Since its inception in the 1990s, the payday lending industry has grown at an astonishing pace. Currently, there are about 22,000 payday lending locations—more than two for every Starbucks—that originate an estimated $27 billion in annual loan volume. Christians and others worriedabout the poor tend to be very fortable with this industry. While there may be forms of payday lending that are ethical, the concern is that most such lending is predatory, and that the industry takes advantage of the...

Hey McFly! Put on your self-drying jacket and your self-tying shoes, because I’ve got a job offer you can’t refuse! Hi, I’m Griff Tannen and my business, Griff Tannen’s Hoverboard Emporium is looking for part-time sales clerks. You probably know me from that time I smashed into the courthouse and was instantly sentenced to jail: That’s me. I wasn’t really framed. You might think of that as my lowest moment. It was certainly humbling. But now I look back at...

Acton Institute Director of Research Samuel Gregg joins host Drew Mariani on Relevant Radio’s The Drew Mariani Showto discuss the important issue of conscience: what is it, and how should Roman Catholics in particular approach difficult moral issues in their day to day life? You can listen to the interview via the audio player below. ...

Will God save the kwacha? The Zambian kwacha—what some are currently calling the “world’s worst currency”—has been falling against the dollar for most of the past year. This currency crisis prompted Zambian President Edgar Lungu to call for a national day of prayer and fasting last Sunday. “I personally believe that since we humbled ourselves and cried out to God, the Lord has heard our cry,” Lungu said in an address on Sunday. “I appeal to all of you to...

As Christianity loses influence in the West, and as culture corresponds by taking itscues from the idols of hedonism, it can be easy to forget that most of these challenges are not new. In an article for Leadership Journal, Ryan Hoselton highlights theserecurring “crises,” pondering whatlessons we might learn from Christian responses of ages past. On the topic of family, and more specifically, family in decline, Hoselton points to Herman Bavinck’s The Christian Family,whichtakes aim attherange of threats tothe family...

A week ago, we reported here the puzzling remarks made by Chicago’s Archbishop Blase Cupich regarding Catholic membership in labor unions. Acton’s director of research, Samuel Gregg, has plenty more to say regarding Cupich, the formation of one’s conscience and membership to unions. In Crisis Magazine, Gregg first tells readers what Cupich recently said when questioned about someone being in the state of sin and receiving Communion: While recently discussing the question of whether those who have (1) not repented...

Throughout itshistory, the American economy has transitioned from agrarian to industrial to information-driven. Given ournewfound status, manual labor is increasingly cast down in the popular imagination, replaced by white-collar jobs, bachelor’s degrees, and ladder-climbing. Whether due to new avenues and opportunities or a more general distaste for the slow and mundane, work with the hands is either ignored or discouraged, both asvocational prospect andconsumeristic priority. Amid this sea of new efficiencies, the art of craftsmanship is at a particular disadvantage....

For the past few years, the Acton Institute has hosted a Pastor Appreciation event for clergy in and around the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.This year’s Pastor Appreciation Day here at Acton took place last week Thursday, October 15th, in the Mark Murray Auditorium, and featured an address by Wayne Schmidt, Vice President of Wesley Seminary and former pastor of Kentwood Community Church. Schmidt focused his remarks on the dangers of pastoral burnout, and on the essential elements of pastoral vitality....

Calling a political candidatea “socialist” used to be a political slur. In almost every U.S. election over the past hundred years there have been conservatives who have claimed a major political party candidate running for president was—whether they admitted it or not—a socialist. But our latest presidential race includes someone who calls himself a socialist, Bernie Sanders. Faced with the prospect, albeit unlikely, that an avowed socialist may actually e the Democrat’s nominee for president, many apolitical Christians are asking...

At Public Discourse, Samuel Gregg (Acton’s director of research) discusses Adam Macleod’s Property and Practical Reason, which Gregg says attempts to rethink this key element of economic liberty and renews “the manner in which natural law scholars have traditionally addressed this topic.” Gregg first outlines classical reflections on natural law. Then, he offers what he sees as Macleod’s insights: In addition to drawing on new natural law theory (of which he provides one of the most accessible explanations that I’ve...