Rev. Ben Johnson is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as executive editor of the Acton Institute from 2016 to 2021. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including National Review, the American Spectator, The Guardian, National Catholic Register, Providence, Jewish World Review, Human Events, and the American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. You can find him on X: @therightswriter.
Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
May 13, 2020
Perhaps nowhere is the disconnect between private citizens’ views and those of the government clearer than when it comes to the role of religion in society. Acton Institute President and Co-founder Rev.
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May 09, 2020
On May 6, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos unveiled new Title IX regulations concerning sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus. Despite outraged cries of “turning back the clock” that echo across both sides of the Atlantic, the 2,033-page code reasserts the moral, ethical and legal norms that formed the basis of Western society.
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May 08, 2020
The government-focused debate over how to emerge from the coronavirus shutdowns has been too dismissive of faith and private initiative, says Acton Institute President and Co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico in a new radio interview.
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May 05, 2020
On Friday at
The Stream, I wrote about the policy of releasing prisoners from penitentiaries in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Perhaps hundreds of those who have been released have committed new crimes, compounding the tragedies the American people must suffer during this global pandemic.
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May 04, 2020
William F. Buckley Jr. frequently told the joke about the doctor who asked his patient what he planned to do now that he had only a few months left to live.
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May 01, 2020
A growing number of conservatives have said the behavior of certain Ivy League colleges demands that the federal government seize their endowments. But will confiscating this source of nonprofit funds give the government a legal justification to do the same to tax-exempt churches?
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April 30, 2020
The Acton Institute is helping popularize a left-leaning professor’s stark criticism of the universal basic income among the world’s 275-million Francophones. A new French language translation of “Marx vs. the universal basic income” recounts the findings of Ive Marx, a supporter of income redistribution.
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April 23, 2020
Popular culture presents the human race as competitors in a selfish struggle for the survival of the fittest. However, new scientific research finds that the human race has a natural tendency to cooperate—and that religion increases philanthropic giving and voluntarism during a crisis.
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April 17, 2020
For a few moments, filmmaker Christopher Rufo’s documentary
America Lost seemed in danger of becoming an anachronism. But in the age of coronavirus shutdown orders, his portrait of life in the forgotten, jobless corners of America could not be more timely.
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April 17, 2020
While a universal basic income has been advocated by everyone from Bernie Sanders to Charles Murray and Pope Francis, the name most associated with wealth redistribution is Marx. However, in a little-known writing Marx specifically opposed the UBI, calling it inefficient and counterproductive.
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