I recently had an exchange with a Duke Divinity School student regarding many of things I’ve written at the Acton Institute over the past 12 years. The student said this about me: When es to fort to power and castigating the most vulnerable in our society, there is perhaps no public theological voice more eager than that of Anthony Bradley’s. His body of work is a textbook in blaming the victim and reducing problems to pathology. Not only had the...

Today the Department of Health and Human Services issued yet another revision regarding its contraception mandate. Details on the new regulations should be announced within a month. According to the Wall Street Journal: Justice Department lawyers said in a brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that the federal government would issue new regulations in the next month that will apply to all nonprofit institutions that say the faith with which they are affiliated...

If there is one woman who has the ear of the president of the United States, it’s Cecile Richards. The president of Planned Parenthood campaigned for him, and has called him the best friend women could have. In a campaign video, Richards said, Since day one, President Obama has stood with women. The very first bill he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, allowing us to make sure that women get equal pay to men. And under the...

In 2006, then-Pope Benedict made a speech at Regensburg. As papal speeches go, it wasn’t a “biggie;” it was an address to a meeting of scientists. What was to be a reflection on faith, reason and science quickly became a firestorm. Benedict was accused of being anti-Islamic, offensive, insensitive and out-of-touch. The primary problem was that what he really said was taken entirely out of context. In his 30 minute speech, the pope quotes an ancient emperor on the theme...

Feeding America is a nationwide network of 200 member food banks, the largest domestic hunger-relief charity in the United States. The Feeding America network of food banks provides food assistance to an estimated 46.5 million Americans in need each year, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors. The report “Hunger in America” is Feeding America’s series of quadrennial studies that prehensive demographic profiles of people seeking food assistance through the charitable sector. Here are seven figures you should know...

I’m slowly working my way through James Atlas’ biography of Saul Bellow, and I came to the section where Saul Bellow returns to his birthplace in Lachine, Quebec, for the dedication of the municipal library in his name. At the dedication he gave a speech, which includes this section: I am here as a kind of testimony to the fact that it’s possible for a child from Lachine to do some things which have been called—not by me but by...

Reading through the German economist Walter Eucken’s work The Foundation of Economics (1951), I came across one of the most helpful charts for economic analysis I have yet to find. In it, Eucken gives every possible form of market in a single table: The Foundation of Economics, p. 158 Eucken adds four qualifications that are important to keep in mind: “These forms of market are actual forms which have been or are to be found in actual economic life (often...

Just as armed citizens have been protecting themselves and their property in Ferguson, Mo., small groups of Christians are forming in militia-style units in areas of Syria and Iraq. While most Christians believe they are allowed to protect themselves and others using force if necessary, it is a religion of peace. Christ himself urges us to “turn the other cheek.” Yet the outrageous and barbaric violence against Christians is moving some to call for a more aggressive stance against ISIS....

“A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we e fully Christian… I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.” –C.S. Lewis In Economic Shalom, John Bolt’s Reformed primer on faith, work, and economics, he includes a chapter on how we might understand flourishing...

Earlier this month, religious shareholder activists from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Mercy Investment Services and the Sisters of Mercy nabbed headlines by attempting to force Ralph Lauren Corp. to conduct a needless and politically driven human-rights risk assessment of offshore vendors. The ICCR effort is another “name and shame” tactic intended to publically embarrass pany refusing to play ball with a left-leaning organization. According to the Huffington Post, the nominally religious shareholders’ proposal is … … backed by...