Just in time for April 1st and April 15th, let’s talk about taxes. On April 1st, the excise tax on cigarettes was increased dramatically—from $.39 to $1.01 per pack. It’s fitting that this occurred on April Fools’ Day, since it served to break President Obama’s campaign pledge not to increase “any form of” taxes on any family making less than $250,000 per year. Independent of breaking a campaign promise, such a tax is attractive for non-smokers since the costs are...

An essay of mine appears today over at the First Things website as part of their “On the Square: Observations & Contentions” feature. In “Between Market and State,” I explore the dialectic logic of market and government “failure,” which functions in part to provide us with a false dilemma: our solution to social problems must lie with either “market” or “state.” I work out this logic in the context of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and conclude that non-profits play a...

Starting this year, the Acton Institute is planning to give out the Samaritan Award every other year. This will allows us to better streamline the award process as well as to more smoothly integrate the results of the award into our Samaritan Guide database. In recent years the Samaritan Award finalists have been profiled in a special issue of WORLD Magazine (here’s the link to the 2008 issue). But this year the folks at WORLD are taking the opportunity to...

This Sunday I’ll be giving a talk at Fountain Street Church on the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His unfinished Ethics is a tantalizing work, full of insights and conundrums. Here’s what he writes in the essay, “On the Possibility of the Church’s Message to the World,” with regard to the church’s engagement in social justice: Who actually says that all worldly problems should and can be solved? Perhaps to God the unsolved condition of these problems may be...

The First Amendment rights of religious groups are under assault in the public square. As Kevin Schmiesing reminds us in today’s Acton Commentary, “History’s tyrants recognized the progression that some of us have forgotten: Where people are free to act according their conscience, they will demand the right to determine their political destiny.” Read mentary at the Acton Website ment on it here. ...

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11: 25, 26 The es from the account of Lazarus being raised to life by Christ after already being dead for four days. The question “Do you believe this?” was posed to the sister of Lazarus, Martha. There have been people who...

Dr. David W. Miller, who was interviewed in Religion & Liberty for the Winter 2008 issue, was recently on a PBS program discussing corporate morality. Here is a portion of the PBS interview which relates to the theme in Acton’s R&L interview titled “Theology at Work: Faithful Living in the Marketplace:” (anchor) ABERNETHY: You, as I said, you used to work in the financial business. What do your friends there, the friends that you have who’ve worked there — what...

I recently received a request from a reporter to respond to the recent spate of studies and stories positing a decline in American Christianity. Here’s how I answered: Broadly speaking, it is silly to think of secularization as a linear process. The prominence of the Christian faith waxes and wanes during different historical periods. As Rodney Stark has pointed out, the old golden age of faith picture of antiquity is not nearly as strong as many believe. There is, however,...

Zenit reports a new initiative by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples, Italy: “he is donating a year’s stipend and part of his personal savings to initiate a diocesan bank that will offer micro-credits to the poor.” I like two things about this project. First, the cardinal is putting his own money to work, furnishing a good example of mitment to assist those in need. Second, he is doing so in a thoughtful and creative way, not “throwing money” at a...

A 1934 cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winner Carey Orr published in the Chicago Tribune. Snopes is still checking. ...