New York Times columnist and Acton University 2014 plenary speaker Ross Douthat is featured in an interview with the Institute for Family Studies. Douthat addresses issues surrounding marriage and family life, pop culture influences and the media. Douthat says that he had thought that the idea of a mom and dad, living with their biological kids, was a “given” in our culture as the best model for a healthy society. Now, he says, our world has thrown a lot of...

Last week, Walmart announced that it distributed $3 million last year to charities in New York City. The giving included $1 million to the New York Women’s Foundation, which offers job training, and $30,000 to Bailey House, which distributes groceries to e residents. Naturally, there was one group that was appalled by the charitable giving: local politicians. More than half the members of the New York City Council sent a letter to Walmart demanding that it stop giving millions in...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Jonathan Witt asks “Why do entrepreneurs who don’t want government intimately involved in the economy want to hob nob?” Think about it. Why do even some entrepreneurs who do not want government intimately involved in the economy pelled to hob nob with all of those European and American politicians at this year’s Bilderberg summit? Maybe what happened to Bill Gates has something to do with it. By most accounts, Gates went about building up Microsoft,...

Taxpayer subsidized textbooks tend to tilt left, often aggressively so. Mary Grabarnotes that this is especially obvious position textbooks: position class at many colleges is propaganda time, with textbooks conferring early sainthood on President Obama and lavishing attention on writers of the far left—Howard Zinn, Christopher Hedges, Peter Singer and Barbara Ehrenreich, for instance–but rarely on moderates, let alone anyone right of center. Democrats do very well in these books, but Abraham Lincoln–when included–is generally the most recent Republican featured....

Evan Koons just posted the first video blog, or “vlog,” in support of For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, a new educational video series from the Acton Institute. The series, which follows Koons on a creative journey to discover “God’s Economy of All Things,” begins by laying the framework that Koons alludes to here. As he wrote in a recent article for Q Ideas: We are being called by God to spend the remainder of our...

The latest edition of Econ Journal Watch has a symposium, co-sponsored by the Acton Institute, on the question, “Does Economics Need an Infusion of Religious or Quasi-Religious Formulations?” In his essay “On the Usefulness of a Flat Economics to the World of Faith“, Andrew P. Morriss considers the role of faith in correcting how economics flattens the perception of human nature and human existence: To what extent is economics unduly flat? Compared to the Christian conception of human nature, what...

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has issued a global study that links religious freedom to economic growth. Researchers say that religious freedom has been a previously “unrecognized asset to economic recovery and growth,” and that religion contributes heavily to peace and stability, both of which are necessary to economic stability. Mark A. Kellner breaks down the study’s findings: According to the RFBF [Religious Freedom & Business Foundation], the study looked at GDP growth for 173 countries in 2011 and...

On Friday, June 6, shareholders of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., will gather at the Bud Walton Auditorium on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Ark. Among them will be As You Sow member Zevin Asset Management, which is pushing a resolution demanding the retailer issue annual reports on its policy, lobbying and membership expenditures. All of this, of course, is intended to embarrass Walmart in the same-ol’ name-and-shame game employed so often by shareholder activists advancing a progressive agenda. What...

The role of economic liberty in contributing to human flourishing and mon good remains deeply underappreciated, says Samuel Gregg, even by those who are dedicated to religious liberty: The relationship between economic and religious liberty can, however, work the other way: subtle corrosion of economic freedom can undermine religious liberty. A good example is the modern welfare state. Today, government spending, according to the OECD, consumes a minimum of 40 percent of annual GDP in virtually all Western European nations....

Note: This is the latest entry in the Acton blog series, “What Christians Should Know About Economics.” For other entries inthe series seethis post. The Term: Unemployment What it Means: If you consult a dictionary, you’ll find a number monsensical definitions for unemployment: the state of being without a job; being without a paid job but available to work, etc. But like many other economic terms, the dictionary definition can vary significantly from how the term is often used. For...