Yes, there really is a headstone cartel, at least in New Jersey. The Monument Builders Association of New Jersey are the only ones who can sell, carve, deliver and install headstones. One might think this is all right (after all, headstones aren’tthat creative] but there is at least one church cemetery that would like the right to sell their own headstones to the patrons of their cemeteries. So the Archbishop of Newark took the headstone cartel to court. Liberty &...

While being homeless is not a crime, cities across America are increasingly making activities associated with a lack of shelter against the law. A survey of 187 cities found that 34 percent impose city-wide bans on camping in public and 18 percent impose city-wide bans on sleeping in public. In 2009, a group of homeless plaintiffs challenged the city of Boise, Idaho over its ordinance banning sleeping and camping in public places. This week the Department of Justice issued a...

Amnesty International, the human-rights watchdog organization, voted Tuesday to support the decriminalization of “sex work” at its Dublin-based International Council Meeting. This was in spite of the fact that anti-human trafficking organizations around the globe pushed for just the opposite. Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups in the world who in most instances face constant risk of discrimination, violence and abuse,’ Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, said in a statement. Shetty called it “a historic day” for...

With the expansion of economic freedom and the resulting prosperity, we’ve reached an unprecedented position of personal empowerment and vocational choice. This is a e development, and it can be seized for good in any number of ways. But it es with its own risks and temptations. As with any surface-level “freedom,” unless we seek God first and neighbor second, our action willquickly be steered by pleasure, pride, pursuit of power, or plain old personal preference — leading to shackles...

When Americans think about the rule of law—if they ever think about it at all—it’s usually about how it’s lacking in foreign lands, such as Latin America or Africa. Corruption and bribery, the usual symptoms of a breakdown in the rule of law, aren’t much of an issue for us. We tend to feel secure that, with minor exceptions, our country is governed by agreed upon laws and not by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials. In general, this is...

Christian’s Library Press has now released Psalms II, the fifth primer in its Opening the Scriptures series, and the second in a two-part release on the book of Psalms. The book is currently available for orderon Amazon. Written by Dutch Reformed minister Frans van Deursen, and newly translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman, the volume provides an introduction to Psalms, a book which serves as “the oldest songbook that God’s people possess,” as well as the “oldest breviary or prayer book,”...

Last year when Seattle announced it was raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, I made four predictions about how the policy would affect the city over the next three years. One of the predictions was that, Unemployment will increase for low-wage workers— It’s true that economists disagree about the effects of the minimum wage on employment and the living standards of minimum wage earners. But almost all of the disagreement is about relatively small increases—less than 20 percent....

Last week, I was pleased to attend the ERLC’s 2015 National Conference on Gospel and Politics, of whichthe Acton Institute was a proud co-sponsor. The speaker line-up was strikingly rich and diverse, ranging from pastors to writers to politicos to professors, but among them all, Russell Moore’s morning address was the clear stand-out. Moore beganby asking, “How do we as Christians engage in issues that sometimes are political without ing co-opted by politics and losing the gospel and the mission...

Creation and the Heart of Man, the first volume of Acton’s Orthodox Christian Social Thought monograph series, is now available for pre-order on Logos Bible Software. Those who pre-order can get the book at a discounted price. In addition, the Logos edition is able to offer some unique features: In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to...

S. L. Frank Today at The Imaginative Conservative, I offer a brief look into the social though of the Russian philosopher S. L. Frank: In his 1930 book, The Spiritual Foundations of Society, Frank offers a refreshing vision of a conservatism that cannot survive apart from creativity. The book is a remarkable tour de force of intelligent, nuanced, and in some ways even prescient Christian social thought. One can find references—some explicit, some in Frank’s own words—to personalism, natural law,...