John Couretas

is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Posts by John Couretas

November 19, 2009

The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture

I linked Daniel Crandall’s fine commentary on the paucity of films devoted to the Gulag in this week’s Acton News & Commentary (sign up here). But do to an, ahem, editing error the link did not send readers to The Gulag Lives On – But Not in Our Culture on OrthodoxyToday.org. Continue Reading...
November 10, 2009

Messianic Marxism

From “The Origin of Russian Communism” by Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev (published by Geoffrey Bles, 1937): Marxism is not only a doctrine of historical and economic materialism, concerned with the complete dependence of man on economics, it is also a doctrine of deliverance, of the messianic vocation of the proletariat, of the future perfect society in which man will not be dependent on economics, of the power and victory of man over the irrational forces of nature and society. Continue Reading...
October 30, 2009

Earned Success = Happiness

David Bahnsen reflects on last night’s annual dinner: (Acton’s) co-founder, Father Sirico, is a friend and patriot. He is a scholar in Catholic social thought, and perhaps as good of an orator as I have ever heard. Continue Reading...
October 30, 2009

What is a Christian to think about health care?

Brad Green, who teaches theology at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., published a commentary on health care in The Jackson Sun. Green, an alum of Acton’s Toward a Free and Virtuous Society program, is also a co-founder of Augustine School in Jackson. Continue Reading...
October 27, 2009

Green Patriarch’s ‘web of life’ has a gaping hole in it

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I offered a commentary related to his recently closed environmental symposium in New Orleans. He said this: For if all life is sacred, so is the entire web that sustains it … no one doubts that there is a connection and balance among all things animate and inanimate on this third planet from the Sun, and that there is a cost or benefit whenever we tamper with that balance. Continue Reading...
September 28, 2009

‘Tax adventurism’ on upsurge

From a report in today’s Washington Times: … brace yourselves for a deluge of nuisance taxes, sin taxes and “fees,” limited only by the imagination of revenue-starved governors, mayors and legislators. Continue Reading...
September 23, 2009

Clergy and Economists: Allies Not Adversaries

We welcome a new contributor to the Acton Commentary crew: Dr. Dwight R. Lee, the William J. O’Neil Endowed Chair in Global Markets and Freedom at Southern Methodist University. In this week’s commentary, Lee discusses how the social objectives of clergy and economists are remarkably similar, even though their “windows on the world” suggest different approaches to achieving the shared aim of building a better, more humane society. Continue Reading...
July 03, 2009

Health Care Roundtable

The Heartland Institute and Consumers for Health Care Choices are sponsoring Health Care Roundtables across the country. Earlier this week, Acton development associate Charles Roelofs attended a roundtable and offers this report: The event was co-sponsored by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Americans for Prosperity – Michigan. Continue Reading...