The hubby and I were watching TV when mercial for Fiji Water came on. The voiceover expounded all the wonderful features of this water, and then said something about it being “untouched by man.” I turned to my husband and said, “Did I hear that right? ‘Untouched by man?'” He nodded. Indeed, that’s the selling point for this water: On a remote Pacific island 1600 miles from the nearest continent, equatorial trade winds purify the clouds that begin FIJI’s Water...

Five adults (three men, two women) in the Netherlands are having a child together, and plan to raise said child together. I know this is a little tricky so let me explain. Jaco and Sjoerd (those are the guys) and Daantje and Dewi (the women) are all homosexual. They’ve known each other for 10 years. Then there is Sean, who is the third person in Jaco and Sjoerd’s relationship. They would marry him, but cannot legally. The five folks want...

There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with anestimated 21 million in bondageacross the globe. Modern-day slavery, also referred to as “trafficking in persons,” or “human trafficking,” describes the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person pelled labor mercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or...

“Let’s embrace all work with the understanding that we are making contributions that carry eternal significance,” says Anne Bradley. “The only way we can live this out is if we have a framework for understanding why our work is so important to God.” That framework includes freedom, fulfillment, and flourishing. To help understand this framework, the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics has put together three short videos that illustrate each point. Freedom: “We need an environment that provides us...

For centuries influential thinkers have claimed that economic growth will be caused by vice and distribution by greed. “Clearly, the connection between vice and growth needs to be addressed, says James V. Schall in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Is there a case for virtue and growth?” Long-range economic growth does not deny that wars and rumors of war will happen, though it does doubt that economics is their main cause. Nor does it doubt that many individuals, by accident or...

In the latest video from Made to Flourish, Al Mohler reminds us thatit’s our job as Christians to discoverGod’soriginal design for work and recover it for the glory of God: To be human is not only to be an economic creature, but is to be a fabricator, a worker, the one who understands the stewardship of work, and understands we were made for it. Work is not a result of the fall. We were assigned work right there in Genesis...

Tonight is the first Republican primary presidential debate of the election season. The debates are promoted as a way to distinguish the candidates from one another. But they are a terrible format for achieving that objective. Currently, there are 38 Republicans who have declared they are running for their party’s nomination (though you’ve likely only heard of 17 of them). Onthe other side of the political spectrum you have 17 Democrats who have declared they are running (though you only...

EMTs have incredibly difficult and stressful jobs. They may go long stretches with little to do, and then be suddenly very busy, very fast. They need to know how to calm down a child with a broken arm, treat a woman pinned in a truck in a massive interstate pileup during a snowstorm, and deal with a potential elderly stroke victim. They are like an ER on wheels. In munities, they are a lifeline between people in munities and the...

The religious shareholder activists over at As You Sow, Clean Yield Asset Management, and Trillium Asset Management are all abuzz over mitment made by General Mills to adhere to the White House Pollinator Health Task Force strategy on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (hereafter referred to as neonics). AYS submitted a proxy shareholder resolution to the Minneapolis-based cereal giant this past spring, seeking: Shareholders request that, within six months of the 2015 annual meeting, the Board publish a report, at...

In today’s Crisis Magazine, Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg calls for a a new papal encyclical: one addressing ” the on-going brutal persecution of Christians in the Middle East.” The facts about the deepening subjugation of Christians around the world hardly need repeating. Every day we read of the mistreatment of Christian guest-workers in Saudi Arabia, the violence unleashed against Christians in India by Hindu nationalists, the repression of Christians by China’s Communist regime, or the slaughter of African...