gold.” In the movie, a prostitute is paid to spend the weekend with a wealthy handsome gentleman. The two fall in love, and she is swept off her feet by the courtly man who initially wished only to utilize her. Cue the hankies, sigh for the romance, and fade to black. Now, the movie is being made into...

What race is pany? Asian,Samoan,American Indian, other? If you find that question absurd you probably haven’t heard (I hadn’t) that a for-profit can be be African American — an African American person — under federal law. According to Matt Bowman, that was theoverwhelming consensus view by an Obama appointee to the Fourth Circuit court of appeals.The rulingallows panies to object to racial mitted against them under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bowman explains that inCarnell Construction Corporation v. Danville...

Amity Shlaes – Graphic Novelized! In November of last year, we had the privilege of ing bestselling author Amity Shlaes for a visit here at the Acton Building while she was in Grand Rapids to speak about Calvin Coolidge at Grand Valley State University’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies. Aside from being a fine author of some very thought provoking books on history and economics, she’s a delightful lady, and it was a pleasure to have an opportunity to make...