Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Radio Free Acton: Jordan Ballor on Kuyper, Bonhoeffer and Thanksgiving; Upstream on Alternative Country Music
Radio Free Acton: Jordan Ballor on Kuyper, Bonhoeffer and Thanksgiving; Upstream on Alternative Country Music
Sep 11, 2025 1:51 PM

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Bruce Edward Walker talks with Ray Nothstine, Opinion Editor of the the North State Journal and Editor at the Civitas Institute, on the alternative country music genre. Then, Caroline Roberts interviews Jordan Ballor, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Publishing at the Acton Institute, on the link between Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Abraham Kuyper, and Thanksgiving.

Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics:

John Mellencamp official site

Carlene Carter official site

Lillie Mae official site

Sunny Sweeney official site

Register here to attend Acton on Tap: Sean Mulholland, Ph.D. — Taking on Inequality: Seeking Paths to Greater Prosperity

Read “Cheap grace and gratitude” by Jordan Ballor

Buy Common Grace: God’s Grace for a Fallen World: Volume 1 by Abraham Kuyper

Buy Wisdom and Wonder: Common Grace in Science and Artby Abraham Kuyper

Buy The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Read “Work and Prayer” by C.S. Lewis

Do you have questions for the Radio Free Actonteam that you would like answered in future podcast segments? Leave a message at 888-705-4180 or email [email protected]

Previous Article：How gratitude empowers the free society Next Article：Explainer: What you should know about ‘net neutrality’
Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
What is ‘Roman Catholic Political Philosophy’?
“Roman Catholicism is primarily concerned with man’s transcendent end and purpose,” saysRev. James V. Schall, S.J., “with how it is achieved in actual lives, in actual places, and in real time.” Rev. Schall considers howCatholicism and political philosophy are connected: A course in “Roman Catholic Political Philosophy” is rarely found in any academic institution, including those sponsored by the Church. We do find courses titled “Religion and Politics,” “Social Doctrine of the Church,” or “Church and State” — but “Roman...
Ender’s Game: What Does the Formic Say?
Over at Think Christian, I take another look at Ender’s Game, focusing on the leitmotif of understanding munication in Orson Scott Card’s work. This applies particularly to munication. We might, in fact, riffing off the Norwegian parody pop song, say that the central question of Ender’s Game is, “What does the Formic say?” Ender is the only one with the genuine curiosity to find out, and doing so is how he moves beyond his bloody calling. What we find out,...
Sid Meier, Slot Machines, and the Flow of Vice
My wife despises Sid Meier. She’s never met him, nor would she even recognize his name. But she knows someone is responsible for creating the source of my addiction. For over twenty years I’ve spent (or wasted, as my wife would say) countless hours playing Civilization, Meier’s award-winning strategy game. Every time I play the game I enter an almost trance-like state plete immersion. According to positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, what I’m experiencing in that moment is known as “flow.”...
From Too Big to Fail to Too Big to Flourish
“We hear a lot about ‘too big to fail’ banks and other financial institutions,” says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. “But what about a federal government whose size and scope have e so vast as to crowd out civil institutions?” The existence of banks that are too big to fail is in significant ways the result of the actions of a government that is too big to flourish. Even a cursory glance at the federal spending figures over...
Samuel Gregg: ‘Truth has a way of making its presense felt’
Two writers over at Aleteia mented on the current state of affairs with the help of Samuel Gregg’s latest, Tea Party Catholic. Brantly Millegan, Assistant Editor for the English edition of Aleteia, write a post titled, ‘Obama’s Ordinary, No-Big-Deal “Whopper.”‘ He discusses the now infamous words President Obama spoke in 2010, “[I]f Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor. And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that...
The Return of Christendom
Our ideal as Christians is a social world that passes everyday life but is oriented toward God and the good, beautiful, and true in all its aspects, says James Kalb. “In our time,” says Kalb, “the phrases ‘culture of life’ and ‘civilization of love’ have been used to refer to basic aspects of such a world, but Christendom seems the best name for it overall.” Has this ideal of Christendom gone away? Christendom may be gone as a matter of...
Trade as a Solution for Bickering Toddlers
If you’ve raised multiple children, you’ve dealt with sibling bickering, particularly if said children are close in age. With a three-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl, both just 13 months apart, our family has suddenly reached a stage where sibling play can be eitherwholly endearing or down-right frightening. Alas, just as quickly as human love learns to bubble up and reach out, human sin seeks to stifle and disrupt it. If that’s too heavy for you, “kids will be kids.”...
Envy and Wanting What Others Have
Over at the University Bookman today, I review John Lanchester’s novel Capital. I mend the book. I don’t explore it in the review, “Capital Vices and Commercial Virtues,” but for those who have been following the antics of Banksy, there is a similar performance artist character in the novel that has significance for the development of the narrative. As I write in the review, the vice of envy, captured in the foreboding phrase, “We Want What You Have,” animates the...
Solomon’s Economic Proverbs
When given the choice to possess whatever he asked for, theyoung King Solomon asked God for wisdom. Not “the ability to ask for more things,” or “x-ray vision,” but wisdom. An overview of the wisdom Solomon accrued in his memorable life was, for our sake, recorded in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs has some definitive things to say about matters related to how we might, as Christians, organize our lives munities) economically. The concept of wealth is a tough one...
The Need for Counter-Majoritarian Makeweights
Drawing on some themes I explore about the role of the church in providing material assistance inGet Your Hands Dirty, today at Political Theology Today I look at the first parliamentary speech of the new Dutch King Willem-Alexander. In “The Dutch King’s Speech,” I argue that the largely ceremonial and even constitutionally-limited monarchy has something to offer modern democratic polities, in that it provides a forum for public leadership that is not directly dependent on popular electoral support. In the...
Related Classification
RELIGION & LIBERTY
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
About
Terms and Conditions Privacy policy Cookie Settings Contact Us
Services
Login register
mreligion RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE RELIGION & LIBERTY
Links
zpostcode Recruit weather mreligion Yellowpages sport constellation shopping name game directory literature Word tour furnish Lottery tftnews lyrics News digital car dir Edu Finance
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved