Today marks the 54th year since the passing of one of the world’s most influential international human rights lawyers. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ‘genocide’, made the crime illegal under international law, and possessed an almost prophetic sense of the atrocities that would occur under Nazi tyranny in World War II, died a largely unnoticed man. Only seven people attended his funeral, and to this day, many have not heard of Lemkin or the great contributions credited to his...

Earlier this month, the Chicago Tribune ran a story by Cezary Podkul on concerns raised by the Missionary Oblates munity modities trading. Titled “For Nuns and Analysts Alike, Bank Commodity Earnings Are a Mystery,” the story focuses on Rev. Seamus Finn, the Oblates’ top dog, and his fears that Goldman Sachs’ trading practices negatively impact energy and food prices. Podkul reports: Driven by a determination to invest in a socially conscious way, Finn’s group has been concerned about modities activities...

To kick off the Labor Day weekend, Peggy Noonan offerssome timely thoughts on the meaning of work: Joblessness is a personal crisis because work is a spiritual event. A job isn’t only a means to a paycheck, it’s more. “To work is to pray,” the old priests used to say. God made us as many things, including as workers. When you work you serve and take part. To work is to be integrated into the daily life of the nation....

James D. Bratt recently released Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat, the first full-scale English-language biography of the influential Dutch theologian, minister, politician, newspaper editor, etc. The book has spurred plenty of discussion across the web, and now, Calvin College is hosting a special event to celebrate its publication. The event, “Abraham Kuyper for the 21st Century,” will explore the questions, challenges, and opportunities that Kuyper’s work raises today, as well as how Bratt’s biography helps us respond. In addition...

As we approach Labor Day here in the U.S., it’s good to ponder “work”, that most ordinary feat nearly all of us perform every day. We get up, get dressed, and do our jobs. It’s quite simple…and quite amazing. There is a lovely reflection on this from Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek: Ponder this astonishing fact: Each and every thing that we consume today in market societies is something that requires the coordinated efforts of millions of people, yet each...

We are told, over and over, we are in the midst of a “culture war” here in the U.S. It’s Right vs. Left, Republican vs. Democrat, Baby Boomers vs. Gen Xers, Pro-Life Vs. Pro-Abortion. You get labeled by the church you attend, the shoes you wear, the type of beer you drink. We want our culture to be “better,” but we can’t seem to agree on what that means. David French, Senior Counsel at the American Center of Law and...

Yesterday, as a nation, we spent time reflecting on the American landscape 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech. In it, Dr. King decried that our nation – while abolishing slavery legally – still had a long way to go “until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'” We still have a long way to go. According to the Polaris Project, there are hundreds of thousands of people trafficked in...

For this week’s Acton Commentary, ahead of Labor Day weekend, I write about “working harder and smarter,” lessons we can learn from Ashton Kutcher and Mike Rowe. One of the implications of connecting hard work with smart work is that the difficulty of work on its own does not determine its value in the marketplace. It isn’t a question of how hard you are working, but how hard you are working in productive service. This is why Lester DeKoster writes,...

The concept of the American Dream can cause a fair amount of tension within the church, says Drew Cleveland. Some have gone as far as to make the American Dream a concept against which the church ought to be opposed: The concern that this dream can be misused is not wholly invalid. Even Smith acknowledges that “this dream easily slides towards idolatry,” and yes, it is often true that a good thing can e an object of worship if not...

However misguided their aims, there was one a time when progressives worked to protect the welfare and improve the lot of the individual. Today, the goal of many progressives is to protect the welfare and improve the lot of public bureaucracies. A prime — and stunningly inane — example of this tendency is found Allison Benedikt’s “manifesto” in Slate titled, “If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person“: You are a bad person if you...