This isn’t easy to read. It’s stomach-churning. But we must know our enemy, and ISIS is determined to destroy liberty, freedom, culture and families. According to The Daily Beast, ISIS is holding girls and women for one of two purposes: to sell them or to destroy morale by raping and torturing them. These are mostly Yazidi women, being held in Iraq. Reports of what is happening in the prison in e from the women themselves. Some smuggled in cell phones;...

Universal daycare. Universal preschool. Regulations on school lunches. Bans on bake sales. Don’t bring ibuprofen to school. The government knows all about keeping your kids safe and educated. (And the underlying note is that you don’t know enough.) In yesterday’s New York Times, law professor Clare Huntington extols the virtues of government child-rearing. While she does acknowledge that families are the “ultimate” preschool, she quickly recovers by adding that our society just makes things too darn hard for parents to...

Lord Acton’s famous dictum, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” has been proven true time and time again throughout history, most vividly in totalitarian systems. The worldwide destruction caused munism is perhaps the prime example. According to The Black Book of munist regimes, inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology, are responsible for nearly 100 million deaths (and counting). However, in contemporary times there seems to be a tendency to ignore this reality. In The Daily Beast article, “Communism’s Victims...

“If Christians cannot help prisoners find meaning behind bars,” wonders Stephen H. Webb, “how can they expect the Gospel to find an audience among those never convicted of a crime?” At First Things, Webb argues that revival of Christianity will e when we reform America’s prisons: Prisoners are test cases of how Christians deal with sinners in extremis. I don’t just mean passion for the imprisoned can serve as a corroboration of Christian charity, although that is surely true. I...

In this week’s edition of Radio Free Acton, Paul Edwards es Acton Institute Research Fellow Jordan Ballor to the microphone for a discussion on the dignity of our work. Is it more Christian to be a minister than a muck farmer? Does the work of the farmer have spiritual value? Ballor and Edwards explore these questions and more in this podcast, which you can listen to via the audio player below. And if you haven’t done so already, check out...

What is a munity?” What are the boundaries of munity or organization? And – most important – why munity important? Andy Crouch, writer, musician and Acton University plenary speaker, says we need to ask and answer these questions. He begins his discussion with the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods. While the decision was sound, Crouch says it speaks to something beyond the law: It reminds us that fewer and fewer of our neighbors understand how...

Would you be in favor of a pay increase of 107 percent for your current job? Most of us would be thrilled at having our pay more than double, and would readily support such a change. Imagine if all that was required was to vote for your industry to e unionized. Who wouldn’t support unionization if it resulted in a bigger paycheck? But what if the change came with one caveat: If the pay increase were approved you’d not only...

Todd Huizinga, Acton Institute’s director of international outreach, was a guest analyst recently on Newsmakers, a public affairs program produced by WGVU television in Grand Rapids, Mich. Episode description from Aug. 22: “As tensions heighten between Russia and Ukraine, what is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s worldview and what role does Ukraine play in it? How has the shoot down of Malaysia Airline flight 17 killing 298 on board changed the dynamics of the conflict? We explore the internal and external...

In the most recent issue of The City, I have an essay on Orthodoxy and ordered liberty. I argue that Orthodox theological anthropology, which distinguishes between the image and likeness of God and two forms of freedom corresponding to them, fits well with the classical understanding of ordered liberty. In particular, I examine these freedoms with regards to the family, religious liberty, political liberty, and economic liberty, arguing that the Orthodox ascetic tradition has much to offer to modern Christian...

A second reporter has been killed by ISIS, Steven Sotloff. Women are being sold off as “brides.” Teen girls are raped repeatedly. Thousands are murdered. There are plenty of news reports, but in some quarters, the silence is deafening. Kathryn Jean Lopez asks what can we do, what must we do, in the face of evil, at National Review Online. I don’t want to have on my conscience that I plicit in something as horrendous as this simply by being...